The 11-Hour Tour-Saturday

We drove through Yellowstone yesterday on out way to the trusty KOA, and thought we had seen it all. Little did we know that we barely scratched the surface of what Yellowstone has to offer. Neither of us really knew much about the park, so we decided to take a guided tour to really learn about it. THe tour started promptly at 8 in the morning, and ended a short eleven hours later. Our tour guide was a modern day mountain man named Richard. He lives, breaths, and eats for the park-- basically he is obsessed with it ( mostly in a good way). About 5 miles into the park we saw a Bald Eagle's nest with Junior (the eagle) in it!!! We learned that it takes them months to make their nests, but they lasts years. Next, we learned about the amazing thermal features of the park. They include hot springs, geysers, mud pots (which look like something from Willy Wonka), and steam boats. We quickly learned how passionate Richard was about the park when we witnessed a foreign family peering into a hot spring. Here's a quick history lesson: the thermal areas are very dangerous to be around, the ground is very thin. At any moment they could collapse underneath you, and you would basically be boiled to death. So, back to the story. Richard was very angry that this family was not following the rules by staying off the thermal areas, so he took matters into his own hands and yelled "do you want to die? If so, I'll talk your picture for you..." The family eventually left the thermal area, but not quietly. They proceeded to get into a large fighting match with our guide. The family, who was Indian, would not back down, and neither would Richard. The fight ended by Richard saying: "Go back to India and eat some curry, I'm having a steak tonight." Katie's favorite feature of the park were the amazing rivers, streams, and waterfalls. Lauran found a new love for botany, and is enjoying identifying the wildflowers. Needless to say we both adore the park, and are ditching our careers as nurses and will become hydrologist and a botanist. Wish us luck...

Sunday July 13th

We can't believe that we left a week ago today and a week from today we will be in California. We are about half way through our journey. Today was a great day. The first day since we have been in Yellowstone that we were on our own agenda. We slept in, and we really did sleep, thanks to the long underwear Katie purchased. It was warmer last night not quite the 22 it was the night before. After sleeping in we ate a nice Trio bar breakfast we ventured into Yellowstone for our third day in a row. We headed up to the northern loop today. After yesterday we thought we had seen it all, but in fact we were in for a bigger surprise. We drove up and saw more hot springs (Mammoth springs) more waterfalls, and even more wild life. Our big plan today was to go on our hike. We had bought a brochure on the different paths and had decided on which one we would go on. So we drove the 50 miles to the Roosevelt lodge where the trail started. On the way to the trailhead we took a detour and took a side gravel road that went along the hillsides and we came upon a traffic jam. We both got out of the car and to our surprise there was a grizzly bear that everyone was photographing. SO we joined the crowds and got some good photos of the bear, at a safe distance. After hitting a few potholes and killing several butterflies on our drive down the gravel road we made it back the paved main road and headed back up to the trailhead. We packed up on backpack with our first aid kit, plenty of water, benadryl, nuts, and other essentials and we were on our way. We happen to stop a gentleman who was working at an information booth and ask him about the trail, and he told us of a different way to take to see a waterfall so we took his advice and started heading up that way, as he yells out and make sure to watch out for the bears, we have spotted several in the area today. Well about half way up the trail our common sense kicked in and we asked ourselves what would we do if we saw a bear??? Granted we had read our share of what to do in that situation. For future reference you are suppose to lay down face down with your hands behind your head and your legs spread out and stay still. Well fortunately we did not have to try this out because we realized again we don't have health insurance. So after all of our preparations, we got a few shots of the waterfall and came back down the hill and decided to hike through the gift shop instead.
After our hiking experience Lauran as tired, so Katie offered to take over driving. Once we got back on the road to head back to our campsite we noticed there were beautiful snow capped mountains in the distance that we were both in awe of. About 15 miles later we were in awe again when we were IN THE SNOW CAPPED MOUNTAINS. We were driving again.... TBD we just got KICKed out of the kitchen area.

Would you rather be bitten by a horse fly or a grizzly bear?

