Yellowstone
10:10 - Alec - Chicago, IL
We left Seattle at a leisurely pace on the Saturday morning. We only had a short drive, and everyone wanted to enjoy a good rest. We arrived in Kennewick. It is, according to the Forbes magazine, the #2 area for economic growth in the USA, which was very obvious from the clean new buildings that were around.
The following morning, an important decision had to be made, would we or would we not sleep in our cars for at least one night of the trip as we had promised ourselves. We were all realising it might be more of a hassle than it was worth, until Benji saved the day by saying that he was still quite keen on the idea. We thus booked in at a camp site. With some beautiful roads on route, a stop by a beautiful river, we arrived fairly late, 8pm, and all other fellow campers (average age, somewhat to our surprise, was roughly 70) were busy enjoying one of their dance evenings. This was some sort of a dancing camp site where most guests went there to take part in some weird and slow form of Scottish dancing dressed up in the most ridiculous outfits. We had some odd looks while checking in and felt somewhat unwelcomed by some, probably something to do with ruining the ‘old person vibe'. Anyway, we soon got pointed to our camping spot by following a man on a bicycle. Next stop; Wallmart! We needed to buy some form of equipment and food to cook ourselves supper. Not an easy task, with only a fire pit, we managed to start a fire easily enough, but what could we cook our sausages and burgers on? We had bought some sort of metal tray that melted fairly quickly in the fire. Some resulted to simply putting the sausages on a log. Eventually we had all eaten what enough food along with ash, log, and burnt stuff for pudding. We then proceeded to run around our camping spot with lights which resulted in some cool pictures (look right), although I'm sure our next door campers must have thought we were mad. It must be noted that Michael did manage to set off the ‘panic alarm' of our car at a time when surely most 70 year olds are asleep! We also all spent some time looking up at the beautiful starry sky, where we spotted Jupiter! A deal was struck at the end of the evening, no one would wake anyone up until at the earliest 7pm. Needless to say, Alec and Zihao were ‘mistakenly' awaken an hour before our leave time... in fairness, no one had got a particularly good night's sleep!
We left our campsite very early and arrived much before check in at our following hotel in Big Sky, a beautiful small town up in the mountains. We couldn't check in for some time, so after lunch, we found a peaceful spot by the river to rest. Zihao spent some time building a raft, with the aim of making it float down stream to where Michael was. Unfortunately, to everyone's huge disappointment, the raft never made it! We were finally able to check into our hotel, where comfort was somewhat appreciated having spent a night in the car. We all pottered about minding our own business in the afternoon, whether that was napping, photography, running, or interneting! A highlight though was the large outdoor hot tub!
Leaving Big Sky we made our way to Yellowstone National Park, the first National Park in the world. The scenery was truly beautiful and it was clearly a popular tourist attraction. We were extremely lucky when it came to seeing Old Faithful Geyser. Its water eruptions happen on average every 90 minutes but are not entirely predictable. We managed to arrive only ten minutes before its next eruption. There is a large and beautiful lake whose shore we chose as our spot to have a bit of a late picnic. An important fact was established, Michael cannot skim stones. He claimed to be able to, proceeded to search for ‘the right stone' for ‘a longer than was necessary' amount of time, only to chuck it straight into the water. Excuse: "I was never taught to throw."
With some more good roads, we soon arrived in Billings, where our hotel was equipped with a swimming pool and water slide, something that seemed to be prevalent in the area. We sat down with the TV on, and although we were all hungry and ready for supper, we were soon gripped by a TV show called ‘Dating in the Dark'. For those of you who haven't seen it, you should! Another important fact was discovered that evening, having a Burger King at 10 in the evening is one of the most depressing things a human being can do. Working there is even more so judging by the temperament of our hostess, the most grumpy lady of the trip so far!!
From Billings we had a good drive to Mt Rushmore. The roads were long and straight but in a way very beautiful. We passed the time by getting truck drivers to honk their horns, childish but amusing too. On arrival, Mt Rushmore was somewhat smaller than we might have expected. Although Michael pointed out that given he knew to expect Mt Rushmore to be smaller than expected, it was in fact as expected. Complicated, but I think it makes sense. We also finally found out who the four presidents were, from right, Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, Lincoln. The aim of the monument was to bring tourism in the area, and it certainly worked, we were there! It was also not completed, in fact, much of the bodies of the Presidents were meant to be sculpted, but the project ran out of funds. On arrival in Rapid City, we found an interesting pub/restaurant to have dinner in. It was built in the old fire station of the city.
The following morning, the team, minus Alec who left for England, hit the road for Minneapolis.
