I am notorious for not planning very far ahead.  I try to live more “in the moment” and take one day at a time.  That’s also something I’ve learned about grief:  often you can’t even take life day by day; instead you survive moment by moment.  Anyway, I didn’t really want to plan out every aspect of this trip, but I did plan out more than I wanted to due to so many national parks requiring timed entry passes and trying to make sure we could get campground reservations.

On our way to Custer, SD I looked into tickets to go to Wind Cave National Park.  Once I was on their website, I discovered that Wind Cave tours were closed indefinitely due to an elevator malfunction.  Dominic has been begging to do a cave tour, so I looked into Jewel Cave, only to find out that all tickets were already sold out until at least Tuesday (the day that we would be leaving the area).  Evidently there were opportunities for walk-up tickets, but I needed to be there first thing in the morning to get tickets for that day.

While everyone else was asleep, I got up and drove to Jewel Cave in the hope of getting tickets.  Fortunately, everything worked out, and I got us all tickets for that morning.  I went back to the campground, picked everyone up, got my necessary coffee for the day, and went back to Jewel Cave for our tours.

Amelia, Dominic, and AnaClaire all participated in the Junior Ranger program and earned their badges after we finished the tour.  Our tour guide, Ranger Tonya, was excellent.  She didn’t rush us through the tour at all.  We were able to take our time and look as much as we wanted.  She was full of information.

Evidently, Jewel Cave is one of the longest caves in the world.  They have mapped over 220 miles of the cave and estimate that this is only about 5% of the cave that has been mapped and explored.  I had to ask how in the world they have managed to figure out how much of the cave is undiscovered, and they gave me a very interesting answer about how the cave has air moving through it, barometric pressure being measured going in and out of the cave, the known volume of the cave, etc.  All of this I found to be extremely fascinating, even though I certainly can’t explain it back to you here. 

Jewel Cave was discovered in 1900 by two brothers who were riding by on horses and heard a strange whistling sound.  When they discovered the small hole where the whistling came from, they decided to expand the hole using some dynamite.  Once they were able to climb inside this now-bigger hole, they were amazed to find a cave filled with crystals and gave it the name of Jewel Cave.  The crystals were actually a cave formation called nailhead spar made from calcite that formed crystals when the limestone walls of the cave were being eroded away by acidic water.  90% of the cave is made up of nailhead spar.  Later, I was talking with the ranger who led our tour when she told me about Wind Cave being made up mostly of boxwork formations.  I remembered that Wind Cave had been made up of formations that I wasn’t overly familiar with from other caves (called boxwork).  I find it very interesting how different these two caves are, yet they are only a few miles apart.

After our tour and viewing the film about Jewel Cave, we headed back to the campground for lunch.  It sure was nice to have lunch there instead of sandwiches out of the cooler.

After our break, we drove to Custer State Park and took the scenic Needles Highway.  A good friend had recommended this (Thanks, Kim!) and I’m not sure how we missed it 10 years ago, but it was beautiful and so unique!

Next we stopped by the requisite Visitor Center, watched the film about Custer State Park, and purchased our tourist trinkets.  Then we headed back to the car for the scenic Wildlife Loop in hopes of seeing…what else but wildlife.  We were only graced with seeing a solitary bison walking down the road, cute little prairie dogs, and a group of very friendly burros.  Being able to pet a baby burro was definitely the highlight of the wildlife loop.

I thought we would head back to the RV for some dinner and an early night to bed, but Charlie thought we ought to make a late stop at Mt Rushmore since it didn’t close until 10pm.  Once we got inside and took a picture of the mountain, I was ready to go, until we noticed that they had a whole lighting of the mountain ceremony every evening which only meant that we needed to stay for another hour. 

The ceremony included a patriotic speech by a national park ranger, a well-done film regarding freedom in our country and how the four presidents memorialized at Mt Rushmore contributed to freedom in the United States, a film rendition of “America the Beautiful”, an audience singing of the national anthem, and a recognition of all service members present.  We finished up a long day in a beautiful way, grateful for the country that we live in.

