The Payoff

In late September 2021 Kathy and I traveled west ultimately to visit Yellowstone National Park. We traveled for a little over a week ( barely enough time). We visited 9 states, 3 National Parks (actually we entered a fourth one), and 3 national monuments. Here’s a sprinkling:

The Places:

Badlands National Park

We arrived at the Badlands about an hour before sunset. It’s a place where the high ground is eroding into lower ground over time and exposing very interesting rock formations. Sunset is the the best time as the colors change. We made it about 5 miles into the 21 mile loop road before it got dark – we stayed and watched the stars come out. It was wonderful to be away from the city.

Kathy looking out over the Badlands
As the sun set, the colors came out
We saw this guy from one of the trails – he wasn’t afraid of us

Mount Rushmore

After overnighting in Rapid City, South Dakota, it’s only a few miles south through the Black Hills to Mt. Rushmore. Yes this is the obligatory picture that you’ve seen a thousand times. We stayed much longer than planned. It’s sort of a reverent place. Kathy had been there as a kid and said it seemed much bigger then. It’s not huge, but it is amazing. They picked a wonderful place to build it. The rock formation curving around Washington is a geological treasure in itself. You can take a short hike close to the base of the mountain and over to the artist’s cabin and see the scale model. What is nice about the national parks is they have wheelchair accommodations. Kathy could take about half the trail on boardwalks.

Devils Tower, Wyoming

From Mt. Rushmore it was about 150 miles and about 3 hours drive to across the state line to Devils Tower. The road to DT is desolate – no tourist traps, not much of anything. Then you see it from miles out – it’s a 1200 foot high mountain that is unlike any other you’ve seen. It was getting very late in the day, so we didn’t even enter the park, but it was worth stopping by.

Little Big Horn Battlefield

After leaving Devils Tower, we drove about 250 miles in the dark across southeast Montana to Billings. About an hour prior to arriving at our hotel, we passed by the Battlefield where Custer fought the Indians and lost. I went back the next morning for a couple hours while Kathy slept in. It was a very interesting place. I always thought Custer was ambushed – I guess that’s what I heard when I was young. To the contrary the place is wide open and Custer held the hilltop and tried to attack the Indian village of 7,000 inhabitants down this hill and across the Little Big Horn River. He clearly shouldn’t have because the Indians outnumbered him 5 warriors to 1 soldier, and some of the warriors had superior weapons. He quickly was on the run. The stones are set where the soldiers fell – 250 of them across a large hilly landscape.

Custer’s Last Stand Hill
In recent years, they’ve added stones for where the Indians fell as well. There are not nearly as many of the maroon stones – indicating a one-sided victory. They also have built a very nice memorial to the tribes near the last stand hill.

This is where Custer fell, surrounded by the last 50 of his men

Yellowstone

Yellowstone, located almost entirely in Northwest Wyoming, is America’s first and arguably the best national park. It is a huge place and has everything you want to see or do in a park – animal watching, mountain trails, waterfalls, a huge lake, a canyon and of course the geysers. If you haven’t been there, take time to go. Yes the crowds are huge, mostly because the weather is really only good June through September.

We got to see Old Faithful a couple times

In the northeast section of the park is a place called Lamar Valley – it is full of the buffalo herds
They’ve restored some of these old buses that transport people around the park
There are also wolves in the park – I snapped this while driving
Upper falls of the Yellowstone River – they are 150 feet high and deafening
Lower falls of the Yellowstone River – 300 feet high. I’ve been here twice and I think this is the most beautiful spot in all the United States
These type springs are common in the geyser basins – this one is called emerald spring and is 26 feet deep. Looks like you could just jump in and take a hot bath!
This one is called Steamboat geyser – goes off every few minutes – occasionally it spouts hundreds of feet in the air – most of the time it doesn’t
Another fairly large hot spring
The aspen trees were turning bright gold while we were there
There are many beautiful waterfalls in the park.
This is Grand Prismatic Spring – a couple hundred feet across. It was hard to see because of all the sulfury steam coming off it.
The edge of Grand Prismatic has these bright gold colored patches – I think they might be colonies of microscopic creatures
This one goes almost continuously
This one is pretty close to Old Faithful and is called the Star Spring
Boulder Colorado
On the way home, we stopped in Boulder to see Lindsey. She showed us her motorcycle that she’s learning to ride in the mountains (nicer than any of my motorcycles). We went for a hike in this park near town, but it was a steep hike and Kathy’s electric wheelchair was struggling. We went to dinner in town and went for another walk with her dog Raven.
Raven’s foot was injured, so Lindsey didn’t want me to play fetch with her, which is her favorite thing to do. While out walking, she brought me this stick, trying to get me to play.
The Route
We left Indiana via I-74 through Bloomington, Peoria and Moline Illinois. Drove up to Iowa and across I-80 to Omaha, North on I-35 to Souix Falls, South Dakota and across South Dakota on I-90, stopping at Badlands National Park, then Mt. Rushmore, then exited I-90 when we entered Wyoming to see Devils Tower. We drove some long straight 2 lanes over to Billings Montana late at night, passing Little Big Horn Battlefield – which I backtracked to during the day to visit.
We then traveled south from Billings over a steep mountain pass to enter the northeast entrance of Yellowstone National Park. We stayed a couple nights in West Yellowstone and traveled all around the park, and made a side trip to Idaho (we both had that on our check off list of states visited).
We exited Yellowstone through Grand Teton National Park, and crossed the state of Wyoming diagonally in the mountains at night on two lanes – wide eyed trying not to run into numerous elk all over the roads. We stopped in Cheyenne Wyoming then traveled down to Boulder Colorado to visit our daughter Lindsey. Actually we tried to make a side-trip to Rocky Mountain National Park, but were turned away because we didn’t have a reservation. We officially did make it inside the park – about 200 feet to the turnaround.
After spending a nice afternoon with Lindsey, we prepped for the 1150 mile trip home – Interstate 76 northeast from Boulder to I-80 east across Nebraska and back home as we came via I-80 and I-74.
The entire trip was 3,950 miles. We got 18.6 mpg in the Chrysler handicap van – not too bad for driving 80+ mph on the interstate and probably half the miles in mountains or high altitude. I beat the poor Chrysler minivan like a rental – harder than any drive I can remember. The engine and transmission screamed and struggled on every mountain road, the brakes were scary, and I felt sure it was going to blow up and leave us stranded, but it never quit. No flats, no big issues. I had changed the oil prior to the trip and added 1 quart along the way, but that may have just been from not being able to see the level properly when the oil was new. We had a trim piece come loose and I pulled it off while driving in a high cross-wind in Nebraska on the way home. It will glue back on.