Badlands and the rest of the trip

Someday I will be caught up... I'm almost there!

After Mt Rushmore, we went to the Badlands.
We didn't go down INTO the park really.  There's a highway that comes off of I-90 and goes through the top park of the park and back to I-90, specifically for people like us that want to see it on the way through... but it pretty much all looks the same, so it was enough for us.
I LOVE the colors in this picture below.  All the different periods in time are represented by a different color, pretty much.  It's kind of crazy to think about what the Badlands actually are.
While we were driving, Jason noticed some antelope, so I slowed down and pulled over to get a picture... then we noticed all these little critters all over the place!  There were a TON of prairie dogs on both sides of the road in this one particular spot, so we rolled down our windows and watched them for a bit... and listened to them.  We didn't get out because there were signs saying they could give you the plague, and we didn't really feel like getting the plague that day. ;)  I didn't realize they were this fat!
There was a different area where you could get out and walk on a little path, and along the way, we came across this cute little guy.
Here's Jason contemplating getting lost in the Badlands.  There were trails in this specific area, but there were quite a few of them, and it was hard to tell which one was what because there weren't any signs saying which way to go... we didn't feel like getting lost, so we didn't go very far.  Jason was hoping to find some sort of fossils, but I have a feeling that area is walked so much that anything that might have been there is already gone.
I had to take a picture of some wild cactus... I've never seen wild cactus before.
If you look real close (or maybe click on the picture to make it bigger), there are sheep on the side of this hill.  Jason kept saying, I'm surprised there aren't any bighorn sheep around here... and then we looked behind us and saw them.  It's insane what kind of places they choose to be!
After the Badlands, we headed out to finish our trip to Tennessee.  We went through Iowa...
...and Missouri.  Apparently I didn't take any other pictures in Iowa.
We went through St Louis.  Rush hour wasn't too bad.  We passed the arch too, which I've never seen before.
And then we got to Illinois.
That's all the pictures from our trip.  I would have a Kentucky sign and a Tennessee sign, but it was dark when we got to those, and the picture I tried to take definitely didn't turn out!  We are definitely glad to be done driving, and we're finally getting somewhat settled in here.  Once the house doesn't have boxes everywhere, I will post some pictures of the house. :)

South Dakota and Mt Rushmore

Since there was nothing in Wyoming, we continued to South Dakota.
Our GPS led us astray because we had it on a wrong setting, and took us on a unpaved road.  Well, on our way to turn around from this unpaved road, we saw turkeys.  To Jason, that made the wrong turn worthwhile... he's a nut.
Then we saw this deer, and a couple other too.  That REALLY made the wrong turn worthwhile... sheesh.
Finally we made it to the small town on Keystone, SD.  The only reason it exists is because of Mt Rushmore.
Once again, we gave the National Park Service some of our money.

I've always thought this row of flags was pretty neat.
It was the first time Jason had seen Mt Rushmore (my second time), so we went to the little museum they have about building it too.  Quite the accomplishment.
And to prove that I was there too, we got someone to take a picture of us. :)  Not the best picture in the world, but oh well.  Haha...

Sorry for the many posts, but I'm trying to keep the posts smaller so everyone with slower connections can upload and see them all!

Little Bighorn, Part 2 and Wyoming

After several days of trying to upload these pictures, they finally decided to upload today.

Here is Custer's stone.  It was the only one with flags around it, all the other ones were just white stones in the middle of a grassy field (like the one in the top left corner of the picture).
Here is Jason at the Indian memorial there.  It's one big circle with all the different tribes that were involved.  There are scattered quotes from some of them too.
In the visitor center there, they had weapons, uniforms, and other things from the battle site.  I thought this one was funny.  As I mentioned in a previous post, the Crow scouts Custer had told him it wasn't a good idea:
Here are some medals some of the soldiers got.  I thought it was interesting to see some really OLD medals.
Like I said before, The Battle at Little Bighorn was a good history lesson for both of us.  We left right before the park closed, and we were back on the road again.

Wyoming welcomed us next... that's the REAL welcome to Wyoming sign, unlike the other ones we had seen.
We watched the sun set as we were driving, and happened to find a nice overlook to get a picture.  That's about all  Wyoming is good for.
We decided to take a little bit of a detour to drive to Devil's Tower.  This sign shows the Indian legends of how the tower came about.