Rebecca

Saturday was a lot of driving to reach the Black Hills.  We pulled out of Gardiner around 10:00 and got on the road.  It was an uneventful day in which I was finally able to catch up somewhat on blogging.  We managed to find Mass in Wyoming on the way to South Dakota and even pulled into our campground before dark. 

Sunday, July 6, was our 29^th wedding anniversary.  We luxuriously slept in while the kids got up and made us a delicious pancake breakfast.  They even cleaned up too!  While they were busy with all of that, I was trying to research what we might want to do that day.  We had been promising AnaClaire that we were going to try to do some horseback riding while on this trip, so I thought this might be the time and place to do it.

I managed to find a great guy named Pat Rowe with Black Hills Horse Adventures who was willing to fit us all in that afternoon.  He could only take 5 out at a time, so we had to break up into groups.  A little before we left to head over there, Alex passed out.  She’d been struggling somewhat with the direct sun that morning, which left her not feeling too well, so we opted to leave Alex at the RV to have a quiet relaxing afternoon by herself and went off for our trail ride.

When we got there, Pat assigned horses to each of the kids and took them out for 1.5 hours while Charlie and I went to explore nearby Hill City.  When they returned, they were all smiles talking about how much fun they’d had! 

Next it was Charlie and my turn to go out.  Pat was willing to take three kids a second time with us for no extra charge, so we had to decide which three would get to go back out.  They all wanted to go again, and it broke my heart that two of them had to stay behind.  Fortunately, those two were good sports about it and went into Hill City to get some sodas while the rest of us were trail riding.  We all had a wonderful time.  It was a great experience for everyone!  The downside, though, is that Charlie and I are now having even more requests to get horses at our place. 

When we got back to the RV, Alex was doing fine but still taking it easy.  A couple of teens ran to the grocery store for some pizza while Charlie and I cleaned up to go out for an anniversary dinner. 

We had Annette drive us to dinner and pick us up so that we could each have an adult drink with dinner.  We ate at a delicious place called “1885”.  The restaurant took its name from the year that the building was built.  The building’s claim to fame is that it is the oldest commercial building that was built with hand-hewn logs in the state of South Dakota. 

Charlie chose a New York strip steak with baked potato and salad for dinner while I had a pork chop glazed in a peach-bourbon sauce with sweet potato fries and salad.  It was all scrumptious. 

We had a nice time at our quiet dinner reminiscing about the last 29 years of marriage as well as the couple of years that we dated prior to marriage.  I am so blessed to have such a devoted and caring husband who works so hard to provide for our family.

Rebecca

Happy 4^th of July everyone!  We are so grateful for the lives that were sacrificed so that we might live in this free country – the land of the free because of the brave.  Thank you to any and all who have served our country to win or keep us free! 

We were initially going to spend the 4^th driving toward the Black Hills, but no one really wanted to drive on the 4^th; they wanted to eat hot dogs and watch fireworks.  We had enough room in our schedule at this point that we decided to stay an extra day where we were.  It also gave us one last chance to find some grizzlies.

We gave the kids the option of going into the park early in the morning or staying at the RV to sleep.  Two opted to stay put.  The rest of us left the RV at 4:30 in the morning trying to be in Lamar Valley around sunup (which is earlier this far north than it is in Chester, SC).  We drove and drove and looked and looked in all the suggested places, but we never saw any grizzlies or wolves – the two animals that we were expecting to see at daybreak.  Oh well.  You always need an excuse to come back, don’t you?

Two kids did nothing but sleep in the car, so they were ready to be up and moving by the time we got back, but the rest of us went right back to bed for two hours or so.  It had been a very exhausting past three days in Yellowstone as we were usually in the park by 9:00am and not back until close to or after dark (which was 10:00pm).  The rest of the day we did fun stuff like go shopping in the town of Gardiner, walk together into town to get an ice cream treat, and just hang out. 

I had to run AnaClaire back into the park to the Visitor Center so that she could get her Junior Ranger badge, but it was only a total of a 30 minute drive, and it gave us some time to spend just the two of us together.   

