Well. . . where to start?
It’s been longer and longer between these posts. There are a few reasons for that, but really the only good excuse I have is that we were driving from Dubois, WY to Detroit, MI over the last few days and I was just too tired to spend the time on a post. But, I will try to catch you up now.
We spent 3 full days in Yellowstone. It was amazing and each day was a new adventure. Considering that the park is the size of Rhode Island, I’m sure you understand that there is a lot of ground to cover. Every day was beautiful and we really enjoyed the “traffic jams”. It’s funny because there was actually a few times when all the traffic would stop. The difference between the Yellowstone traffic jam and ones in Miami is that no one complains about the ones in Yellowstone. The traffic is stopped because there is something amazing to see, like Buffalo, deer, or bears, on the side of the road. No one honks, no one is upset, everyone is happy that the traffic is stopped because it means something exciting and beautiful.
My favorite part of the park was either (1) watching a large (200-ish pound) wolf eat a dead bison, or (2) cooking some sausages on our last day. Both were wonderful experiences and we enjoyed them greatly. A quick thank you as well to the park ranger who stopped by while we were grilling. It was nice to get the official ok from the ranger. After that, the day was perfect.
Grand Teton was nice, but it’s really hard to compete with Yellowstone. We went to Jenny Lake because the lake shares a name with our car. It’s a beautiful lake, but the day was very grey, so we didn’t quite get to enjoy it as much as we would have liked. It started raining as we were 1/2 way around the lake on a hike, so we took the water taxi back to our car. By the time we got back to the car we were soaked, so it was time to call it a day. Beautiful park, but I don’t think anything can really match Yellowstone. Sorry Grand Teton!
After that, we headed east. We saw lots of deer beside the road for the first day, eventually this was replaced with basic farmland without the deer. We were happy to see the deer (probably over 300 total in groups of 3-30) and sad when they were no longer visible.
Detroit is where a good friend of Vale’s has lived for a few years. Her and her husband (both Italian, relocated to work with Auto Manufacturers) have lived here for a while and they had talked a few times about meeting up while we were in the US. This is the perfect opportunity, so we made sure to add Detroit to the itinerary for this trip.
And, that’s it. We will leave here tomorrow and head to Nashville, TN. I think Vale wants to “reveal” the specific destination, so all I will say is, “Yee-HAW!”.
Ciao for now.
Edit – okay, that’s what I get for waiting so long to write this. I completely forgot to mention both Sturgis and Mount Rushmore. Not the first time I’ve forgotten to mention something in the blog, but you would think I would remember those places! Or maybe not because we visited both in a single day while driving over 10 hours that day. Whoopee!
Sturgis was a cool little town. No motorcycle convention happening, so we went to the Motorcycle Museum, got a few pictures around town, and kept going.
At Mount Rushmore I got upset at the fact that you have to pay for parking to get the best pictures of the Monument. Come on, this is a National Park and a US Monument! It belongs to the people! They really shouldn’t have this crazy business of paying for parking. So (because I was upset) we didn’t pay and instead took some pictures from slightly farther away in the free areas. If I had to do it all over again, I might pay the $10 (it’s not about the money) but I sure would not smile when handing over the money. That will show them! No smile for you!
Okay, now the update is complete. Smiles for everyone!
Ciao a tutti.