Business and Pleasure–Days Seven and Eight: Another Shot at Yellowstone
The night fell… and so did the snow. The next morning, I made the decision to take advantage of the low number of visitors due to the snow to see parts of Yellowstone I had not seen previously. I worked my way to the easternmost park entrance, taking lots of pictures along the way: Yellowstone’s bison roam freely across the park. This one got a bit too close for my comfort: The rest of my pictures of this Yellowstone winter wonderland are available at https://singin1.pics/piwigo2/index.php?/category/glacier-and-yellowstone-nps-may-2024-day-6. I guess most folks would find it hard to believe that all of this was happening the week before Memorial Day weekend, but I had had a similar experience ten years earlier and had lived in Iowa for eighteen years. Winters here can be intense and long, even when the calendar says it is Spring. I exited Yellowstone from its East Entrance Road and made…
Have Card, Will Travel
Now that I had SB and she had proven herself to be road worthy, I wanted to really put her to the test. Also, with my recent last birthday, I could now purchase a senior lifetime national park card, thus ending the annual card fees. The only thing I had to determine was whether there were any parks I hadn’t already visited that I could make happen in a weekend. Then, I remembered that I had not visited the Grand Teton National Park even though it had been just a few miles away from Yellowstone National Park during my northwestern United States in 2014 and didn’t realize how close I was at the time. The drive to Grand Teton was over 900 miles each way, and I was going to drive the round trip in basically two days! Plus, I was considering the possibility of a brief stop at Yellowstone–this…
Oh, the Rocks and the Mountains
Ten years ago, I decided to bypass the Badlands National Park. Bad decision, but fortunately, I had the opportunity to see it this time. The route along I-90 regularly passes by several South Dakota historical sites. I made a quick drive through of this one: I got off to an early Sunday morning start because I know popular national parks fill quickly, especially during holiday weekends. Although I had about a half tank of gas, I also had learned from past experience that stations were rarely available once one entered the park. So when I saw a sign reminding me of this, I decided to stop at the station and add more gas to RB’s tank. (BTW, gas prices are, not surprisingly, higher because of the station’s isolated location, so fill up beforehand.) For a second day, the weather was wonderful, cooler than yesterday, although I wasn’t sure it would…
The More Things Change…
A lot has happened since I last posted. Most significantly, my mother passed away in March, and I admit I’m still touchy about her loss. Still, I’m very grateful we had the last chances we got to spend time together, including the drive through North Carolina to see the Outer Banks last July. As for the plans I mentioned in my last blog message, they are still on, just a little condensed. I’m set to spend Memorial Day weekend in the Black Hills of South Dakota with a brief crossing into Wyoming to visit Devil’s Tower, but I expect the trip to be shorter in duration than I’d originally planned. I’m under deadline to finish a book I’m writing by the publisher’s due date, and any thoughts that I’ll do much writing while on that trip would only serve as an effort to fool myself. A colleague suggested I add…
Afterthoughts about Goin’ West 2014
This is the map of my 16-day, Goin’ West 2014 trip: This surpassed my previously longest car trip from Grinnell to Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, by a whole 17 miles!! I stuck pretty closely to my original route, with some new additions–especially Little Bighorn National Park and North Cascades National Highway–and only two major deletions. After the magnificence of Yellowstone, I didn’t feel the need to deviate 250 miles from my westward trip to see Glacier National Park in Montana, although I’d heard many wonderful things about it. I also didn’t cross into Canada to visit Vancouver. The trip included visits to seven national parks: Little Bighorn (Montana), Yellowstone (Wyoming), North Cascade, Olympic, and Mount Rainier (Washington State), Redwood, and Yosemite (California). The parks were fantastic and more than worth the cost of the annual season pass. My favorites were Redwood and Yosemite, but none disappointed. There were other parks…
Day 16: Back to the Old Homestead
Final day of Goin’ West 2014, which was a 1000-mile dash for home.
Day 15: RB and the Need for Speed
Interstate 80 runs from San Francisco to Teaneck, New Jersey. This highway will be very prominent in my now two-day dash to get home. The short drive from Carson City to Reno brought me to a casino in town. I’m not a gambler–I hate to lose and can think of fewer, more ridiculous ways to lose money than sticking it into a slot machine. However, in honor of my mother, I walked into Atlantis with a $20 bill and my car keys, figuring it would take me about 30 minutes to lose it in the quarter slots. To say I didn’t know what I was doing would be an understatement. With three presses of a button, my money was gone!! The customer service person explained that the button I was pressing was the max bet, so I was wagering $6.00 on every push! No, I didn’t get more money. As…
Day 4: Yellowstoned
Yellowstone National Park has been on my bucket list for years, and I’d missed two previous opportunities to visit. With this in mind, and looking forward with concern that the visit would not live up to expectations, I left Billings earlier than usual and without visiting the two sites I’d added to my list for the town because I wanted to spend as much time as possible at Yellowstone. The park entrance was in Montana, but I shortly entered Wyoming during my driving tour. (This was not my first visit to Wyoming. In 2008, one of my nieces and I crossed briefly into the state during the first Goin West adventure–our visit to the Black Hills in South Dakota. A couple, who were also there to tour Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse, suggested we should see The Devil’s Tower since it was only about an hour’s drive further west. …
A “Rest” Day
With all that’s planned during this week, we decided to get into Salt Lake City and relax and prep. Took plenty of pictures along the way, though, of the look of the Rockies in Wyoming and Utah. First time either of us have visited Utah, so we’re looking forward to see as much of it as we can. One thing that I continue to notice is that, while we are still journeying through the Rocky Mountains, the look of the terrain changes. The color and structure of the rocks look different in Utah from Wyoming and from Colorado.