We cooked hot dogs for dinner and sat outside watching the pyromaniacs of Gardiner set off their personal fireworks.  The campground sits on a hill overlooking the town, so we had great seats at our site just watching fireworks that people set off from various places. 

It was a perfect end to our 4^th of July.

Rebecca

On our third day at Yellowstone, we drove to the Grand Tetons.  Unfortunately, it was over a 3 hour trip through Yellowstone National Park to reach Grand Tetons.  We took the quickest route through Yellowstone, but it was still a LLLLOOOONNNNGGG drive.  I took a turn sitting in the very back row of the car where it is quite cramped for three people, but I wanted the kids to know that I was willing to suffer through it right along with them.  If this overweight 49 year old can get back there and spend 8 hours or so riding in the back of the car, it shouldn’t be worth so many complaints from 20 year olds and under. 

It was a rainy, dreary day so we didn’t even get out of the car very much once we made it to the Tetons.  We stopped at two different chapels that were built in the early 1900s in the park.  The first was the Catholic Chapel of the Sacred Heart and the second was the Episcopal Chapel of the Transfiguration. 

Finally we stopped by a historic area of the park where we learned about a few of the early homesteaders.  They discovered that crops didn’t grow very well in that environment, so they decided to go into the tourism business.  They began opening dude ranches to give people the experience of ranch life.  Eventually they sold their land to the government to create Grand Tetons National Park.

The Grand Tetons are really a very beautiful place.  We did manage to see a sizeable herd of elk on our way out of the park.  We haven’t really been able to do the park justice in the amount of time we’ve been able to visit there.  Each time we’ve had to drive from Yellowstone to get there, and both times it has been quite a lengthy drive, so we’ve spent more time in the car than time visiting the park.

When we drove back into Yellowstone, we decided to go the somewhat longer route back to the campground because it took us through areas where bears frequent more.  This time we were in luck!  Charlie rounded a bend and spotted a bear on the side of the road.  We had a great time watching him/her.  He/she was just frolicking around, turning over a log of wood to see what kind of food he could find beneath.  We ended up determining that he was a cinnamon colored black bear.

We drove further along and saw a group of people off on the side of the road watching something, so we jumped out to see what they were seeing.  And again we were in luck as they were watching a mama black bear and one or two cubs (we were never sure exactly how many we were able to see).  They were a good distance away, so we took turns watching them through binoculars.  Oh but they were so much fun to watch!  The mama jumped up vertically onto a tree, and a couple minutes later we were able to watch one of the cubs climb a tree.  It was like she was out there teaching him! Pictures didn’t really turn out since they were so far away.

We were pretty satisfied with our wildlife sightings, although we were still hoping to see a grizzly or two.  Off we went back to the campground reminiscing about watching the bears.  Along the way we spotted a herd of buffalo with lots of babies close to the road as well as some pronghorn and deer.

We were going to give grizzlies one more chance early the next morning, so there was still hope.

Rebecca

The ranger from the day before had recommended the Canyon Visitor Center for its educational exhibits.  We stopped there first on our way to explore more of the southern side of the park.  It had some great exhibits about the historic eruptions of Yellowstone and how they compare to other eruptions. 

Afterwards, we continued driving seeing the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, some of the falls, and journeyed to the eastern entrance of the park. 

We were still looking for wildlife.  Alex especially wanted to see bears (and let us know that over, and over, and over, and…).  We thought we had a good chance on the road to the eastern entrance because it was very wooded with lots of spots close to streams where bears like to fish, but no luck.  At one of the spots where we pulled over looking for bears, we found this cute little fellow.  He even thought that Dominic might have food for him, so he stood on his hind legs begging a bit.  We found out later that he was a Yellow-bellied Marmot.

As we continued driving, we saw someone pulled over watching something high up in the rocky hills.  We pulled over too and discovered that they were watching two mountain goats, who were quite a distance away so we weren’t able to see them very well.  The other family had a sight-scope and happily let us view the goats through their scope.  I took a picture of the goats through their phone camera that was hooked up to their scope, so while it isn’t a great picture, you can definitely see the goats better.  Charlie decided he will need to get one of those things one day (when I priced them at a store later, we figured that day won’t happen anytime soon).

