Rivers of the Trip

So, I suppose I should know this but geography was never my thing...its just not something I pay attention to.  Probably why I have no sense of direction, get lost everywhere I go, and can't remember my way from here to there unless I drive it a hundred times.  Anyway...the entire trip was punctuated by rivers.  We followed one river from the North Dakota border all the way into Yellowstone...see, now I have to go look up what river it is...the, you guessed it, the Yellowstone.  Apparently 94 just meanders along the Yellowstone throughout Montana...which, if I remember my history correctly, makes sense...water was the source of food, information, etc. etc.  Anyway, the Yellowstone River was awesome, at time narrow, at times wide, sometimes seemingly shallow, at some times passing over rocks that looked like rapids.  Mom was particularly interested in the rivers...we did a "what was your favorite part" on our return trip and seeing the rivers hit Mom's list, way up near the top (if not the top).  Here are some of the better pictures we took.

 Lovely relaxing view of the river.

There were places where the river ran through the rocks and mountains.

There were places where the river ran right through the forests.

The river from the South Rim overlook.

Rapids!

Here is where some of the hot springs flow over into the river.  This is upstream a bit from the Firehole Swimming Hole.

Along one of our walks the trail went right alongside the river...it was a trail along the "rapids", I don't recall exactly where.  We spent quite a bit of time tossing broken sticks into the water and then running down the path, racing the sticks and seeing how far we could follow them through the rapids.  I don't know how many times we did it, at least four cause each of them got to toss the sticks at least once and then there were a couple where the kids' sticks "raced' each other.  Fun.

Goodbye, YNP

We had a blast.  My bucket list for the next trip:  Do the full hike between Upper and Lower Falls, swim down and over the falls into Firehole Swimming Hole, see Slough Creek, do more extensive hiking in the park and out of the park.  Until next time...

Views from Driftwaters Resort

 This is indeed God's country.  These pictures don't come close to doing it justice.

Miscellaneous Stuff

bird on a wire, somewhere in ND...a couple of weeks later Macey was reading a Guiness Book of World Records book and stumbled on this...its apparently the largest metal sculpture in the world.

We did some hanging at the cabin at Driftwaters, including some checkers and Pictionary.  Macey was super into pictionary and we even hosted Uncle Steve and a friend one night to play.  Josh got to be the timekeeper and he was good at it...unfortunately he did not quite understand that he was on one team or another and would guess no matter whose team he was on.  One of our games ended in a heartbreaking loss for Macey where she misread the card and drew the wrong thing...it was as if the world ended.  The next night she came back and handily wiped us, with a little help from Josh-The-Neutral.

This is what the kids are reduced to when they spend 3000+ miles in a car.

Selfies from the trip

Well, they should not have been taking up space on my camera if they didn't want to end up being shown around!

Moose!!!

The elusive moose...we finally found her!  And her calf...a mile outside of the park.  We thought we were done and on our way home when WALLAH!  There she was...beautiful.  I can't tell you how many hours we spent looking for a moose...Uncle Steve took us to several different places on the hunt for one and no luck.  We had a "What was your favorite part of the trip?" conversation and Daniel's favorite part of the trip was seeing and hearing me when we saw the moose.  It was AWESOME!!!!

There she is, standing in the water.  We had no idea that she had a calf with her.

From this viewpoint you can see her calf in the background partially hidden by the bushes

Macey kept telling us that we needed to look for water because moose love water.  Turns out she was right.

From this viewpoint you can see both of them...it was wild.

Highlights

Theodore Roosevelt National Park

Swimming in Boiling River

Upper Falls

Earthquake Lake

Hiking with Uncle Steve

Horseback riding in the Galletin Forest

Virginia City

The Lake area in YNP

Brothers!

Mitchell, SD Corn Palace...

...in turns of a tourist place, all I can say is thank goodness we did not go more than 2 miles out of our way...and to be honest, it was not worth that.  If you happened to be driving by it would be a mildly entertaining distraction.  So, my recommendation...if you are trying to check the box and you happen to be in Mitchel, knock yourself out.  Otherwise, really, just pass.

Kids n frame

Devil's Tower

My little buddy Josh (and his litttle buddy Chubby) was the only one who actually wanted to walk up to and around the base of the Tower.  So off we went.  We had some fun climbing these rocks along the walk that circles the Tower.

Josh took one of me on the rocks too.  See, I was there!

A nice stranger took this picture.  He did not know that we were the ones who were going to set set off an obnoxious car alarm in thirty minutes.

Josh's little animal Chubby (the buffalo) made the trip too.  He's featured in many of these pictures.

The walk... very nice.  Great views.