Well we when I last posted I mentioned we would be heading to Devil's Tower and the mighty Yellowstone; they were both awesome. We were able to leave directly from Deadwood instead of Rapid City as first planned.
Why Rapid City you ask? This goes back to the beginning of the whole trip planning for my Dad and his group. Back in January he asked me to reserve him an RV for him and his buddies (sleeping 6); so I arranged for a huge 39ft 2007 full package. He was pleased with my planning other than I was to pick it up on Monday instead of Saturday..Oops. Well I got them hotel rooms for those first two days and the then picked up the RV on Monday. Well let's just say they (he) did not realize the extras necessary to enjoy an RV, i.e. food, drinks and the social skills to cope with RV life. My Dad never stayed in the RV, he immediately got a hotel room in Sturgis. His buddies stayed Mon-Wed and then could not take it any longer. It did not help the satellite service was out. Long story short…I was able to take the RV back Thursday morning and Pop has learned a $2000 lesson about RVs.
…Back the road: Tracey (and I) was really stoked to see Devil's Tower, mainly because of Richard Dreyfus and his sculpture work in Close Encounters (he did not do it justice). When we rolled up to the park's entrance I could not help myself from asking if the "Devil was here?" The Ranger did not have an answer for me (he was not there, quite the opposite). What an awesome sight, almost surreal. Legend says it was created by a giant bear that chased small Indian girls up a hill and magically grew out of the ground to save them. The deep vertical ridges around the sides were created by the bear's claws as he tried to climb it.
By the time we were done it was apparent that we would not make it all the way to Yellowstone, so lodging was going to be needed at some point in Wyoming. We drove across one of the widest states with a goal of Cody, WY. I did not have cell phone service, which would also eliminate in internet, so we were blind until we got there. We did stop for a bite to eat in a town called Ten Sleep. To our surprise we were treated to one of the best freshly made Mojitos. It was great; the bartender muddled her fresh fixins (the mint was picked from across the street at the church). Very delicious.
We arrived in Cody around 8pm…Allow me to digress for a moment: The sun in this part of the country does not set fully until almost 10pm. You would think this would be cool, but it's not. It messes with your head and does not explain the need for daylight savings time or even time zones for that matter…Anyways we get into Cody and NEED a place to shower and sleep after a hefty 10+ hour day of driving. The town was sold out! Keep in mind there are only 450,000 people in the whole state of Wyoming and the all were in Cody this evening. Not a single hotel, motel or B & B available. We were able to locate a room in Powell, WY which is 20 miles out of our direction towards Yellowstone. The hotel was called "Best Choice"…it was not; more suitable name would be "Very Last Choice". The rooms reeked, the beds were small lumpy and had hairs on the sheets in the tub. YUCK! We got extra bed sheets and Lysol from the store. Tracey did not want to sleep in this room, neither did I but I was not going to sleep in the Tahoe. We realized we needed to force sleep upon ourselves, quickest path was a number of stiff drinks. Morning came not a moment too soon and we were off to Yellowstone. We ate the original Irma Hotel built by the one and only Bill Cody (in Cody..Go figure). Good breakfast and beautiful original Cherry wood bar…Drive On!
Yellowstone, well there is a reason it's a National Park, it's unbelievably beautiful! That' all I got to say about that.
Really, it is nice. We originally were going to stay in the Old Faithful Inn, but we changed the date and lost our room at the Inn. They had a quaint little cabin outside the Inn next to Old Faithful for real cheap, but it did not have a private bathroom or shower (they were built in the 20s and apparently didn't need those luxuries back then. Remember that we had just spent a night in the worst hotel ever and needed a hot disinfecting shower along with a good bed, the cute cabin was out and I was in hot pursuit for a better room. Let us not forget that this is Saturday the beginning of summer and that everyone wants to enjoy Yellowstone too. I managed to get us a room at the historic Lake Hotel located believe it or not on Lake Yellowstone. Very old, classy and similar to the hotel in the Shining, creepy. We toured the park and saw mud holes and bears, did a little (very little) hiking, had lunch and then were able to check into our room around 3 or 4. Little secret about hotel rooms at Yellowstone: No frickin TV, internet or cell phone service (damn Sierra Club)! So we napped.
I will say that our dinner was amazing, a little late (9:30), but at least we saw the sun set during dinner. I am not kidding; the sun did not disappear until 10pm.
The next day we checked out and drove down the road to watch Old Faithful blow. We arrived just before and only had to wait 15 min or so. Very interesting display of nature, glad I saw it. Everyone needs to visit Yellowstone, do it for a longer period of time then we did, it has so much to see and offer and I regret not being able to see more, but I must be back for work by Wednesday morning and we have a whole bunch of driving to do and recovery before then.
I will post this for now and hope to do a final synapse of our experience later. I just realized that maybe I am reporting our adventures for the benefit of my own ego and that no one may be following these updates, oh well I enjoy recalling the memories.
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