After being stressed past the point of caring, we started our trip on July 3rd. It would be a long 3-day drive to Yellowstone. We had prepped the kids by telling them how long we'd be in the car. Seriously, we'd gone over it many, many times. And so 20 minutes into our drive, when we were not yet out of the Greater Cincinnati area, Elijah said, "Are we almost at Yellowstone?"
A few hours into the trip we instituted a new rule: You can't ask if we're almost there until Sunday. To which Elijah replied, "Is it almost Sunday?"
The most eventful thing that happened on our first day was Rob asking how far we'd gone and me looking at the odometer to see it read: 444.4 What are the chances, right? ... Clearly it was a boring day.
The evening was eventful in a stressful way. We wandered around North Omaha until we found a place to stop. Rob said he was good to drive for another hour or so, but I was Done. Mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausted. So it was not a pleasant last 45 minutes in the car, as we wandered around and I wanted to cry.
It all worked out, though. The hotel we found not only had a great breakfast the next morning, it also had a fun "shark tank" in the upstairs restaurant. And we got to see Omaha. And that's a treat by itself.
A random, unimportant story:
We stopped at Wal-Mart the next morning to get ice, stuff like that. We met a rather chatty man who happened to have Cincinnati roots. He talked about his grandparents who'd moved there from Kentucky and made a nice life in Cincinnati. It sounded very much like my own grandparents' story. So it was fun to make a connection with a stranger in Omaha.
Day 2 - In the Car
Day 2 was spent almost exclusively in South Dakota. SO long. We passed the state line near the end of the day and Miciah cheered.
South Dakota, however, is GORGEOUS. I could understand why settlers stopped there. Beautiful meadows with gently rolling hills. Wow.
The Corn Palace
Gorgeous to me was boring to the kids. There's so little in South Dakota other than I-90 and the businesses that cater to travellers along I-90. Rob remembers travelling along I-90 as a kid and they stopped at the Corn Palace. This is a big memory for him, so we decided to let it be a memory for our kids, too.
We told the kids we were stopping and Teancom starting shouting about it. "Corrrn PALACE!" And then "Corn Palace! Corn Palace! Corn Palace!" with his index finger bobbing up and down in the air. Because there's nothing else to do in South Dakota. He would have shouted, "Rest area! Rest area! Rest area!" if that's where we were stopping.
The Corn Palace is a tourist trap with very few redeeming qualities. But they do have corn murals, and that's kinda cool. Sort of. Despite being uber-lame, we parked the car and Elijah said, "I love Corn Palaces." Note, we hadn't ever before seen a single Corn Palace. And, by the way, there's only 1 in the world.
The Badlands
Further down the road, we started debating whether the Badlands were in South Dakota or North Dakota. Rob said he thought they were in Southern Utah. No way. They are, of course, in South Dakota (or I wouldn't be writing this segment). I've always wanted to see them, and driving across the rolling plains made me want to see them even more. I mean, seriously: it's rolling plains as far as the eye can see and then Wham! the Badlands. The Badlands are also only inches away from I-90, so I couldn't pass up the opportunity.
We took an hour detour (got us back to a point on I-90, 20 miles down the road) and got to see a bunch of overlooks that were AWESOME!! I loved it. And it broke up the monotony of South Dakota which was an added bonus.
We spent the night in Wyoming, about 5 hours from the Yellowstone entrance.
Day 3 - Enter Yellowstone
We entered Yellowstone at the Northeast Entrance, which was GORGEOUS. All of the entrances are gorgeous because Yellowstone is gorgeous, but the Northeast Entrance via the Chief Joseph Memorial Scenic Route (or something like that) was amazing. All this red rock and wild mountains. We loved it.
By early afternoon we were at our headquarters in Yellowstone: Canyon campground. We got to see most of the family that day. Set up camp. Ate dinner. Played around. ... After 3 days in the car (13 hours, 14 hours, and 8 hours) we were all jittery and ready to MOVE!
Miciah and Dea were clearly excited to see each other:
On the way to Canyon we saw a bunch of wildlife. Bald eagles, bison, deer, pronghorns (no pictures, sorry). Yellowstone is amazing. Pristine and ancient.
The first day gave us two excellent opportunities to (safely) remind Elijah about the (crazy) rules we had regarding behavior in Yellowstone.
Opportunity #1:
Elijah wandered off at the campsite. We couldn't find him, despite several people yelling his name and hunting for him. Turns out he'd heard us, he just didn't see a reason to come back. When Rob tried to reason with him, telling him he could get lost, he said, "I know where I was." He didn't run off again, probably owing to:
Opportunity #2:
At our cabins (brief explanation about the cabins: Rob and I camped, but lots of our family rented cabins. Our home base was the cabins, which worked out marvelously) we were sitting around in camping chairs when I looked up the little hill and saw a huge bison head. The bison was just coming over the ridge. And Elijah was running up that same ridge on a foot trail about 15 feet from the bison (I'm NOT exaggerating the distance). Rob and I started yelling for him to come back, but Elijah just looked at us like, "Why?" and kept going up the hill. Ended up standing there, 15 feet from the bison, not even knowing that the bison was there.
I don't know how he didn't know the bison was there, though. The bison was HUGE! At any rate, my brother Collin ran up the hill, grabbed Elijah, and brought him back down the hill. Luckily the bison walked off to a safe distance and that was the end of the whole thing.
Rob talked to Elijah (again) about how important it is to come back when we call him. Because in Yellowstone, we could be calling him because there is Danger. And in Yellowstone, if you wander off, you can die. (Our goal was to scare our children into good behavior. Yellowstone is gorgeous, but it's a decidedly dangerous place. A bad decision could be a fatal decision.)
He still didn't quite get it, I think. My Mom talked to him later, and told him that the bison could take his horns and flip Elijah up over that tree (pointing to a pine tree). About half an hour later Elijah came back to my Mom and said, "I didn't see the horns."
The next day all the fun REALLY started.
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