Wow! What can we say about this trip! What an amazing time we had. It was full of twists, turns, and planes, trains, and automobiles! We saw some of the pretty places in the country - all in one trip. If I had to recommend only one of the amazing places we went, I would have to pick Glacier National Park. If there is only one park you go to in the continental US, this one is it! I hear the only one more beautiful is Denali in Alaska.
Shane is eventually going to write a little something about the trip, but I wanted to make sure I got the site updated with something, so I will start out with a not so quick summary of the trip.
Wed August 16th-
Well, I wish I could say the trip started well, but I was already running late from work, and got whacked on the road by a flying rock. When I got home and got all the stuff in the car, we realized that rock left a bit of damage when we saw the 18 inch crack across the windshield. Since there was absolutely nothing we could do about it at that time, we were off to the airport!
When I was checking in, I noticed the chance to upgrade to first class, so I thought what a great way to start the trip off, so I upgraded us. I am kind of glad I did, because our flight was delayed, while we were on board already, by an hour and a half. So while everyone else was cramped in the back, we were comfy in the first class area, taking advantage of free booze.
Unfortunately, this meant that our flight was an hour late arriving, and instead of getting in at 10, we got in at 11, and the bus to the hotel missed us, so we waited what seemed like forever! We get to the hotel, check in and crash very quickly into bed.
Thurs, Aug 17th-
Day 2 started off very basic. We went to breakfast, and pretty much just sat around. We requested late checkout, and we basically just sat around watching tv. It just so happened to be the day where the guy got arrested in Thailand and claimed to be the killer of Jon Benet. Finally it was time for us to check out and we got some lunch at the restaurant at the hotel, then grabbed a cab to Union Station in Portland. We waited around for a while and walked around the station, and finally got on the train.
The train ride was interesting. It is very nice to be able to look out the windows and watch the scenery come to you. I am certain Shane was a little relieved that I was not making him drive the whole way either! I think the only complaint we had of the train ride was that we didn't get a sleeping car. Since we didn't have a sleeping car, the two women that were sitting behind us talking in full voices at 2 am were a little annoying. Shane finally had enough and asked them to quiet down so we could sleep, although he was very polite about it, a lot more so than I would have been.
Friday, Aug 18-
We arrived at the Belton Station in Glacier at right around 8 am in the morning, and caught our shuttle to the hotel. From there we ordered our Red Bus tour, and we were so glad we did! Had we decided to rent a car and do it ourselves, Shane wouldn't have seen a thing! The roads were very windy and most of them did not have guard rails. But talk about an amazing park. Glacier National park is supposed to be the second most beautiful park in America, and right now it is at the top of the list of what we have seen. Even the Grand Canyon wasn't as beautiful. Some of the pictures here are ones that we took along the way on the bus tour, and as you can see I made a new friend. There was a squirrel that seemed to enjoy people watching and would even allow people to take their picture with him.
After our tour was over, we went back to the room to relax and find some dinner. After dinner, I decided to check to make sure our tickets were all set for the next day only to find out that they were for today! I instantly start to panic, and run to the phone to call Amtrak to get it fixed. Well, according to them, there were no additional seats as they were sold out. ARGH! What were we going to do now? We are stuck in the middle of a national park with no other possibilities for rooms or a rental car since the rental car place required 2 days notice. I am really freaking out at this point figuring that I have totally messed up our entire trip, but Shane was as calm as always figuring that everything would work itself out.
Sat, Aug 19-
Well, after I got virtually no sleep due to fretting about our situation, we decided to wake up and get the shuttle back over to the train station and try to deal with the ticketing agent to try to get on the train. Well, another little hiccup, there were no other ticketing agents. I had to go and find a pay phone to call Amtrak again, and lo and behold- they had seats available. Thank God! Once she gave me the instructions on how to handle it, we were off to wait for the train. And finally back onto the train and off to Minneapolis!
