5 States in 6 Days

June 13, 2007

Hey everyone....Stay posted for the next upcoming blog on our trip to Yellowstone National Park. We had a great time and have lots of pictures to share from our exciting trip!!

Well the trip started with us driving from Minot to Chico Hot Springs, Montana which is about 20km north of the Northwest Yellowstone Exit....we stayed there for one night and enjoyed the hot springs and old rustic lodging.

On day two of our trip we entered the park and our first stop was near Mammoth. It was pretty chilly and snow flurries were coming down but we saw some cool things and geysers. We then ventured south towards Old Faithful....along the way we saw a ton of wildlife..coming across elk, buffalo, moose, a golden eagle and even a Grizzly bear. Old faithful was neat but it was snowing and raining pretty bad so we didn't really get the full effect...but we carried on anyways and kept pushing south towards the Tetons. Once we got out of the park we were pretty tuckered out and decided to stay in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It was an incredible town and reminded me of Banff. We walked around the downtown region for a good hour checking out all the shops. We decided we wanted to eat but everything was a little pricey for our liking. The "Cowboy Bar" which is famous had steaks starting at about 50 bucks....so we ended up at a sports bar instead...

The next morning we were off to Lava Hot Springs, Idaho to see what they had in store. The hot springs were extremely hot...keeping a temp of over 115 degrees...but they were nice and Jess and I were both happy we made the trip to see them. On our way back we stopped along side the highway and took a short walking trail down to the Yellowstone river. It was pretty neat and we watched some rafters go by and some extreme sports junkies trying to ride some of the huge rapids. In search of a hotel on our 3rd night we decided we wanted to stay at Old Faithful but the Old Faithful Inn was completely booked. So we landed in West Yellowstone, Montana at a Kelly Inn. We went out in search of a good supper and landed at a nice little pub/brewery that had great beer and pizza. With our bellies full of beer and pizza we retired to the hotel for the night.

On day 4 we moved east and made our way around to Yellowstone's East Side. We saw some cool mud pots and it was also the day we spotted the Grizzly Bear along the highway.

From there our trek took us clear across Wyoming on route to Rapid City, South Dakota. Our trip across Wyoming was quite interesting. As we came down the mountain the brakes seemed to jolt extremely bad. We rolled into a rest stop literally to find our brakes smoking. Since we were still on the mountain we both had some concerns to if we were gonna make it out alive. So with no cell phone reception we decided to make our way down the rest of the mountain at record low speeds......Once down we both decided that we were probably ok to keep going on the Interstate...we were right and ended up in Rapid City by nightfall.

Rapid City is a very cool place. We started off our day by going to the Reptile Gardens. We saw a cool snake and alligator show and got to see a Bald Eagle. From there we moved along to see Mt. Rushmore. Mt. Rushmore is just outside of a old wild west town called Keystone. We also saw a cool cave and the sights of Keystone.

Our last day we stopped in Deadwood and did some early morning gambling and went through the famous Sturgis, South Dakota on our way back to Minot!!

Hope you all enjoy the pictures