Then we drove to the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden where we saw a lot of art (some of it I wasn't sure was art) and Evie ran laps around part of the park to get some energy out. Then we drove downtown to see the Mary Tyler Moore statue and then to Minnehaha Falls which was lovely. We were able to take a little trek down by the river after the falls and enjoy some nature.
Evie pretending to eat the cherry on the spoon sculpturee
Mary Tyler Moore
We took a long drive from Minneapolis to Fargo, ND which was a new state of all of us Maynes as well, though Evie was asleep by the time we got there.
Monday, we went to Jamestown, ND which purported to have the world's largest buffalo (statue) but also had a nice little collection of old buildings that had been relocated there and done up to give you a taste of old frontier town. Evie especially loved playing on their playground equipment.
Then, off to the Dakota Zoo in Bismarck where we saw not a single other person wearing a mask, including the workers. We kept our distance and had a good time.
Evie has the wingspan of a red tailed hawk
She and this wolf were communing
Hard to tell, but this is a ferret. Evie is quite taken with ferrets and asks often if she can have one. She cannot.
Then we moved on to the first national park of the trip: Theodore Roosevelt National Park. We only stopped at the Painted Canyon portion of it, which was absolutely gorgeous. Evie loved this place and wanted to go hiking and climbing all the rocks.
We ended the day in Billings, MT at a hotel that I would never stay at again. It had a beer can left in it, a cigarette butt in the toilet, and a sticky spot on the carpet. We were supposed to stay there again later this week, but I quickly rebooked us for somewhere else.
Tuesday, which was our 13th wedding anniversary, we drove into Yellowstone by way of Beartooth Pass which was quite a harrowing experience. I'm not a fan of heights and we were climbing to an elevation of nearly 11,000 feet! We made it, though, and were amazing at touching snow in July.
We had missed our picture for Montana on the way in to the state the day before, so we stopped here where we got a Montana and a Wyoming in one-stop shopping.
We got into Yellowstone and found a picnic table by a little river where we enjoyed the babbling sounds. The wind was up and it blew over a lot of our food once we were done with most of our meal, so we moved on. But Evie entertained herself by throwing rocks in the freezing cold river for a while.
We drove through the park and saw a some buffalo which elicited squeals of delight from Evie. We went on a little walk on a boardwalk that had some information about the different trees, rocks, and plants, and then we saw some elk close to Mammoth Springs. We made our way to the west side of the park and stopped by Norris Geyser Basin where there were several hot pools and that smell of sulfur that I associate so much with our trip to Yellowstone 30 years ago. We made our way out of the park to a little drive-in restaurant (FroStop) which I have since learned is a chain, which makes me really glad because it was delicious. Then we headed to the condo we rented via AirB&B. After a little trouble finding the keys, we got settled in and watched the sunset.
Evie called this the "eye tree"
Wednesday, we went south and came back up through Grand Teton into Yellowstone. We found a picnic table for lunch where there was a plaque on each table about how to prevent bears from getting curious about your lunch site and this led to Evie basically spending all of lunch talking about bears, how to avoid bears, whether she saw any bears, who would fight off the bear... Finally we moved on. We headed to Old Faithful and Seth entertained Evie with about 30 minutes of rock-paper-scissors before the geyser erupted.
We left Old Faithful and found some smaller but more constant geysers not far from there.
We left through the west side of the park and drove back to the condo where we cooked dinner and washed clothes.
Thursday morning I made breakfast and we headed to the west gate back into Yellowstone. We passed the Norris Geyser Basin and from the road we could see the erupting Steamboat Geyser, which only goes off every few months. We went to Mammoth Springs which looks like something out of Star Wars.
On our drive to the Falls, we saw several kinds of animals: bison, elk, a wolf and a coyote. We found a place at Lower Falls to park and took in the absolute beauty of the "Grand Canyon of Yellowstone".
We then drove up to the Upper Falls which was also gorgeous.
Artist's Point of Upper Falls
We stopped by the mud volcano and then the dragon cauldron before we left Yellowstone. We went out through Grand Teton where we stopped for look at this beautiful site.
On the way out of Grand Teton, we saw several buffalo jump a fence. I didn't know they could do that!
Then it was back to the condo for another homemade dinner and laundry before we packed up. Friday morning after we loaded the car, we headed to the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Park. We saw lots of bears and wolves and Evie had to rescue this little wolf cub.
We had another picnic lunch (we got really good at those!) and then went on to a ghost town that was a little more revitalized and crowded than we'd anticipated so we didn't spend long there. We headed to Billings and spent the night in a much better hotel.
Today, we went to see Little Bighorn, the site of Custer's Last Stand, and spotted lots of prairie dogs at the entrance. Then we headed on towards Devil's Tower and made the loop around it.
Somewhere on the way in, the van started dragging a tree branch and Evie was very much interested in setting it free because it was scraping right underneath her seat.
Evie "lifting" a boulder
We had dinner at Culver's again which we enjoyed for its frozen custard when we were in Milwaukee last week, and then headed to Mt. Rushmore for their "light show", which is a generous description of the actual proceedings.
Evie entertained us with a little ballet during dinner
Waiting at Mt. Rushmore
Evie helped to push our bags to our room. She is always wanting to lend a hand.
Evie, you have become so willing to go with the flow. You love to help and offer to do things for others frequently. A few favorites from the trip - how you referred to animals as "he or she" when you didn't know the gender; how you enjoyed picnics until the bugs appeared; how you panicked with mosquitoes in the car but when I asked you to use a piece of paper to wave them toward our windows, you calmed down and did it, and when we opened our windows, it seemed to work! You mostly entertained yourself and seldom asked how much further. Amazing for all those days of travel. Also, I like how you are so willing to give a theory about why something works or happens. I can't think of an example, but you can quickly reason out why you think an animal acts a certain way or the water in Hot Springs can be touched but not the springs at Yellowstone. Such a smart and thoughtful girl you are!
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