We decided not to give this park our money.  We wanted to get on the road again and actually get somewhere, so we stopped at the gate and took pictures.

Half of Little Bighorn...

After Yellowstone, we stopped at Little Bighorn Battlefield.
The National Park Services LOVED us this trip because we went to so many of them and paid money for each one... haha.  Here is a look at Custer's Last Stand hill.  He was pretty much right where that big monument is up there, and all those white specs are stones of people who died.
Here is a close up of what some of those stones say.  Most of them say "US Soldier" instead of an actual name.
This picture is from the top of the hill overlooking where the Indian encampment was.  It pretty much covered that entire valley, where all the trees are now, and also some beyond it.
Another view of the Indian encampment land.  All those fields were filled with Indians, and yet Custer still thought his 600 men would be fine... dumb.  The hills in front here were the ones the cavalry retreated UP after trying to conquer the Indians below... poor horses sure ran directly uphill!
And for some reason, my computer/the internet has decided not to let me upload the other half of the pictures from Little Bighorn, so you'll just have to wait to see Custer's stone and a few other things.  It was a good history lesson though, and Jason and I realized how DUMB Custer really was to completely ignore what his Indian scouts had told him!

Yellowstone and Beartooth Pass

The morning we were leaving Yellowstone, we decided to do one quick pass through the north part of the park to see what we could see.  Good thing we decided to do that because we saw several cool things.  The first one is this:
How would you like to see that in your front yard?!  That elk had a herd of at least 40 cows with him, and he even bugled for us, which is the coolest thing to hear--even Jason had never heard an elk bugle, so we were both excited.  Anyway, this elk and his cows were just wandering around the little town of Mammoth (they do every day).  There was even a road blocked off because the elk were there, but the sign said "closed for events".  Haha.

We saw A LOT of these too... antelope aka pronghorn.  Most of the antelope we saw were in Wyoming, but here's good picture of one in Yellowstone.  (It's a big joke about how many antelope are in Wyoming... more antelope than people!)
Here's another coyote we saw, he had a partner with him too.  We were kind of surprised to see that the coyotes were collared, but apparently they collar a lot of animals in the park.
And the BEST thing we saw was this:
Yes, that's right, it is a bear... a grizzly!  Jason wanted to see a wild grizzly SO bad, and I kept telling him not to get his hopes up because it is really rare etc etc.  Well, as we were heading out of the park, we saw a huge tour group of people standing out on a hill off the road with some spotting scopes, and we couldn't figure out what they were looking at... and we didn't feel like hiking out there to ask.  So after a little while of trying to look through the binoculars, and only seeing a buffalo (because they're everywhere), we decided to keep driving.  A little farther down the road, there was a pulloff with a bunch of cars.  We knew then that it wasn't just a buffalo those people were looking at, so we got out and asked what everyone was looking at.  Once they told us it was a bear and he had just gone over the little ridge, we were kind of bummed, but hoping he would show up again, so we stood there and waited.  After a couple minutes, a guy to the left of us goes "oh yep, there he is... coming straight at us."   Uh... last time I checked, you don't really want to hear that a bear is coming straight at you, especially when you haven't seen him yet!  So Jason and I quickly ran back to the truck (which I'm sure a lot of people were laughing at us, but it turned out ok because I had left the camera in there anyway)... and then we saw the bear walking slowly along the river, not minding all the people at all.  Well, he followed along the road for a little while, and we subsequently followed slowly, and eventually he decided to cross the road... RIGHT in front of us!!  Yes, that's right, I didn't have to zoom in forever to get this GREAT picture!
That (and the bull elk) just made our day that day, which was a good thing since we had to deal with a bunch of construction after that... haha.

