Day 8 from the road and it just keeps getting better! Currently in Glacier National Park in Montana right now, but I’m going to backtrack a few days and share with you all my adventures in Badlands & Yellowstone.

Both parks were awesome and breathtaking – just as I remembered them from years and years ago during our family cross country adventure. Of course this time around I am appreciating it a lot more and we are really making the most out of each day.

We got into Badlands the night of the 4^th just around sunset. We established ourselves at the Cedar Pass campground and got organized for the next day then hit the hay since we had been driving since 530am that morning from Chicago. Parts of the drive were awesome – the land around the Missouri River was beautiful and seeing windmills across Minnesota was a fun sight as well. Other times, not so exciting – but we made it! We woke up bright and early on Tuesday morning and had a full day planned out that the campgrounds keeper had recommended to us. Lots of driving and pull offs to the side of the road that we stopped at and did some mini hikes – then we set out to Sheep Table Mountain which was a steep climb up a windy road and then we were told it was about a 2 mile hike out on top of one of the rocks to a point with an awesome view. Well, we walked just about two miles and didn’t see an end in sight, we were also getting absolutely eaten alive by mosquitos – we have the bites to prove it. So we surrendered and decided to jog back to the car to avoid more blood being sucked from our bodies. It was nice getting out of the car and exercising, but could have done without the mosquitos – and we never saw “the” view, but saw many awesome ones along the way. We also stopped by Wall, SD midday to check out Wall Drugs, which we had seen billboards for roughly 300 miles before reaching the area. It is a massive everything you could ever imagine under one roof store which is also a eatery that seats 500 people. Had to see it and we bought some famous donuts! We ended our exploration part of the day with a hike up Notch Trail, which wasn’t too long, maybe 3 miles roundtrip but ran through a dried up waterbed of a river and waterfall from hundreds of years ago. Really cool rock formations and an awesome view of the valley at the end of it all. After getting back to the campsite we cleaned up a bit and packed up some sandwiches and headed to one of the lookout points to watch one of the most amazing sunsets I have seen (from land). We brought a blanket out to the point and ate our sandwiches in such serenity it was amazing. An older gentleman joined us for some of it and he was awesome. Lives in a motorhome (with a home base in Vancouver Island, Canada) and just explores the country and makes his itinerary as he goes. He had some great stories and suggestions for Yellowstone and other points of our itinerary. Great ending to a spectacular day at Badlands.

The next morning we woke up at the crack of dawn to make our way to Yellowstone. We didn’t have campground reservations so we were kind of going on a whim. Let me first introduce the Mogk Family to make this less confusing. They are from Montana. I go to school with Emily, but we all refer to her as Montana. Her brother – Dylan – worked with Chad last winter in Vail and I had met him when I was out there over spring break. His parents were also visiting that week so I met them as well and fell in love with the family – they are awesome. SO Emily was going to be in Yellowstone the same night as us, but due to no cell service there, we were unable to get a hold of each other. So we played it “safe” and set up camp about 16 east of the east entrance of the park. Tents were allowed at this campground because apparently the grizzly frequency wasn’t high enough to only allow RV and trailer camping. We quickly setup our site and made friends with the Colorado family next to us. Then we decided to go do some exploring. We headed up to Canyon Village and saw the upper and lower falls of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. Very, very busy – but a beautiful sight. We then were planning on venturing to Artist’s point, however the road was closed off and that was when we were graciously told that there had been a bear malling earlier that day and it wouldn’t be open until the next morning at the earliest. Well this was just a LITTLE unsettling to say the least. We drove a lot that day and saw awesome stuff – then returned to Yellowstone Lake for yet another mind blowing sunset. It was absolutely gorgeous and weather was perfect. Neither of us slept too well that night for obvious reasons – and also it was quite windy. But we woke up alive and well and hit the park again at 730am. We had an ambitious itinerary (surprise surprise) to see all of the big sights along the western loop of the park and up north to Mammoth Falls. We saw it all – the hot springs, the geysers, the mud pots and they were all awesome. I remembered some of them from my past trip, but the colors were just gorgeous and even our photos won’t do justice. Our English friend that we watched the sunset with in Badlands had told us about a gem Geyser called Lone Star that was off the main path from tourists – about a two mile hike into the woods. Rumor had it that he erupted every 3 hours – so we calculated being there based on a time that had been posted the previous day. Well, apparently the geyser was off schedule because we missed it by about 45 minutes. Oh well – we still went to see the cone and it looked like a beautiful place – and VERY nice to get away from the crowds. The park was just crawling with thousands of people. We left the park around 430pm to make the trek up to Bozeman, MT to stay with the Mogks. This adventure I will write about next time – but I absolutely LOVE Montana. The people are super friendly, the scenery and landscape is unmatched like anything I have seen and they have awesome license plates. We have another full day in Glacier tomorrow which we are super pumped about.

HIGHLIGHTS::

Sunset at Badlands and meeting our English friend who we exchanged adventure stories with

Moose, Bison and Elk sightings in Yellowstone

The family who comforted us and restored confidence that it was OK to sleep in a tent (they had small children so we figured we’d be safe…ha)

Sirius Radio magically starting to work in LilMoos again

Purchasing Bear Spray JUST IN CASE we get into an encounter

Donuts from Wall Drugs

Driving through Cody Wyoming – the cutest western town

Driving by Mount Rushmore & Crazy Horse Monuments

NOT SO GLORIOUS HIGHLIGHTS::

Terrible amount of bugbites from Sheep Table Mountain hike

Man being malled by a grizzly bear – read the full story here. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43662053

Breaking our rule and getting Wendys today (I was craving chicken, and Aly was craving burger) womp womp

Realizing that Books on Tape are not our thing

Missing the eruption of Lone Star Geyser

Failing to meet up with Montana in Yellowstone

The massive amounts of Asian tourists with sun umbrellas and sun visors

Paying our highest gas price yet $3.99 (we’ve been averaging around $3.50)

Until next time – let’s hope grizzly encounters don’t happen between now and then!

More pictures to come!