Nothing like waking up at 4:30am for an early start to our 10 hour journey. When Lauran's alarm to Leona Lewis's Bleeding Love went off at we were both up and ready to go. We started the morning off laughing and not too long after we were cursing. While getting ready in the community bathroom we were each bitten numerous times by the ravenous horse flies native to the badlands. Shortly after leaving the KOA we had a discussion about whether or not we would rather be bitten by a horse fly or a grizzly bear and we both agreed on the bear.
We got to see the sun rising over the badlands and we traveled through most of the state of Wyoming. Some of the notable cities we passed through were Sturgis, Sundance, Gilette, and Cody. We got an oil change at Wal-Mart at 8am 3 hours into our journey. We were excited because the walmart had a grocery store and an EXPRESS oil change place all in one. Well, express in Wyoming doesn't mean the same thing as the Jiffy Lube at the top of Swan Ave. We gathered a few essentials at Walmart enjoyed a delicious mcdonalds breakfast, and got a car wash all in one stop.
Now for the most beautiful part of our journey so far. After 9 hours in the car we made it to Yellowstone (the first national park in the united states). Right before the park entrance is Buffalo Bill Dam, which was an enormous dam hidden in a beautiful landscape of a lake and snow capped mountains in the backdrop. Katie wanted to jump in, but Lauran quickly reminded her that she did not have health insurance at the time, so Katie thought better of it.
After entering the park gates we experienced everything from snow capped mountains, to waterfalls, grasslands, bison grazing, crystal clear lakes, roaming elk, hot springs, and mud volcanoes that smelled of sulfur. Our highlight of this part of the trip was witnessing a foreign couple driving as close as they could to a bison when we had just received a pamphlet from the park ranger on how to stay away from the bison as they are wild and over 300 people a year get charged by the bison. Instead of learning chineese to try and communicate with the, we video taped them driving closer instead. Fortunately for them the bison was quite comfortable in his position and didn't charge them.
We made it to our campsite. This is the first night camping in our tent (provided by the Miklosey family). We got here about 7pm and had the tent up by 8pm. We started another fire and roasted our new favorite turkey dogs and we made some guacamole too. It is quite the temperature change here. Right now we can't feel our fingers and our fire is dying down. So we will have to update you more later. Say prayers that we will be thawed by morning.......

Badlands

We arrived at the Badlands/White River KOA last night around 7pm. We arrived in our nice cozy cabin that Katie's Aunt Christy arranged for us to have since she knew it would be really hot. We hit the ground running once we got here. After parking the car we went back to the visitor center and rented a pair of recumbent bikes. We rode around the campsite and got the lay of the land. After a few turns tipping over and a few near misses with moving vehicles we returned the bikes. We then started a campfire with wood that we bought at the visitor center and some fire starters that Katie brought. I would say our fire was average compared to the other experienced campers around us. We made some Jiffy Pop and sat at our picnic table and enjoyed the nice cool weather.
The cabin has one double bed and a bunk bed. Katie called dibs on top bunk and Lauran slept on the double bed. We were sleeping well until both of us heard a mysterious noise that woke us up in the middle of the night. After speculating what we thought it was for a few moments, we both went back to sleep and woke up alive, so it couldn't have been anything too harmful.
We woke up this morning and had a nice shower in the community showers with our shower totes and shoes in hand. It reminded us of college dorm living plus bugs. We made the most of our morning shower by singing O Susanna in the shower. I'm sure the woman next to us really enjoyed it.
Our big adventure for the day was horseback riding. We found this little ranch not to far from our campsite that has horseback riding through the badlands. It was a nice ride! We were the only ones on the ride along with the wrangler. Our horses were named Buddy and George. Neither of our horses liked going up or down hills and towards the end of the ride Lauran's horse had to be lead by the wrangler because he was too busy eating all the wild flowers. Aside from the few minor mishaps, the ride was beautiful. We really appreciated the hot sweltering sun beating down on our backs mixed with the horse's smelly and frequent GI upsets ( to put it nicely).
We went for a swim at the campsite to cool off and had some nice peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch. Now we are taking a rest from the hot summer sun. Its about 100 degrees here today. Mom's dont worry we applied our sunscreen and are drinking lots of water.

We visited the Badland National Park in the evening due to temperature constrictions. On the drive to the park, we saw our first Buffalo of the trip. It almost looked fake because it was sooo still! It was totally tubular. We first joined Ranger Riley on a prairie walk. He was able to tell us which grasses were native to the land, and also which grasses were edible. We personally did not floss our teeth with the grass like many others on the walk due to the recent outbreak of the prairie dog plague. After the educational walk we ventured onto the trails where we met our first friends!! A 50 year old couple from Quebec who insisted on posing for landscape shots with their shitzu dogs. They are also headed to the sunny SD, and we have planned to have them over for dinner at our apartment when we arrive for an all American pork and bean dinner. We finished the night by cooking hot dogs by fire, and we must say they were the best hot dogs ever created! If travel nursing doesn't work out, we have devised a business plan DDHD (dumb and dumber hot dogs). Our Canadian friends have already agreed to back us financially. We made it an early in night in anticipation of rising at 430 in the morning