On our drive, we finally saw a large herd of elk (most of the elk that we have seen have been a few lying around in the grass around the town of Gardiner). 

Eventually we ended up on the western side of the park to see more of the thermal features.  We dropped by Old Faithful and discovered that we weren’t far from the estimated “eruption” time, so we stayed to watch.  It was a beautiful sight – and we were glad that we didn’t sit there for an hour plus waiting on it!

After Old Faithful we drove to Fountain Paint Pots to recreate one of Annette’s favorite pictures from 2015.  The original picture included a bison that had walked up toward us, but there were no bison in sight today.  We were amazed at how much the thermal area had changed in the past 10 years, but we managed to get a reasonable recreation of the picture.  She was happy with it, and that’s what counts!

I also wanted to recreate one of my favorite pictures of Dominic that happened at the same location.  Many of you readers will remember how friendly Dominic was as a young child.  Well, 10 years ago he made friends with an Asian woman that we met at Fountain Paint Pots and walked around the boardwalk with her holding her hand.  She was so sweet and all smiles about this little boy.  Anyway, we suggested today that he find an older woman to walk around holding hands with (winking emoji here that I can’t seem to find in Word 😊), but teenage Dominic wouldn’t have anything to do with it and was rather grumpy.  So we settled for just a picture of him walking on the boardwalk.

We continued to drive around looking for wildlife at dusk, but didn’t have any luck.  The end of a second very long day in Yellowstone.

Rebecca

Our first day in Yellowstone!  Gardiner is about 3 minutes away from the entrance to Yellowstone National Park.  Then you drive about another 10 minutes before you come into the old Fort Yellowstone and see your first thermal feature: Mammoth Hot Springs.  We hopped out immediately to go walk around and enjoy our first stop in Yellowstone.  Boy was it busy!

The lady who had welcomed us at our campground had recommended a couple places for us to go in the park to see wildlife, so we decided to drive to those areas.  There was a pretty little one-way drive on a dirt road that we took called the Blacktail Plateau Drive.  It was advertised as an area where a good bit of wildlife is often seen, but we saw none.

After taking the Blacktail Plateau Drive, we came upon a pullover for a petrified tree.  Since we had skipped going to Petrified Forest National Park, we really wanted to see the petrified tree.  We walked up to it and were able to admire it, but it was encircled by a tall wrought iron fence, so we weren’t able to actually touch it and see what petrified wood felt like.

As we drove down the eastern side of Yellowstone, we kept our eyes peeled for wildlife.  This side of the park doesn’t have very many thermal features, especially when compared to the western side of the park.  But that was ok, because we wanted to see wildlife.  As we drove along, we saw the nest of a bald eagle with the eagle flying to and from the nest.  I was so grateful that Charlie had given me a great pair of binoculars for Christmas.  They really enabled us to get a good look at the nest and the eagle.

After the eagle, we came upon our first pronghorn antelope.  And even better, it was a mother pronghorn nursing two babies!  The kids were all asking questions about how it was related to a deer and such, so we did a little looking up.  We discovered that pronghorn aren’t actually antelope at all and aren’t part of the deer family.  They are actually the last remaining member of the Antilocapridae family, and its closest remaining relative is the giraffe!  When you can see their faces well, we all could see the resemblance between the pronghorn and the giraffe.

Driving down the western side of the park, you can take a road off the main loop to go towards the northeast entrance of the park.  When we drove into the Lamar Valley, we saw bison everywhere – HUGE herds!  We stopped and watched them for a little while and were treated to seeing them stampede.  They were quite far from the road, so Charlie was watching them through the binoculars and able to see that they were spooked by a plastic bag flying around.  They ran and ran and ran away from this plastic bag.  It was quite funny but also amazing to see such beautiful, powerful symbols of the American West stampeding.  What a privilege!