Once we were back on the train, we figured we would relax since we were pretty much going to be on it for almost 24 hrs. As nice of a thought as this was, we couldn't relax since it seemed to be the preschool car we got into with all kinds of screaming kids. Finally, around 8pm we went to dinner and got away from the kiddies. We actually had dinner with a very nice couple that was on a wedding anniversary trip. After dinner, we had to go back to our seats, but found that most of the kiddies had drifted off to sleep, thank goodness. Well, unfortunately, there was a stop somewhere in ND when 2 women got on that were perfect strangers and decided they wanted to exchange their full life stories at 2 am. Finally when the train started moving again, Shane made sure they realized what time it was, and they quieted down. Finally, some sleep was possible, although certainly not the best. I am sure if we ever do the train ride again, we will get a sleeping car next time!
Sun, Aug 20-
We woke up to find that we were just about at our final train destination in Minneapolis. We got off the train with our luggage, and off we went to find a taxi. We had to cab it over to the airport so we could pick up our rental car. So from here on out, we were driving. Picked up the rental car with no problem, and off we went into the amber waves of grain. Once we left Missouri, it was pretty desolate. Although, along the way we saw signs for the Mitchell Corn Palace. We were running ahead of schedule so we thought, what the heck. I had actually seen a description of this particular building on the Travel Channel at some point and thought it would be really interesting to see. When we arrived we were amazed at what we saw. The entire face of the bldg was made into murals using various colors of corn. When you went inside, they had even more murals, again all made out of corn. Apparently, they have to redo the murals every year because it becomes one giant bird feeder. We did a little shopping then we were off to find the Badlands.
We actually arrived in the Badlands earlier than we had anticipated and got to see a lot before the sun set for the day. It was pretty amazing driving around this park. It was very similar to the Grand Canyon in color, but seemed to rise out of the ground instead of being a gigantic hole. We were driving through the park when the sun was setting and you can see how truly beautiful this park is.
Once the sun goes down in this park, however, you cannot see a thing. So once the sun set fully, we were off to find our cabin for the night. The cabins were quaint. Very small on the inside, barely big enough for the bed and the bathroom was a tight fit, but we were staying inside a national park, so we kinda figured that it wasn't going to be the Ritz. Although with the price we paid for the room, we knew we were staying at the Ritz anyway. :)
Mon, Aug 21-
We woke up fairly early the next morning and got ready to go, and grabbed some breakfast at the cafe in the motel we were staying at. Then we were off to do more exploring of the badlands. We had gotten a map of the badlands when we first arrived and we stopped at most of the pull offs to see the different views. Even one of the cool little side trips off the map was seeing the Prairie Dog village where hundreds of little prairie dogs dug their little homes and you could see them pop up their heads to see what was going on. We also got to see about a hundred bison as well. Once we saw all of that, we figured we had seen all that the Badlands could offer.
Between all the exploring we had done the day before and all we got in today, we decided to keep going, so we were off to Mount Rushmore. Although, just a short ways outside of the park, there were signs all over the place about Wall Drug and "As seen on NBC". Well, with tag lines like these we couldn't pass it up! We stopped in for a short while and found that it was your typical tourist trap except a little bigger. But we checked out the shops and the little village area with fun things to see (like a jack-a-lope). We got Shane's picture with the jack-a-lope, a 6 foot bunny, and my picture with a 1 ton petrified log and 4 presidents. After our fun in Wall Drug, we continued on to Mount Rushmore.
