to the Black Hills
So far, we have driven 4,100 miles. What else has their been loads of besides gas stations? Making toilet paper seat covers. Hay. Papyrus font. Bison. Whining. Gift shops. Laughter. Stars. Cows. Potty humor. Trucks. Bear carvings.
I need a thesaurus because all I can think to say is that Yellowstone is beautiful. The colors. Opalescent white terraces and creamy, shiny beige mudpots. Strange, deep, endless blues, dense blacks.
The last few days in Yellowstone were mellow. Madison was our favorite campground on this trip, mostly for the Firehole river and prairie that are a stone’s throw from the campsite. It has the quietest, simplest visitors center and the nicest rangers. It didn’t hurt that the ranger that swore in Stephen and Esme as Junior Rangers was smokin hot. We got to watch a badger hunt for ground squirrels there and Stephen and I followed an osprey up a hill and watched it catch a fish out of the river. We gave the hiking a break and drove up to Mammoth to see the terraces.
For me, Cody was a bust. Too hot. Too touristy. Boring. The best part was the free ice cream cone at McDonalds that we got from our campsite. McDonalds has delicious ice cream. Nice and dense and takes its time to melt. The owl above the laundromat and almost blowing away in a wind shear were also highlights.
We tore out of there pretty quickly and were happy to arrive in the Black Hills. We were going to go to Devil’s Tower first, but skipped it in favor of extra time in SoDak. I am glad we did because there is a ton of stuff to do there and we did it without doing too much each day. Jewel Cave was massive and lumpy and impossibly dark when they switched off the light. My favorite was the rock formation that looked like bacon.
We saw pronghorn, prairie dogs and burros on Wildlife Loop, which I had not yet seen. On the way into the Black Hills we saw a moose munching grass in a flooded area on the side of the road. I had just been feeling rather sorry that I would not see one on this trip and there it was, right on cue. I love me a moose.