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Sioux Falls to Mount Rushmore

We started our journey at 9am on Tuesday, and ended it at about 6pm (it should have only taken us 6 hours). On our agenda were a couple of places friends had recommended such as: The Corn Palace and Wall Drug. The Corn Palace is located in Mitchell, SD and is entirely made from corn. It serves as the local arena for sporting events, and also as a haven for hungry birds around the world. We also learned at the Corn Palace that a peace pipe is more correctly called a "pipe of peace." Hmmm... We decided that we wanted to be a bit more adventurous, and stay off the beaten path by not taking the only major highway that runs through South Dakota. That lasted only 50 miles because the stupid road was closed, and we had to backtrack (the scenery was beautiful, though). Our second stop was in Wall, S.D. where the infamous Wall Drug is located. It was a never ending drug store with 5 cent coffee. Katie was also able to ride a jack rabbit with antlers here free of charge. Our final destination for the day was Hill City, SD (about 3 miles from Mt. Rushmore), where Lauran's cousin, Lisa, lives. We enjoyed a lovely German dinner in town, and then saw Mt. Rushmore at night. It was gorgeous!! We enjoyed a good night's rest in a real bed, and went back to Mt. Rushmore in the daylight. We enjoyed the scenic trails of the Black Hills, and were amazed by the wildlife. After an early dinner, we headed to our next destination, the Badlands...

Day 1and 2

Well.. The journey begins. Stick with us on this blog thing because this will be the first time either of us have used anything like this.

Sunday July 6th:
Day 1: After squeezing all of our worldly possesions into Katie's mazda 3 trunk and back seat, we were on schedule. (special thanks to Sam, Lauran's sister, for helping us pack the car) We left St. Charles, Mo at our planned time of departure at 2:00pm on the dot. We took note of the odometer and off we went. We were about half way to our destination for the night (Kansas City) when we hit our first road block (traffic). There was a horrible accident on highway 70 in Kingdom City and the traffic was at stand still. After inching along for a half hour, we decided after much planning and debating, that we would take our first adventure and follow the rest of the cars, and take the off road route and take a quick right through the ditch to get us to the side road. IF this wasn't bad enough, we then went about 30 miles on the side road, until we hit another road block and we were forced yet again to follow the other cars (huge SUVs and Jeeps) and slowly enter back onto the highway on the nicely paved strip of grass. After the slight off roading adventure the rest of drive to KC was uneventful. We made it to KC and stayed with our friend Bryan and his roommates. Bryan grilled us a delicious dinner and we watched the movie Semi Pro.

Day 2: Monday July 7

We left Kansas City by 8am. Thanks to Bryan for leading us to the highway that would get us back on our journey. We stopped at MiMi's Cafe just outside the city for a nice breakfast. A restaurant we both enjoy back home. We stopped and played Frisbee at a rest stop and made friends with a nice grandpa from Tennessee. We then stopped in Sioux City Iowa at Martial for some necessities that we forgot (keep in mind we left home yesterday). We then forged on to our final destination of Sioux Falls. On the way to Sioux Falls we saw a sign for the Corn Palace, but we didn't see what exit. So Katie's instincts told her to get off at the next exit. So we asked the gas station attendant where the Corn Palace was from this exit (thinking we had already missed the exit) the lady politely said "ma'am its about two and half hours north here" and then Katie graciously thanked her and we went on our way. We arrived in Sioux Falls and met Katie's mom at our hotel. ( Katie's mom happened to be on a business trip this week in Sioux Falls) We went to dinner at HyVee (a grocery store) and then headed over to see the famous Sioux Falls. The Falls were beautiful and while we were there we learned a lot about native americans from Katie's mom. We also stayed for the SPECTACULAR laser light presentation that started at sun down. Lets just say the presentation started off with O Danny Boy, don't get us wrong we felt right at home and we love the song, but we are in SOUTH DAKOTA not Dublin. We enjoyed the presentation about Chief Black Buffalo and Sacagewa (sack-og-a-wee-ah) in pink and blue on the side of a building, but we decided we could only take it for about 10 of the 40 minutes. We concluded the night with a nice frost bitten dilly bar from the Dairy Queen (0.4 miles from the hotel) that took us 30 minutes to find thanks to the POI function of Betsy's GPS.

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Katie & Lauran's Going Away Party!

Thanks for coming to our party! We will miss you all!

Take a moment to leave us a comment on this post.
We'd love to see a nice 'good luck' note or some advice for our journey.

LOVE - KATIE AND LAURAN