Wyoming

At 4pm we arrived at Devil’s Tower. The tower is visible from the horizon. You need to register to climb it so we took a hike around it and Jake went up as far as they let him. On the way back, we saw two doe with two fawns. We also stopped to watch the prairie dogs which were endlessly entertaining.

Since it was already late, we spent the night in Gillette. Our dialups didn’t have a local number but the hotel had a business room where you could use their computer. We wanted to download the linksys drivers for the wireless to my laptop so we grabbed the crossover ethernet cable in the car and stuck it in their computer and, ta-da, it could see my laptop. There had to be some advantages to carrying all the computer equipment around.

The drive to Yellowstone was pretty but long. It took us 5 hours to arrive at the east gate. By the time we saw the lake, went down to the Grand Teton Park and back, it was already 8pm so we decided to spend the night at the park. The camp ground was really pretty but had no water and only pit toilets. We set our phone to alarm at 5am and watched the rest of our movie on my portable DVD player. We had to watch it inside because the mosquitoes were swarming us.

The Grand Tetons were amazing but obviously need to be hiked because the road didn’t get too near them so that was a bit of a disappointment. Yellowstone proved otherwise. The night we arrived, we didn’t get to see much as it was already late and the speed limit in the huge park varies between 35 and 45. We did see elk and a bear and we drove south bu that was mainly it for the day. We camped for the night and decided to get an early start. At 5:30am we got on the road and saw Old Faithful, the geyser. It erupted 20 minutes or so after we got there. We watched it wrapped around my blanket cause it was still freezing out. We stopped at the many geyser basins, we hiked to the lower falls, saw the mammoth hot springs and finally, 6.5 hours later, we left.

Lodging: Hotel in Gillette@68 & Lewis Lake Camp in Yellowstone@10

Car’s Mileage: 13,029

Gas: $14.21@1.61 & $9.99@1.62

Roads: 90-14 to Devil’s Tower, 90-14 to Yellowstone, 191 to Grand Teton, 89 to Montana

Sites: Devil’s Tower, Bighorn Mountains, Yellowstone Nat. Park, Grand Teton Nat. Park