Salt Lake City - Mile 3297 - Route 89 - Mile 855

When we began our travels today, we were ready for some boring travel. WRONG! There is just so much more beauty in this part of the country than we ever imagined. We traveled through Bridger National Forest. It is gorgeous mountains filled with evergreen forests.

Beauty around every turn.

Again today we saw many fisherpeople, kayaks and rafts in the mountain streams. Lots of people making the most of a beautiful holiday weekend.

We thought the use of antlers was pretty unique

throughout this small town. We also saw some homes

that must belong to FLDS "families" because of their

size, and a beautiful resort area called Bear Lake. The

water in Bear Lake looks aqua colored.

We did run into some rough weather, but found a closed drive-in for shelter.

We're here in Salt Lake City and not sure what tomorrow will bring - maybe seeing the temple where the Mormon Tabernacle Choir performs, maybe finding some geneological stuff - or maybe just plan the rest of our week.

We hope to be at Mary Jo and Lon's by Thursday, then on to Chuck and Marie's on Saturday. We haven't called them, yet, so hope they'll be home at Lake Havasu by then.

The Travelers

Jackson Hole - Mile 2982 - Route 89 Mile 587

Good Morning - We are in a very nice motel; Best Western Jackson Hole. You might ask why? Especially when we are pretty much Super 8 travelers; reasonable, clean, has a continental breakfast and internet. Now the rest of the story . . . We left Great Falls yesterday morning on Route 89. Our plan was to go to Yellowstone and hopefully find a place to stay in the park. When we checked it turns out the entire park (hotels/motels) is booked for the rest of the year. So if you plan to go to this park and if you plan to stay at a motel/hotel, you should plan a year ahead. Since Yellowstone is just north of the Tetons, we decided to go to the Tetons and look for a place to stay and after checking some places (like Supet 8) which were already booked, we found this place. I know, it was a little pricey but it has a fireplace, sitting area, kitchenette area, king sized bed and a jacuzzi . . . oh and it also has a great breakfast and free internet.

We are realizing that even though we have month for this trip, you could easily spend a week or so just at one of our national parks. The pictures we have taken can't begin to do justice to the beauty of these areas.



We are posting this picture because so much of yesterday's trip was along rivers; Columbia, Yellowstone, Gibbon, Firehole, Lewis, and Snake. There were many folks enjoying them from fly fisherman to kayakers to inflatable rafts.


Old Faithful - Mile 2870 - Route 89 Mile 488

Route 89 enters Yellowstone National Park at the North entrance. Old Faithful is about 50 miles into the park. There wasn't a huge amount of traffic but it still took us about 1 1/2 hours to get there. Parking was easy and we located Old Faithful. This picture shows a perimeter boardwalk where folks can sit and wait. The most common comment was, " When is the next eruption?" We waited about an hour. It finally happened

Old Faithful

So here it is! Really pretty remarkable and although this the best known geyser, there are many other smaller geysers and hot springs and sulpher laden steam vents all over the place.







The Tetons

We left Old Faithful and drove about 40 miles south to get out of the park. This route took us directly into Teton National Park. You enter a very long and beautiful valley. This picture is as we drove entered the valley. This is Jackson Lake with the Tetons in the background. So many awesome sites

The Grand Teton

Not a spectacular picture but clearly a spectacular mountain. The Grand Teton has an elevation of 13,770 feet

This is the lodge where we stayed last night. Lots of carved animals; bears, raccoons, etc.

We plan to have a relaxing Sunday. We are plotting the rest of our trip. We know later this week we plan to visit Lon and Mary Jo in Las Vegas and Chuck and Marie in Lake Havasu.

Hope you are all doing well,

The travelers

Great Falls - Mile 2423, Route 89 Mile 161

Mile 2262 - Route 89 - 0 Miles - Glacier National Park

Hello after two days. In the last two days we drove from Butte to Glacier National Park. Unfortunately when we wanted to update the Blog yesterday, the router at our Hotel was down so we had to wait until today. Wouldn't you know it, when we tried to update the Blog tonight, we coundn't log on to the internet. Turns out the router at our motel (after a lot of fiddling around) needed to be rebooted. Whew!

So . . . on our way to Glacier from Butte we tried to figure how how close we could get to the East Entrance at St. Mary. We had taken Interstate 15 to Shelby, Montana. Shelby is about 72 miles from the gate. We thought we would take a chance and drive to St. Mary and if we had to turn around and go back to Shelby, we would. Turns out we found a wonderful lodge; St. Mary Lodge and Resort which is about 200 yards from the entrance to the park. The rates were reasonable and the food was great. We were up to have breakfast at 7:00 a.m. this morning and were on a shuttle at 8:00. By the way, one of the best kept secrets is you can take a National Park Shuttle free from one side of the park to the other and back on the "Going to the Sun road".