We continued driving and went out the northeast gate into the small town of Silver Gate and then drove right back in (after stopping to get some ice cream!).  On our way back we were treated to yet another amazing wildlife first for us: we saw a black wolf.  He/she was by itself just traipsing across the side of a sagebrush-covered hill.  We wouldn’t have seen it at all if it hadn’t been for some very keen-eyed observers parked by the side of the road. 

We continued driving through the park and eventually made our way over to the western side and the Norris Geyser Basin.  This area was full of geothermal features, so we hiked around for quite a bit.  At the end, we found a ranger who asked if we had any questions just as we were getting ready to leave.  None of the kids spoke up, but I did.  She was full of information regarding the wildlife in the park, the volcano itself, the geothermal features, everything.  We talked to her for at least 30 minutes.  She made sure to tell us to be careful driving after dark because bison’s eyes don’t glow in the dark making them difficult to see when they are standing in the middle of the road. 

We drove around the park throughout the evening hoping to see some of the wildlife that like to come out around dusk like bears and wolves, but we weren’t so lucky.

After having no luck finding either animal, we decided that I would drive back to the campground as we were still more than an hour away from our campground, Charlie was exhausted, and his eyes aren’t great at night.  Fortunately, I was able to see the bison herd crossing the road, especially since there were plenty of red tail lights in front of us.

It was a long, exhausting day.  We were in Yellowstone by 10:00am and not back until after 10:00pm.  We were all completely worn out.

Rebecca

Monday was a day full of driving to our campground in Gardiner, Montana, just outside of Yellowstone National Park.  We got everything mostly ready to go while multiple kids were having appointments with their therapists.  Charlie suggested that I drive into town to pick up some gluten-free treats at a gluten-free bakery we had found, so I headed off with Annette and Amelia to purchase some goodies. 

Of course, when I got to the bakery, we discovered that it was closed on Mondays.  Ugh!  I should have known to look that up before I made the drive.  Charlie and I talked, and he agreed to go ahead and start driving toward Yellowstone.  I was just going to run another errand or two and then catch up to him. 

After finding a natural foods grocery store, we discovered that there was a Costco right across the street.  We definitely needed a few things, so into Costco I went.  Unfortunately, this also meant that I bought some refrigerated items on a hot day.  We had a cooler, so then I went off to find ice. 

When all was said and done, we were two hours behind Charlie.  So much for meeting up with him somewhere.

I ended up driving the entire way to Yellowstone.  This meant that I was in the car from about 8:30 that morning to 7:30ish that evening.  While I usually don’t mind driving, I was done with being in the car by the time I made it to Gardiner.

As soon as we parked and got out of the car, Charlie told me that he and I were going out to dinner.  I told him that that sounded great, as long as we didn’t have to get back in the car!  Fortunately, our campground (Sun RV North Yellowstone was our favorite campground so far!) was within easy walking distance of the town of Gardiner and the Yellowstone River.  We walked into town, found a restaurant, and sat down to relax – with the assistance of Huckleberry Margaritas!

Evidently, I can really neglect picture-taking at times. This is the only picture either Charlie or I have for the entire day. We didn’t even take a picture of our date-night!

And not to worry about the kids… they were happy to be rid of us for a little while, and Charlie had made them pasta for dinner.  Give the kids an internet connection, or even just a computer with a DVD drive, as well as dinner and some yummy huckleberry treats for dessert, and you won’t find much complaining going on!

Rebecca

Sunday we found a Mass just 20 minutes away at St. Richard’s that was beautiful.  After Mass, we returned to the campground and made sausage, bacon, and pancakes for brunch.  This was Charlie’s birthday breakfast that we didn’t have time to cook on his birthday and was delicious!

After brunch, we headed up the more isolated western side of Glacier National Park to Polebridge.  We stopped outside of Polebridge to get the requisite Huckleberry Ice Cream that we have raved about for the past 10 years (of course!) at this great little off-grid place.  This area is like my dream place to live – off grid and in the woods! 