We arrived at Mount Rushmore fairly early since it was only about a 2 hour drive in total. We stopped and grabbed some lunch but were at the memorial around 2 pm. We were a little surprised since we were expecting a little more than what we saw, maybe a bigger museum than what they had, but it was basically a walking trail all centered around the 4 granite heads of the presidents. Along the walk there is the sculptor's studio which shows you where Borglum worked, and it has a window in it with a miniature version (only in comparison to the memorial itself, they were still about 10 ft tall) of the memorial where he could look through the window and make adjustments to the prototype then phone the changes to the guys that would blow up the granite. It was actually interesting to see exactly why each of the 4 President's were selected. George Washington was selected because he was the 1st President, Jefferson was selected for his choice to expand the United States with the Louisiana Purchase, Abraham Lincoln was selected for his views on equality, and Teddy Roosevelt was selected for his views on trade by having the Panama Canal built. Nothing like getting educated while you are on vacation! :)
After we walked around for a while, we decided to go check out one of the local tourist traps again by going to the Bear Country USA. This is a drive through zoo basically, but I have to say after seeing all the wonderful wildlife, in their natural habitat, in Glacier park, it was a little disappointing, although we got to see a lot more bears than in glacier. Once we left the bear park, we checked in at the hotel and relaxed a little before dinner. We had dinner at a restaurant within walking distance to the hotel so we both could enjoy some adult beverages. After dinner we figured we would head back over and see the lighting of the monument. I think this was my favorite part of Mount Rushmore. Seeing it come to life at night was really amazing!
Tues, Aug 22-
We woke up this morning to the lovely sound of a fire alarm. Apparently someone put too much Pam on the waffle makers and when they turned them on for the free breakfast in the morning, it set off the smoke detectors, thereby waking up every guest at 5am. At around 6:30 am we decided to grab some breakfast and head on our way. Since we were again, so far ahead of schedule, we decided to make another detour and check out another local attraction - The Mammoth site. Next to Glacier, this had to be my favorite stop. To see all the bodies of the creatures that lived in that exact area hundreds of years ago was just absolutely amazing. If you ever make a trip out there to see Mount Rushmore, I would definitely make a detour to see this. It is all funded by private donations and entrance fees and it is well worth a look.
After we had a biggest pleasant surprise of the trip (the Mammoth site), we ended up traveling to our biggest disappointment of the trip. We headed off to see Chimney rock. We figured if we were going to try to hit all 50 states at some point, we had to have some reason to visit Nebraska, and Chimney rock seemed like a good enough reason. Well, we plugged Chimney Rock into Doris (our GPS system, we named her), and off we went. The trip was basically a lot of empty greenspace, and finally Doris told us we were getting close, but asked us to turn onto a dirt road. Seemed a little odd to us, but then she said we were here. Well, we got of the car only to see absolutely no way to get any closer to Chimney Rock with fencing preventing us from getting any closer. Well, after this disappointment, we decided to cancel our reservations for the hotel in the area, and decided to get a jump on our 10 hr drive to Yellowstone.
Well. we didn't think about this too well, because we had been on the road for the majority of the day and we are now without a hotel. Around 8 pm we finally saw a town that had a lot of hotels, but after checking 5 of them, determined the entire town was sold out. So now after driving most of the day, we had to continue on.
Along the way, Shane started getting really tired and decided to make a pit-stop at a rest area that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. We get out of the car and on our way to the restrooms, we noticed hundreds of rabbits sitting out in the light. We found this odd, especially considering they never moved even when we came near them. Well, apparently, while Shane was waiting for me, he figured out why there were so many rabbits sitting out in the open. While he was waiting, he heard quite a few coyotes just waiting for one of those rabbits to stray into the darkness. After I came out, Shane mentioned this to me, and I decided to make a run for the car. I didn't want to become coyote food. Since we figured that the coyotes would love us to stick around, we decided to get back on the road.
We continued driving til we saw yet another really small town, this one was even smaller than the one with all the hotels, and was just outside of Jackson Hole. We were getting a little worried because most of the places we saw were really small motels with maybe 10 rooms.
We finally found a sign that said AAA approved, and pulled in. We get to the door and notice that the office closed at 10 and it was now 10:30 pm. We were just about to leave when a nice woman came out and helped us out and told us that she did indeed have a room for us. What a lifesaver she was! The room with the AAA discount turned out to be less than $60 with tax, we couldn't believe it. It was probably the best bargain we had all trip. We got into the room and as it turned out it was a great room. It was log cabin style and there were two double beds, a cot on the side, and a full bathroom. Although, we found out the next day, that the walls were really thin as we heard every word of discussion coming out of the next room. Started out with politics then somehow moved to religion and gays. Wow, what an interesting conversation that was.
