With one week to go we are now slamming in National and State Parks at a fever pitch! Mount Rushmore on Friday and Custer State Park yesterday. Our last National Park (and therefore Junior Ranger badge - the big prize) will be tomorrow when we visit Badlands National Park. The twins have even bought matching ranger vests to pin their patches too when they earn them- I feel like I've been reincarnated already! I'm so proud!
Yesterday was a fun highlight for me (and them hopefully, since I'm doing all the fun kids activities vicariously through them). We went to a site where prehistoric mammoth skeletons have been found, and I am talking in bulk, like 62 of them or something! They stage a kids paleontology training program where they teach proper technique and then let the kids excavate a site with scale model bones pre planted deep in the dirt. It was so cool! I didn't even help (translation - the kids repeatedly declined my offers to help)
Despite the rain forecast we hit the trail today for our big splurge of the trip - renting a side by side 4 wheeler to explore the Black Hills. What a blast - in the end we only got rained on for about a half hour but the unexpected hail made for some unpleasant riding. We are still waking up to awfully crispy cold mornings every day and too much old to sit out in the evening - the mountains are lovely but I feel like we've sort of skipped our summer, in terms of weather.
Tomorrow we are going to try to catch a 3pm presentation at the Badlands on solar telescope use. I wonder what that even means!!
We've officially started driving East (towards home - see you soon, Ontario).
We spent last night boondocking (read camping for free on the side of a logging road in a National Forest without fees, but also without reservations, which is both heaven and hell for me, at the same time). It was lovely, once we found a site and I wasn't dealing with non planning anxiety anymore.
Today we drove on to the iconic - seen often in artsy calendars - Devil's Tower - very cool.
This afternoon we toured the town of Deadwood and watched cowboys have a shootout on main St. Heidi bought a pink cowboy hat and Harrison bought a rifle and Sheriff's badge. The Wild West is alive and well and thriving in the tourist shops of Deadwood, South Dakota!
We finished the night with the Rodeo, a perfect end to a cowboy day!
Ahhh, our first contact with the outside world in days! We're driving outside Yellowstone today to drive the incredible Beartooth Mountain Pass and it brings us back into reach of phone reception!
Yellowstone has been incredible. Full of incredibly bizarre sights like smoking hillsides, plopping mudpots and massive, and I mean, massive! bison lounging by the roadside. Also pelicans. I was not expecting the pelicans. Yellowstone has more than half of the geysers, mudpots and steam vents in the world, and I'm fairly confident I've dragged my family to see them all. We watched Old Faithful erupt 3 times. It was awesome!
Headed out at 6am this morning for a long drive across Montana towards Yellowstone!!! We're trading in bighorn sheep for bison and snowy passes for sulphur smells!
Log cabin and ponderosa pine heaven here. Keep your fingers crossed that Yellowstone doesn't blow while we're there!
I'm awfully glad to be on this epic drive with the best driver I know. We never had less than a few inches of clearance. Gulp! Very nerve wracking! Mom, you'd have hated the view straight down, from the passenger seat.
More insane views and jaw dropping scenery.
We were surprised by both a marmot and a mountain goat on a hike across the continental divide about 5 minutes apart. The marmot we sort of saw coming. The goat; we thought he was a guy in a white coat behind us (it was a crowded overlook) while we were eating lunch until the Ranger tried to gently urge him off the trail. I was so surprised I didn't get a picture of him. I did get a picture a little further down the trail of his equally relaxed brother (I'm guessing there) chillin in the grass beside the trail. Very easy going, these Montana Mountain goats seem.
Another thing checked off the life list - visited the Prince of Wales Hotel in beautiful Waterton Lakes National Park. Had a low key day since 80 % of the hiking trails are closed from a wild fire that ran through last summer. Had drinks at the Prince of Wales and toasted a wonderful first leg of the trip - tomorrow we leave Canada (sad face) and head south of the border for Part Deux - the US of A and Yellowstone!
I will likely be posting less often since we won't have cell phone data access as easily (one night of wifi so far in the whole trip - the kids claim they're dying!!!). Whether I still get pics up every now and then is largely in the hands of the National Park System (and whether their visitors Centre have WiFi).
We left the mountains yesterday, under what felt like our first fully clear skies. Holy smokes, it turns out there are a lot of mountains around here. They had each been shrouded in clouds one at a time over the last few weeks, so our drive out of them back into the foothills felt like a revelation. Mountains!? Who knew!
We headed east, towards the dinosaurs!!
We had 2 days in the Badlands planned - hanging out with sandy Hoodoo formations and giant T Rexes in Drumheller. What a wild contrast! We woke up in Banff at 3 degrees, and were literally dripping in 35 degree heat (with the humidity) by 2 in the afternoon!
A very different Canada Day here than I think Ontario is having.
Cold and damp and intermittently drizzly, as it has been for the last 10 days steady. We tried to sit out on a patio for the full Canada Day experience, but gave up trying to keep the kids hands warm by letting them hold our coffees, so went inside and tucked in beside the stone fireplace. We stubbornly went for a bike ride today despite the weather but I wore rain pants, my long johns, a long sleeve shirt, T shirt, my spring coat and then my winter ski jacket on top. By the end of an intensive, technical mountain bike ride the sun came out and we all peeled off a few layers, but I still think we're at rather opposite ends of the weather spectrum today!
We had planned on doing the bike trails around Canmore tomorrow, but the weather report for the morning is calling for 5 degrees and 10mm of rain. The kids are tough, but if I want them to keep following me for the next month of crazy adventures I think I need to learn when to change a plan on the fly, so, as in Rockies ish as it might be, tomorrow we'll be going to the indoor community pool instead. Pick your battles right?
Rob is out for a run, he had to change his route because of a family of wapiti (elk) in the road!
We made it to Banff in time for Canada Day. Hopefully it will be a memorable one!
We biked all over town today; rode over to the famous Bow Falls and Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel, biked through a marshland in town limits and practiced our mad skills at the town bike skills park. Ok, I made a lot of squeaky noises while attempting very small elements of the bike park, but my mad skills are in training.
Tomorrow we will take in the parade on Main St., gift shop till we drop and then when we can't handle the crowds anymore we'll escape to the woods for a bike ride. Sounds like the perfect Canada Day!