We went by the Polebridge Mercantile and then drove up to Kintla Lake.  The drive to Polebridge and beyond is mostly dirt roads, so all of this driving takes a lot of extra time, but it is so worth it!

On the way to the lake, we managed to knock one more wildlife siting off – a black bear was standing in the middle of the road as we rounded a curve.  What a treat for us! 

We continued our drive to the lake.  Most everyone got their feet wet in the cold water, and two decided to take a polar plunge! – Isaac and AnaClaire.  It was beautifully quiet and peaceful back there. 

After feeding the local mosquitoes for an hour or so, we started back to the campground.  We made it about 25 minutes down the dirt, extremely bumpy road when Charlie realized that he didn’t have his cell phone with him and must have left it at the lake.  Needless to say, he made it back to the lake in record time but with all of us a little on the sore side from that fast, rough ride.  Fortunately his cell was on the picnic table where he left it, and we were able to get right back onto the rustic road without any more delay.

In the end, the only thing we were disappointed with at Glacier is that we weren’t able to stay longer.  We had REALLY wanted to go into Canada and visit the Waterton side of the park, but we just didn’t have enough time.  Monday morning we pulled out for the long drive to Yellowstone.  Goodbye Glacier!  I hope it isn’t 10 more years before I’m able to visit you again.  Supposedly all of the glaciers will be gone from Glacier National Park by 2030, which will sadly make for a much-changed park.

Rebecca

Saturday, I was feeling only a little better and decided to go enjoy the park despite how I felt.  We made the necessary stop at the visitor center and then went to find our favorite hike from 10 years ago – Avalanche Lake.  This hike is about five miles total and takes you by a gorgeously colored, rushing, glacial creek. 

I have thought about the colors of this creek and the colors of the rocks (reds, purples, yellows, and greens) for the last ten years.  They made quite an impression on me, and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing them again. 

Anyway, the hike takes you back to a lake where multiple waterfalls can be seen cascading into the lake.  Alex almost didn’t make it the whole way, but through taking several breaks and going at her own speed, she made it! We were even able to watch a bald eagle flying around while we were at the lake.

After our hike, we drove the Going-to-the-Sun road.  It was stunning and more than I ever thought it would be.  We ended up at the St. Mary’s entrance to the park on the eastern side where they have a great discovery center and learned more about the park and the native inhabitants of the area.  Then we hopped back on the Going-to-the-Sun road and drove it back through the park to the western side.

Dinner was a splurge at a café that we had enjoyed elk and bison burgers at 10 years ago (I know… it seems like we are just re-living our last trip, but it was just so amazing!)  The burgers were delicious!   We insisted that the kids not have beef – they had to try the bison or elk, and there were absolutely no complaints…only raving reviews!

Rebecca

When we pulled into Kalispell, MT on Thursday, our main goal wasn’t to get into Glacier NP; it was to get an oil change for the RV.  Exciting stuff! 

Charlie had called a national chain oil change place the night before to see if they did RVs and was told yes.  Of course, when we pulled up, they told us no.  After several phone calls, we finally found a great place to take care of us: Noller Automotive.  We made an appointment for that afternoon, dropped it off, and drove around Kalispell waiting for the work to be done (which of course ended up being more than just an oil change).

After we were finally able to pick it up, off we went to get settled into Spruce on the River RV Park.  We had stayed at this exact location 10 years ago on the banks of the Flathead River.  They were a great park for families who welcomed us instead of complaining about the number of people we had in our family (yes, this happened multiple times). 

Needless to say, Thursday was only a day of taking care of logistics – no pictures at all!

Friday, I woke up not feeling well at all.  This time it was my stomach.  I encouraged Charlie and the kids to go ahead into Glacier since we had a timed entry ticket that we should use.  I went back to bed and spent the day hanging out at the RV.  It was quiet, and I was feeling at least somewhat better by the time they returned.  They did one and a half hikes (the half because it was decided that Alex wasn’t up to as difficult a hike as that one was).  I made them promise not to travel the Going-to-the-Sun road since I had waited ten years to do that.

They all came back to the RV with tales of how great their day was.

Rebecca