Wed August 23-
We got showered and dressed and we continued onto Yellowstone. We passed this great pulloff that had a sign showing us exactly where Jackson Hole was in regards to where we were. It had this beautiful meadow that had snow capped mountains behind it. What a sight.
One thing we did not realize when we were traveling to Yellowstone, is that you have to go through the Grand Teton National Park in order to get to Yellowstone. This is another park that is absolutely beautiful, it is a shame we didn't have more time to explore there.
Once through Teton National Park, we arrived at Yellowstone. We stopped at the sign to take pictures and Shane instantly pulled out the binoculars and ran down to the river to look around. He actually got very lucky and saw the only Moose we saw all trip.
We continued on, stopping at various stops to look and got to see some great waterfalls, then onto the Old Faithful lodge and checked in. After we put our stuff in our room, we went out to check out the visitor's center and got to see Old Faithful go off. As we found out, Old Faithful was probably the most disappointing geyser they had. We were very lucky and got to see quite a few of the geysers going off, some of which only go off every 15-20hrs, so from what we hear we were very lucky.
After our geyser walk, we went back to the room and got ready for dinner. We decided to eat at the lodge, and tried their buffet. It was Bison prime rib, so we figured it couldn't be too bad. It was ok, but we had a nice time anyway.
Thurs, Aug 24-
Yesterday we actually tried to sign up for a tour, but the ones we were interested in were all sold out, so we asked the activity desk where would they go in the park if they only had one full day. They pointed us to several very cool places, and we were off. We basically just took the car around and when we saw a good pull off (based on what the activity desk told us), we stopped and checked it out. We got some great photos from around the park. Most of which you need to check out on our photo link page since apparently we took about 900 photos on the trip.
After our jaunt around the park, we headed back for dinner, and again ate at the lodge. This time we decided to order off the menu, and I am very glad we did. Shane ended up having the Surf and Turf, and if you knew where we were, this was no lobster and steak. It was rainbow trout and Elk in cherry glaze. I had just the elk, but boy were both of these good! We were sorry we didn't order off the menu the first night. Oh well! Live and learn! :)
Friday Aug 25-
We woke up and checked out of the hotel, and off we were to the next and final stop on our road trip. I think we could really tell we were getting weary, because we do not have a single photo after Shane's stop in front of the Old Faithful Inn sign. Although, while we were driving through Idaho to get to Salt Lake City, Shane did get a speeding ticket. It was a little comical considering he told the cop that he didn't even know what state he was in let alone how fast he was going. Thankfully the cop understood this as a vacation and not a drug incident!
We arrived in Salt Lake City later in the day, and checked into the hotel, and relaxed in the pool It was getting to be about that time for dinner so now we had to figure out where to go. We saw signs for the Melting pot and figured we hadn't been there in a while so we decided on fondue. We did our best to have local cuisine where we could, but apparently, Salt Lake doesn't have much "local" cuisine.
Sat Aug 26-
We woke up this morning unfortunately to a very slow start. Although, we decided to check out Park City which was about 45 minutes from Salt Lake. It was looking a little gloomy so we weren't sure if it was going to pour or not, and the heavens decided to give us a little rain shower. This caused a little worry considering we had no umbrella and we were walking down main street. We stopped in all the little shops and had a lot of fun. We even went into a gallery and bought two pictures that we really liked. We figured it would always remind us of our road trip. We were so tired after our long trip and long day, that we decided to order in instead of going out.
Sun Aug 27-
Wow, I can hardly believe the trip is just about over. We took our time getting ready today since our flight wasn't until 1 pm. We got our stuff packed up and we sadly got into the rental car to get to the airport. About the only good thing about this day was that I got to go home and see my babies. Felix and Lily were very excited to see us. I think that was the longest stretch they have gone without us, and I could tell they were missing us. So I guess it is good to be home after all! But what amazing places we got to see! All in all, I am very glad we went on this trip. I started planning this trip mainly for Shane because I know his love of National Parks, and I think he might have actually gotten me started on liking them too. Now, granted, this doesn't mean I will be camping anytime soon! LOL.