Since we did this today, Friday, we also felt fortunate since the road was shut down on Wednesday due to 80 mph winds at Logan Pass along with some amount of snow. We were also fortunate since the last day of the shuttle is Monday, 1 September. You can take the shuttle like a city bus; get off when you want and get on when you want. This pretty much took the whole day. We left Glacier at about 4:00 p.m. and headed for our current destination, Great Falls.

This is the lodge we stayed at last night. We got up early this morning as we were loading the luggage into the car the sun was just coming up and we saw the picture below.

It was really wierd that we were going on "Going to the Sun Road" and before we got started we saw this from the parking lot of the Lodge. Actually the sun (and clouds) create an infinite variation of how the mountains and valleys appear. Many times throughout today we saw so many incredible views and we just couldn't get pictures of everything.

We got off the bus at "Sun Point". Shortly before this stop we noticed a black bear sow and her two cubs. So we were just a little nervous when we were the only people at this site. In addition there were warnings about bear and finally this listing of a person who has been missing since the 8th of August. We were pretty happy to get back on the bus.

This is another picture of "Sun Point" on St. Mary Lake.

Here's a picture of one of the many waterfalls along the way. Some is the normal runoff from rain and the rest is from melting snow/ice. Glacier National Park is now forecasting all glaciers will be melted by 2030.

This is lake McDonald on the west side of the park. A very old and elegant resort.



This is a small stream emptying into Lake McDonald.

Tomorrow we are on our way to Yellowstone National Park. It's about 200 miles from Great Falls. We haven't decided if we will try to see some of the park tomorrow or wait until Sunday.

Hope you are all doing well,

The Travelers

Mile 1928 - Butte

A long day. We got up early in Spearfish, South Dakota this morning. Our only key stop was Devils Tower. We are currently in Butte, Montana after a little over 600 miles. Tomorrow our goal is to get to Glacier National Park and plan to check this park out on Friday. Traffic has been generally light although along the length of the Interstate there are numerous areas under construction but since traffic is light the impact is small. Also noticeable are the absence of children. South Dakota schools started last week and Wyoming and Montana this week. We have been told to expect the National Parks to be quiet.


Mile 1388 - Devils Tower

It's an old volcano revered by many of the Native American tribes. From the valley floor below the tower rises up about 1200 feet. We drove up to the base where the tower continues for about 800 feet.


Around the base of the tower is a walking trail that's about 1.2 miles long. It was a good chance for us to get some exercise so we grabbed the cameras and started walking. Along the way we came across this doe and fawn. It was a cool picture to take.


As you walk around the tower, you notice it is fluted with columns and as one column eventually tumbles there's another behind it. In this picture we have three climbers. One is barely visible at the base of the picture. As parents, we had a strong temptation to yell at these guys to get down before they got hurt.

The last picture is from the base of the tower looking away towards the valley below.

Sorry about the short report. Just one stop and a lot of miles.

Blog to you tomorrow,

The Travelers

Mile 1316 - Spearfish

Hello,

We started the day in Rapid City and our first stop was Mount Rushmore. I think if we were to do this trip again we would stay at Keystone. It is closer to Mt. Rushmore and seemed like a cool little town. Rushmore was far and away the highlight of the day. I'm sure between Sue and me we took over 100 pictures. To really appreciate the beauty, you need to be here. From Rushmore we went south to Custer State Park, then to the statue in process of Chief Crazy Horse and finally took route 385 north through Deadwood (where Wild Bill Hickok was buried) and on to Spearfish were we decided to spend the night. Tomorrow we will see Devil's Tower and starting making our way north and west to Glacier National Park.



Mile 1188 - Mt. Rushmore

I think for those of you who like operations, you would like Mr. Borglum. He found the right mountain to do these sculptures. He created plaster models of each president who were placed on the mountain so the workers could "feel" how the faces of the presidents and to translate those to the mountain. Finally,Mr Borglum had his studio at the foot of the mountain where he had a scale model of the final product he could gage the work being done on the mountain. The project, by the way, was completed by Mr. Borglum's son who also completed this statue of his dad. There's a whole other story about how they decided who should sculpted here, but you need to find that out.

The weather was cloudy when we first arrived but cleared nicely so I was able to take this shot (along with about 30 more).



Why, you might wonder, did we take a picture of Lincoln? Actually this was Mr. Borglum's favorite president. He did a sculpture of Abe that currenty is in the Capital. One of the Lincoln family members said this was the best likeness of Abe they had ever seen.

Mile 1208 - Custer StatePark

This park is not far south of Mt. Rushmore. It's a huge and beautiful area. We probably spent a couple of hours driving around. For any of these places you could easily spend days.

