Chicago Post #1

Sorry for the delay in closing up our blog! We had an incredible time at our last stop of the trip, Chicago! We stayed with one of Sarah's relatives. The visit was so busy that we need two posts to cover everything we did!

Here we are with our perfect host, Sydne! She had an amazing view of the city from her apartment.

The view!

We went down to Navy Pier to check out the huge Ferris Wheel there. Did everyone know that Chicago is where the FIRST Ferris Wheel was built?? Here is the view from the Wheel.

We visited Millennium Park and played with the giant reflecting bean! This was way more fun than it should have been.

One of the most expensive but also most memorable experiences of the trip. Sarah's first professional baseball game EVER was at Wrigley Field. This is where Rookie of the Year was filmed!

Cubs Win! Cubs Win!!!

Badlands National Park, SD

We started out our day in South Dakota by taking a tour of Jewel Cave National Monument. It is the 4th largest dry cave in the United States. Unfortunately most of our pictures taken inside the cave turned out looking like your everyday rock, except this one.... (They turned all the lights off at one point so you can experience complete darkness - this is what Nathan looked like when they turned the lights back on.)

We then made a pit stop at Mount Rushmore! There were a ton of people and we were going to have to pay to park so we illegally stopped on the side of the road to take a picture from far away. Roosevelt had scaffolding across his face anyways(nose job?)...
Many hours and dirt roads later, we arrived at Badlands National Park. We thought it was just going to be large empty fields with the occasional hill...
First, hundreds of Prairie dogs started popping up out of the ground making cute noises.... And then we drove into a herd of Bison!

As we got deeper into the park, the terrain changed completely. There were very unique rock formations and deep valleys. It was by far one of the most picturesque parks we visited. Also, one of the least crowded which was a breath of fresh air after Yellowstone!

Drive to Custer, SD

After visiting Yellowstone we had a long long drive across Wyoming to Custer, South Dakota which we were kind of dreading. It turned out to be one of our most scenic drives!

Before actually enjoying the drive though we had to drive through Yellowstone to get on our way. We didn't expect this to be an issue, but we ran into more traffic within the park than anywhere else in the country. This was because lazy tourists would park their cars in the middle of the road to view wild deer instead of pulling over onto the side of the road! Needless to say, we were pretty irritated.

Finally we got out of the park and left all of the traffic behind.

The changes in scenery were pretty amazing. If you look closely you can see how windy the road was that we ended up driving on.

Grand Teton National Park & Idaho Falls, ID

We both were exhausted after spending two days in Yellowstone and decided to take it easy. Grand Teton National Park is connected to Yellowstone, and has a very scenic drive that takes you through the whole park. This is a view of the Tetons from a scenic pull-out.

Wildflowers!

Two hours West of the Grand Tetons was Idaho Falls, home of the largest fireworks show west of the Mississippi! We arrived 3 hours early and still had a hard time finding a spot along the river to view the fireworks. Most of the lawn was roped off by people who came early to mark their fireworks territory. It was quite an experience!The show lasted for 30 minutes and was synchronized to music via portable radios people brought!

Yellowstone National Park: Day 2

We started out our second day in Yellowstone National Park by exploring some more of the geothermic activity areas.

All of the trees in these areas are slowly dying as a result of the volcanic activity.

The water was so hot here that no bacteria could grow leaving the water completely clear! This pool went down 27 feet!

The geothermic activity zones are only one small part of Yellowstone. We took a gravel road drive through several meadows and hills.

And along the way saw some up-close wildlife!

Yellowstone had a Grand Canyon of their own. Although not quite as Grand as the more famous one found in Arizona, it was very beautiful.

We walked down 400 consecutive steps to reach a landing with a view of this powerful waterfall that carved the canyon.

Yellowstone Lake is where we chose to stop for dinner at one of the several Yellowstone Lodges.

The drive through these unique sections of the park took a complete day, but as we were returning to our hotel we decided to just stop by Old Faithful to see if we could catch an explosion. We did!

Yellowstone National Park: Day 1

We stayed the night in Missoula, Montana and woke up a little too late to eat breakfast so we went into town to find lunch. Luckily, we stumbled upon "Out to Lunch" that they have every Wednesday! About 20 local restaurants had small sample plates of their food for sale. It was impossible to choose what to get! everything smelled so good!
We arrived in Yellowstone after a 3 hour scenic drive. This park was by far the most crowded.
Right after we drove in we had our first wildlife spotting! There was a Bald Eagle nesting area that you were not supposed to stop at, but of course everyone did!
We finished our day at the park with a sunset over a field of geysers. We were the only people on the boardwalk! It was very cool.

A view of the sunset through a the steam.

We were lucky enough to see a large geyser erupt right in front of us. It was difficult to comprehend how something that strange is natural!

Glacier National Park

After our short visit to Canada, we drove South into Montana and visited Glacier National Park

As the name suggests, the park is noted for its many glaciers!

Because the weather was just beginning to warm up, all of the glaciers were melting causing hundreds of waterfalls all over the park.

A mountain goat!

Sunset in the park.On our drive from the park to our hostel we drove by a large group of wild horses. Sarah has never been more happy.

Our little grocery store/hostel. Believe it or not it was pretty nice.
The next morning was our first real rain. It didn't last too long though.

We went to go for a hike and this sign was posted directly at the entrance. Note the final line, "To enhance your safety and protect park resources, follow the recommendations posted below," followed by a blank board.

We went on a scenic drive through the park as far as we could go. Part of the road was closed because snow was still being cleared for the summer season. Here are some highlights:These last two pictures are of the "weeping wall" right at the very top of the drive. It is made up of 5 waterfalls that fall directly onto the road. I appreciated the free car wash...no joke.