Thursday, July 22, 2010

Got Antlers?






(Lisa) We set our alarm for 6:30, got up, packed up the camper and got on the road about 8:15 a.m. under a cloudy sky. As we drove away from the Tetons we said our goodbyes…we will miss them. We headed toward Dubois and ended up in a construction zone for an hour trying to get over a pass that the Wyoming Transporation Department decided to destroy! It was a mess and now the camper is caked with mud that is on there like cement! We took the scenic route through Wyoming. This is such a pretty state with canyons, buttes, giant boulders and along the highway there are signs pointing to cliffs telling the driver how old they are. For example there was a sign that said JURASSIC 270 million years old. There was even one area that said the rocks were 3 billion years old. It was crazy. We are posting some different areas of Wyoming in photos.

We ate tuna sandwiches in the car while driving since we lost so much time with construction stuff. We did enjoy this drive b/c we had never been in this part of the country. Winding along near TenSleep (that’s the name of the town where the population was 304 and Paul said “I guess there are 294 awake!”- so funny) anyways….we come around a bend and there are about 4 cars stopped and people looking toward a stream and some woods and I’m looking….and I yell to Paul “It’s a moose with antlers, it’s a moose with antlers!” I know-can you believe it??? So we pulled over and ran to the area and took pictures of this moose that was pretty young b/c his antlers were fuzzy and not that big. He was about 100 yards away and sooo pretty! How exciting was that? Wow.

OK, OK, so moving along, we finally get to Devil’s Tower about 5:15 p.m. It was our nation’s first national monument. Kinda cool. It was stunning. Remember Close Encounters of the Third Kind from like 1980? This is the big rock that all the people were drawn to. We parked and walked up to it and snapped some photos. We didn’t feel like we had enough time to hike around so we stayed there about 30 minutes or so. It was very interesting and I would have liked to spend more time.

Drove on through Sturgis South Dakota and then ate some dinner at 8:00 at Chili’s here in Rapid City SD. We are at the Fairfield Inn for the night. Tomorrow onto Mt. Rushmore.

(Paul) 12 hours behind the wheel. The numbness is taking over again. Going through the Big Horn mountain range had my engine smoking on the ascent and brakes smoking on the decent (very slow group of bikers in front of us and I’m hitched to a load of downhill momentum). My truck and camper are coated in concrete-like mud, tar, locusts, pine sap, pollen, skunk juice, possum parts and corn husks. How cool.

Fueled up at the Flying-J because one of my cost-conscious co-workers swears by it. The gas hose had grease all over it and ruined my shorts and Lisa gave a wrinkle-faced thumbs down to the ladies room. Suffice it to say we’ll spend the extra nickel per gallon for a more respectable establishment.

There’s a special surprise we hope to post tomorrow. It will be awesome.

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