We saw two herds of buffalo. We were able to get closer to this one. They advised us to be careful not to get too close. In this picture there was a park ranger with a "whip" presumably for the buffalo. Oh yea, there were signs up not to rollerskate!

Lots of antelope throughout the park. They were a little harder to get close to.

In the spirit of the Democratic National Convention, this picture seemed appropriate. You can add your own names for these animals or make up your own stories. By the way, they were also in the park.

Mile 1256 - Statue of Chief Crazy Horse

This is a few miles north of Custer, South Dakota. As you know, this is a "work in progress".

Mile 1304 - Deadwood

Sorry we didn't take any pictures. Notable here is the grave of Wild Bill Hickok. A nice town along a beautiful valley. At this point in the day, we were starting to get tired and decided to spend the night at Spearfish.

It's hard to believe we started our trip four days ago and haven't yet started the "meat & potatos" part of of our trip. We feel so fortunate to be able to do this and at the same time stay connected to our families.

The Travelers

Mile 1060 - Rapid City

We just got to our motel room after having spent the day on the road. It was a beautiful sunny day that started in the 60's and ended in the low 90s. The car is fueled up and washed (the bugs are pretty bad).


Badlands National Park - Our first national park after we left Minnesota. One of the very nice things about our national parks; folks over 62 can purchase a "Lifetime Pass" which allows entry to all the parks for $10. We took about 30 pictures and could have taken many more. We also saw buffalo and antelope while driving through this park.

Mile 935 - Al's Oasis at Oacoma, South Dakota

This is advertised along the interstate somewhat like the Corn Palace or Wall Drug. Oacoma is located on the west side of the Missouri River where Interstate 90 crosses. We stopped and had lunch there. The food and surroundings were great. This was started by an immigrant (Al) who came from Germany around the turn of the century. I was thinking, Al, that if you ever need a change of pace, this could be ready made for you.

Mile 859 - Mitchell, South Dakota.

You all probably know Mitchell is home to the Corn Palace and you have all probably seen the pictures so we didn't add ours. What many of you may not know is Mitchell is also home to Telstar Motors. Telstar specializes in restoration of Mustangs. In one building they have one of every GT350, GT500, Boss 302 and an original Cobra. The value of the cars in this room alone is over $4,000,000. Over the past 25 years they have restored nearly 230 cars with a turn-around time of 4-6 weeks.



This is a 1968 Shelby GT500 Convertible

• 428 Cubic inch - 360 Horsepower engine
• Aluminum Hi-Rise 4-BBL Intake
• Heavy Duty C6 Transmission
• HD 9" Rear Axel
• HD Suspension and Frond Disc Brakes
• HD Engine Compartment Bracing
• Tilt and Sway Steering Wheel
• 15" X 7" Aluminum Wheels
• Full Instrumentation - 8000 RPM Tach
  
  
  

1968 Shelby GT500 KR Convertible - Total Production 318

• 428 Cobra Jet - 400 HP
• Fiberglass Louvered Ram Air Hood
• Hi-Rise Intake with Holley 4 BBL Carburetor
• HD C6 Automatic Transmission
• HD Traction-Lok Rear Axel
• Padded Roll Bar
• Tilt and Sway Steering Wheel
• 15"x 7" Aluminum Wheels
• Full Instrumentation with 8000 RPM Tach

Mile 360

It's Sunday evening and 10:08 p.m in Sioux Falls, South Dakota in a Super 8 Motel next to the interstate and are trying to fumble our way through the process of posting to our blog. We spent yesterday seeding and harrowing foodplots, unloading five trail cameras, checking out hunting dogs, and trying out BB guns and shotguns at our land near the Canadian border. The weather was a bit chilly, about 60 degrees in the morning and I don't think we saw 70 degrees all day. This morning it was 45 degrees but sunny. The three jobs this morning were; to relocate a couple of the trail cams and put in fresh batteries so they will be good until the next visit and finally to drive Floyd's tractor back into town (about 14 miles).

We've seen lots of ruffled grouse out here. On the trail cams we have quite a lot of deer and a number of Sand Hill cranes.

Ok, so the next first time task for me is to add some pictures from yesterday.

Here's Floyd and Susan scoping what areas can be seeded Saturday





Here's Floyd harrowing around Lake Sanchijebanobe.

Here are some pictures from seeding. An ATV (Chris front, Jeff handling the seeder) pulling a broadcast seeder and a second ATV (Floyd) pulling a harrow section.

Here's Chris unloading one of the trail cam memory chips.

Here's a picture of the hunting dogs, Ole and Cody who were thrilled to see some ruffled grouse.

At the end of the day Paige and Kyla wanted a bonfire and what's a bonfire without smores? Kyla, Paige and Matt.

Tomorrow we are on our way to western South Dakota; Black Hills, Mount Rushmore, etc.

Good night.