The Fun is Back.

Okay so for those of you hoping to follow us or who happen to be in Wyoming at some point there were some things we really really enjoyed. Mostly in the way of food. Our two awesome recommendations are Peter's Cafe and Bakery in Cody and The Bunnery in Jackson Hole.. so good!

Anyways we are currently here at the Backpackers Hostel in Montana, very relaxed and fun. Meeting some great people and even got to make ourselves a real dinner in a real kitchen!! Had a great day.. here's a few more pictures of our drive through Wyoming, Idaho and Montana so far. Tomorrow relaxing and tubing!

Driving

The biggest cup of root beer we could find - this one's for you Curran!

Wyoming has it out for us....

We are just not having a lot of luck in Wyoming. You heard about the flat tire and me getting sick, well now its Ryan's turn. We LOVE the Grand Tetons, however they do not love us. Half way up a very steep hike we got word of a bear in our trail. At this point its starting to get late so we think we'll just hike around the path where the bear is and still try to get to our campsite at the top of the mountain. That is until Ryan got very sick. Several miles in either direction we decided it would be safer to hike back down, and try and find him a real bed and back down the mountain we went. About two miles from the parking lot we saw a grizzly bear, not too close, but enough to make us want to pick up the pace... pooor Ryan. Then it got dark... what fun! So with all of our new found elite bear skills we sang our way down the mountain with flashlights and cellphones glowing found a campsite on the ground (every lodge was already full!) and slept it off. Feeling much better today we've decided to take a break in Bozeman Montana... wish us luck! More fun is on the way. Here are some of my awesome pictures, I also have some very cool videos of hail storms and old faithful that you will want to see!

More Buffalo on the road.

ahhh Yellowstone in December... I mean August... WHAT??

Hail left over on the tent

Hiking! (Don't mind my eye its just messed up right now)

Ryan takes a rest on the mountain!

View from the hike

More hiking views

Yellowstone is not for me

So Jenn got her chance to rip on a stop that every trip MUST include, now it's my turn. We just left Yellowstone and I have to say that I am not impressed. I guess it would have been better if we had specific things we wanted to see besides old faithful, but it was a long two days in that park! I think one of the biggest problems I have with it is the fact that it takes at least 30 minutes to drive anywhere. It is extremely spread out, and obviously there isn't anything they can do about that, but once you throw in tourists who have never seen a buffalo before, it gets infuriating. Everywhere we went, there was at least one time where there would be a 20 minute traffic jam because people were stopped in the middle of the road to take pictures of the buffalo. At first I was excited to see these majestic beasts no more than a few feet away too, but after the third or fourth traffic jam, enough was enough. It was exhausting trying to get anywhere, especially when we had reservations to horseback ride (more to come on that subject). If people would have pulled off then it would have been OK, but it was terrible.

So about that horseback ride.


We thought it would be fun to try horseback riding at the park, so we went and made reservations for the 5:45 PM ride on our first day. No big deal, it was pretty well priced and everything, so we decided that we would go and get groceries before hand because we had plenty of time. After we got groceries we headed back and got stuck in 2 40-minute buffalo traffic jams. We made it to the stable 5 minutes late while they were still loading up the horses, which was great. Until the lady told us that our tickets were for 2 DAYS from then! The guy who gave us the tickets messed that up, so we went back and got them changed for the next day at the same time (plus a 20% discount which rocked!). So we go do our thing the next day, rushing through, making sure we have enough time to get to horseback riding early this time. We get there early.... and it's canceled because of lightning storms! We reschedule for 9:15 the next morning just before we are set to leave. We go the next day, after a hail storm the night before, only to find out that the rides for the entire day have been canceled because the hail hasn't melted. Three different tries at horseback riding, three different reasons for failure... Plus all the gas we wasted driving hours there and back.

So Yellowstone, not the best.

The Badlands are still my favorite by far, here are some pictures to offset this rant.

Some hot springs at Yellowstone.

Another geological formation.

So clear!

one of my favorite pictures. Stay on the trail!

So much bluer in life!

And of course, Old Faithful!

Wind cave and Wyoming!

We had our last sightseeing day in South Dakota yesterday and we went out on a high note! Or a very low, underground note if you want to get technical... Wind Cave in South Dakota!  Very cool place, and not very friendly to us vertically gifted folk. Lots of hunching over and squeezing through tight places, but totally worth it! Of the caves we've explored so far, this is by far the best! They have one formation called Box-work, that is very VERY rare. of all the box-work in the world, 95% is located in Wind Cave!

A great shot of the Box-work formation on the ceiling of the cave!

Wind cave!

Another shot of Wind Cave!

So here we are in the tiny town of Ten Sleep! Jenn already posted about our misadventures today, but we also did stop at one of the coolest places so far (in my opinion!) Get your mashed potatoes ready to sculpt with, because we were at Devil's Tower! The iconic geological formation from Close Encounters of the Third Kind! If you haven't seen that movie, I highly recommend it! It's out of this world (haha). The scope of Devil's Tower is completely different in person, the size of it is astounding, and the fact that people climb on it is mind boggling! The record for fastest ascent to the top is 18 minutes, and he did it without ANY equipment at all! It's around 600 feet tall and you can see four states from the top of it, even though it's kind of in the middle of Wyoming!

Not a great day...

