Road trip: Part 1
June 25, 2007
Began the road trip at 3p, after several SNAFUs. No biggie. Ended up in Henrietta, NY. Matt nearly killed us twice. We’re still alive.
June 26, 2007
Long day. Drove from NY to Wisconsin. We are in Tohma, WI and paid out the ass for a hotel room due to some military convention booking up all the rooms. Whatev. Long day driving. We didn’t eat cheese nor did we see Brett Favre. L Go Pack! Earlier, I went into a bathroom and this girl didn’t lock the door. She was wicked sketchy. She then asked me if I had a lighter and if I was driving and could give her a ride down the road because the ride that was coming was too expensive for her…
June 27, 2007
Our first stop was in 1880 Town in South Dakota. We got to ring the town school bell. And we petted Cisco, the horse from Dances with Wolves. It would’ve been wicked lonely to live back then. Woo hoo 75 mph! We arrived in the Badlands, SD shortly after. Was amazing. It was nice to see non-plains scenery. Then we went to Wall Drug in Wall, SD which was kind of like South of the Border, for any of you who have driven from MA to Florida and seen the 983498349 signs to go there… and when you get there, it’s not that great. LOL. We finished with seeing Mount Rushmore, which has the heads of Lincoln, Washington, Roosevelt and… the other guy. It’s not like I’m a history major. Whoever he was, I’m sure he was great President. (Yes, I know it’s Jefferson, calm down.) I almost got pulled over for doing 75 in a 65. A cop went by and put on his flashers and turned around but he pulled over the guy who was tailing me. Phew. Then we slept in Rapid City, SD for the night.
June 28, 2007
Matt and I hiked 1.3 miles around Devil’s Tower in Hulett, WY. It was really cool but then the little kids in us felt the need to climb the wicked steep rocks up to the tree line… it was amazing but the altitude was hard to adjust to. Well worth it, though. We took a scenic route to get to Yellowstone, which may have been the best thing we could’ve done. We went through some amazing mountains and gorges… fantastic. Still have not seen another Dodge Caliber… starting to think we have the only one ever made... or the only one ever bought. Wouldn’t that be funny? OMG! We just passed a population 10 sign. That’s right- ten. And, by the way, it’s 110… degrees… Fahrenheit… We stopped and set up camp in Yellowstone. We ate hot dogs and rice, cooked over a fire. Then drank some coronas and went to bed. They gave us the honeymoon sweet of the campsite… weird. Oh, also, we’re in Mountain Standard Time now.
June 29, 2007
We must have seen 98734987 bison today near the road, grazing, chasing each other etc… We found out that the actual name for them is bison NOT buffalo. If you want to use the word “buffalo” you have to refer to them as American Buffalo… kind of like football (soccer) and American football. They are so cute at any rate. We signed up for horseback riding through the park. Amazing. My horse was named Denny and Matt had one named Dallas. We rode through the great burn area. It was very cool. Then we headed to mammoth hot springs… Yellowstone is going through a weird drought right now so the springs were near empty. And we had to climb approximately 908384 stairs to get there… and at the altitude of 7,000+ feet, I was hurting. Good exercise though. The park is huge so there is at least an hour drive between spots. Then we went and saw Old Faithful. It erupts approximately every 92 minutes and we missed it by 5 minutes. So we ate dinner and hung around and then watched it do its thing…, which lasts like a minute, tops. Pretty cool though. Then we got the heck out of dodge and camped out at Grand Teton National Park…, which is connected to Yellowstone. No idea why they aren’t just one park, but I’m not gonna complain. We ate a very nutritious dinner - smores, Doritos and Snake River beer. Mmmm mmmm. What food pyramid? Oh, and we finally saw another Dodge Caliber.
June 30, 3007
When we woke up this morning the temperature was 35. It warmed up to 73 by 11 am. Yikes. Just went through a population 100 sign. Come on. We went to Salt Lake City and tried for an hour to see the Salt Lake…. Never saw it. So for the 2nd time in my life, I made it to Salt Lake City to not see the friggin’ lake. C’est la vie! It was amazing crossing into Utah to see the scenery change almost instantly to the red rocks that I adore. I definitely do not want to be cremated when I pass on but if I were going to be, I’d like my ashes to be partially spread out in Bryce Canyon. Only four days until my favorite holiday ever!!! We stayed in Saint George, UT which is wicked close to Zion National Park. We tried really hard to find a bar to go to since it is a Saturday but mormon country says no.