Monday, May 14, 2007

May 14th, 2007 (Arrive in Yellowstone!)


Today was yet another day on the road! Leaving Rapid City, SD early in the morning, Shane was yet again driving to start out the day (is anyone noticing a trend here??). He drove for a good amount of the day and I began driving once we hit Montana.

We stopped at a really crazy rest stop today. It was literally a store in the middle of nowhere with old fashioned gas pumps and it was also a motel and RV park. Totally crazy. This was somewhere in Wyoming and it started to turn really cold. While yesterday was really hot, today was in the 60's and it turned colder the more we got into the mountains.

It was awesome today witnessing real ranch cowboys herding their cattle from horseback, cattle blocking the roads, pronghorn antelope all over the place, and (I especially like this one) the exits off of the highway that are just dirt roads with cattle grates so that the cattle won't run onto Interstate 90.

We finally arrived at the exit off of I-90 and turned south on 89 which took us all the way into the happening town of Gardiner, Montana. It's a small town that you can tell was really meant for tourists. Checked into a Best Western on the outskirts of town, found out where I'm supposed to check in tomorrow, and then headed into the park (got Shane and I in free because I'm a Xanterra employee). We stopped at Mammoth Hot Springs and took some pictures and then proceeded to drive into the park some more.

We got out and saw some elk, some bison, and some guy saw a grizzly bear but we didn't see that one. Got some great pictures and we even got to throw snowballs! The mountains still have a lot of snow and it's really cold out.

Right now it's about 10 pm (mountain time) and is probably in the low 40's or maybe even the 30's. Who knows!

We ate dinner at a really nice restaurant in Gardiner called the Yellowstone Mine. Had some good chicken and fish and then just came back here to crash. It's been a long 3 days of driving, but finally the real adventure begins in the park. It's gonna be up early for us tomorrow, checking in, driving to Old Faithful and unloading all my gear. Shane might head into Idaho for the day and I'm going to do whatever I need to do for Xanterra tomorrow.

1 comment:

louise cincala said...

everything sounds awesome. i am so jealous of you! i know you are having a hard time with the thought of being away from home, but you'll do just fine cory :)

hang in there, stay strong, and let yourself be used whatever way God has in mind.