In order to get back to I-90, we (and when I say we, moreso Jason) decided to take Beartooth Pass, a pass that is closed in the winter... but it's not winter, so it'll be ok, right?  Here's the view on the way up... see the snow and how they just nestled the road right on the edge of everything?!
This is probably just over halfway up... it's becoming more desolate, and we're above snow level...
And finally we reached the summit... yes, that's 10,947 feet above sea level!  VERY cold up there and also VERY windy!  We had to go about 20 mph the entire way up and down that pass... which made the trip longer, but it was an experience... an experience we don't ever plan on having again!
And somewhere on the top of the ridge before our giant descent, I cheated and had Jason go in a circle so I could get "welcome to" pictures...  This is Wyoming's, and the other side is Montana's, but I didn't post that here.
I didn't post the Montana one because just about 100 feet or so from that other sign was this one!  And I didn't even cheat to get it!

So now we were back in Montana, ready to head on to the next adventure!!

The drive to Tennessee...

I'm really good at taking A LOT of pictures, so there will be a few posts about moving here.  Of course, we had to stop at this 50,000 Silver Dollar place in Montana because Jason had never been there, and it's crazy to see that much money on the walls!  Dumb me, didn't take any pictures INSIDE... just outside... oops.
Here is the first time we crossed the Continental divide.  Sorry it's so far away.  I was driving, so Jason was in charge of taking the picture... hence why there is no "entering Idaho" sign... it kind of snuck up on him.
Although we didn't get the Welcome to Montana sign between Idaho and Montana, this one was in Gardiner, MT, where we spent the night before going into Yellowstone.  I walked over to it and got this picture, so I have the sign... just not the right one. ;)
This is our cabin we stayed in in Gardiner.  The hotels were either full or had only suites left, and we got the last cabin these people had available.  It was kind of fun to be in a cabin though, and we ended up staying there for 2 nights... running water, a nice bed, and cable tv. :)
The next morning we entered the park.
This is the Roosevelt Arch right before the entrance.
Inside the park, we passed this sign... we had a lot of neat little signs like this along our drive (like the continental divide too).
This is how Jason spent the majority of our time in the park... with the binoculars glued to his face. :)  Each morning it was chilly, so we wore pants and a sweatshirt, and by the afternoon, we were HOT, so of course we shed the sweatshirt!
One of the many beautiful views in Yellowstone.  See the snow on the "mountains" in the background?
As we were going over one of the passes in Yellowstone, we came across these two buffalo.  We didn't think buffalo liked high elevations much, but looking at the terrain, it seemed they just followed the road the entire way to get to other pastures.  VERY random though...
The close-up... yes, that's Jason hand, he was driving.
Once again, strange things buffalo do.  He's on the edge of a VERY steep hill, and ended up going right behind our vehicle... if Jason hadn't driven forward when he did, I think the buffalo would have hit the back of the pickup!
We took a "let's see what's down this road" turn, and the only cool thing that came of it was seeing these mule deer bucks... with nice racks... too bad there's no hunting there.
We saw LOTS of buffalo.  This is a small herd.
And of course, we saw all the mudpots and LOVED the sulfur smell (ew).
This is one of several coyotes we saw.  Jason was convinced it was a wolf for a long time because he's so thick and all, but we asked a ranger, who agreed with me that it was just a coyote with his winter coat, especially since we were in such high elevations.
This is Yellowstone Lake, the largest high elevation lake in the US.  It has 141 miles of shoreline.
Jason at the Black Pool... looks more blue to me. :)  These pools have always been my favorite thing about Yellowstone because they are SO clear... and to think that the center of the Earth is in that hole somewhere... sheesh.
The second time we crossed the Continental Divide...
...as well as the third and final time.  The divide has some strange turns in it!
Of course we had to see Old Faithful, especially since Jason has never seen it erupt.  We got there just after it had erupted (probably like 10 minutes or so), so we wasted time at the gift shop looking around and eating ice cream.
Then we watched this:
Old Faithful has been less faithful since the earthquakes a few years back.  They had said within 10 minutes of 3:52 pm, and I think it went off at like 3:38 pm, so it's a good thing we decided to find a place to watch it early.  On the way out of the park that day, we saw these bighorn sheep on the side of a hill.  It's crazy where they decide to be!
And here's the entering Wyoming sign... kind of disappointing, but it was inside the park.
The next day we finished Yellowstone, including the Mammoth Hot Springs.

More to come... just didn't want to create a HUGE post of a TON of pictures, even though this one is pretty big lol.