So I have to tell you, today was not the best day so far.  We made it into Ten Sleep, Wyoming mostly due to Ryan's prowess. We received news of two earthquakes, one in Colorado and one back home on the east coast. Then we had our first flat tire. It's not so bad just a slow leak which we refilled at a few gas stations, but unfortunately we are/were in the middle of nowhere aka 105 miles to the nearest autozone and 50 miles to Walmart. So we keep on refilling and keep on trekking. Hopefully using some can o' fix a flat soon. Also, if you're one of our parents who we told where we were going you might be wondering why we are in Ten Sleep (60 miles further from where we were supposed to be camping outside Buffalo, WY) that would be my fault. I apparently have a problem with altitude changes... not the severe lungs bleeding organs exploding kind, but the more mild: severe headaches, vomiting, feeling terrible kind. That and the fact that where we were going to camp (about 8000 feet up) was a terrible rocky campsite with no running water led us to find a lovely cheap place with beds and a shower. Thankfully that put us back down out of the mountains and a few hours later I'm feeling much better. Mostly though, it was a waste of a day. Here are some pictures I took when I didn't have my head under the blanket and decided I might want to see the views later...

 

Saving grace of the day: The Ryan Jelly Bean Videos... remind me to show you when we get home!

Mt. Rushmore

We made it out of the wilderness (read: no showers) of the badlands. After a few days of hiking and waking up to some amazing natural views, we are taking on the other end of our trip. Currently at Flintstones campground just outside Custer State Park and the Black Hills. Probably one of the funnest campgrounds so far! Certainly the best meal we've had on the road so far. I recommend the Cowboy Crumbles..... fresh apple crumb with cinnamon ice cream... so yummy. If only I could remember the name of the restaurant. As far as our visit to Mt Rushmore goes... yikes. I'm sure this probably makes me a bad American, but I have to say I was seriously unimpressed. The "strenuous" presidential trail leading to the parks "best" views was a boardwalk with maybe 20 stairs, and let me tell you those stairs left me less winded than walking into my front door. I was also less than impressed with the views... sorry America but Rushmore is going on my I wouldn't even bother list, right along side the mystery spot. If it weren't for the campground and the really neat Needles Highway/Iron Mountain Road we took today and the awesome stuff we are doing tomorrow I'd be sorely disappointed in this area. I do really recommend the Wind Cave which was really cool and well worth the visit.

Ryan and I in the Badlands!

BUFFLOOH!!!

Ryan was sad he couldn't get into heaven at St Peter's Pearly Gates- they locked him out (literally)

.

I told him to try again in a hundred years.

Please tell me you wouldn't be freaking out if you drove by this at 2am... I was.

My dutiful shot of Mt. Rushmore

Yabba-Dabba- Doooooo!!

And of course Carhenge... YES!

The Badlands are Bad-Ass!

So we are finally out of the Badlands, which means we have internet to update! There are not enough words to describe how phenomenal the badlands were! They are definitely my new favorite spot in America! Not only were the landscapes breath-taking, but the hiking we did was really fun too!

At night they had a night sky program where we got to look up into the milky way and see stars and galaxies through a huge telescope. The Badlands have some of the last Dark Sky in the U.S. which means little to no light pollution in the sky! I haven't seen skies like that in a LONG time! South Dakota has a lot to offer, and the terrains differ greatly here, from the Badlands to the prairie, it is a very diverse state! Here are some pictures for you guys to understand what I'm trying to say!






To the left is a shot of the Badlands from our hike.












To the left is a shot that I took from the picture below. I hiked up to the part between the two points that looks like a little "U".














Here's Jenn in a precarious spot! (not really). And below is an amazing view from our hike!

Joined a Club!

Hey Folks, this is what the center of the universe looks like!

And this is what Ryan & Jenn look like at the center of the universe:

Okay so maybe its not exactly the center of the universe. But it is the center of the northern hemisphere, and the only place you can realistically go to be at 45x90*. In fact its special we were initiated into the 45x90 club. If you're really special we'll show you our medallions when we get home.

Here's some other great shots of the moment

 

 Oh and before we left... we saw Thorp!

Noah's Ark: No Flood Required

Today, at the recommendation of the Madigan's, we discovered yet another amazing place in Wisconsin that we’d never heard of before: the Wisconsin Dells. Advertised as a city of water parks, it is like something I’ve never seen before. Every hotel/motel has its own water or adventure park the small ranging from our little motel (kind you find on the side of the road) with two outdoor water/pool areas and an indoor pool to huge places that have 3 or 4 of their own indoor/outdoor water parks!  We ended up checking out Noah’s Ark (arguably the best park!) which is an outdoor with no hotel directly attached and all I can say is WOW! We had so much fun! We ended the day with a great splash- zip-lining right into the pool! The rest of the day was great too though. The best ride was definitely the water roller coaster, like a regular coaster it pulls you uphill before drops and spins etc. but the whole time you’re in a water park double person tube and they are throwing water at you from every direction. The scariest/craziest ride we went on though was called the Scorpion Tail. After climbing up higher than anything else around (and being weighed for safety of course) you step into a clear plastic tube with a platform at the bottom. After a short countdown the platform falls and you drop Geronimo style down a clear tube and if you gather up enough speed not to get stuck you go upside down through the loop then back to the ground and the bottom of the ride. We met a really skinny girl in line for the next ride who didn’t have the weight to get enough speed. She got stuck in the top of the loop and went back down upside-down, before having to be just let out of the tube at the bottom of the loop. Glad that wasn’t us the first time, but it might be fun for the next ride… Either way we are still not ready to leave Wisconsin. We still can’t believe how much fun stuff there is out here, so we are driving a little further and taking on a little more of this crazy state! Check out pictures of today’s adventure, which don’t quite do it justice… maybe check out Noah’s Ark yourself!

Reilly

Alright this is a special post for my cousin Reilly. I showed him Photoshop and he asked me to do this one special for him! Staying with everyone here has been amazing and I am NOT ready to leave yet!!!