Yellowstone – June 5 – 20, 1992

Our first trip across the Missouri into the heart of the west

Friday, June 5 – Our planned starting time was 4:00 so we could get a good start and put as many miles behind us as possible. Instead Michelle woke up at midnight with a fever and sore throat. She ended up with a 10:00 appointment to see the doctor. He diagnosed strep throat but cleared her for travel and prescribed antibiotics for both kids in case Scott caught it from her. Shortly after 11:00 we were finally able to head west on I-74.

The approach to Peoria was very pretty and we enjoyed the bridge across the Mississippi River at the Quad Cities where we caught I-80. The Herbert Hoover National Historic Site at West Branch looked interesting but we didn’t have time to stop. We drove on to Coralville, Iowa, next to Iowa City. Because of her illness, Michelle was given a very restrictive diet by the doctor for our first day, and she endlessly kept saying, “I can just eat bread and pretzels, right?”

Michelle couldn’t take advantage of a swimming pool and we were late getting in so we stayed at a Motel 6. We drove around Iowa City a little and saw the old state capitol and the University of Iowa whose campus reminded us of the Ivy League schools.

This was the first visit to Iowa for Michelle and Scott.

Saturday, June 6 – Dawn came early to this part of Iowa; the sky started getting light at 4:00. We drove west on I-80 into a cold front which made us really hurry through breakfast at a rest stop. It was pouring rain when we went through Des Moines. We found a radio station there playing Asian music – not what we expected in the heart of Iowa. The clouds finally gave way to sunny skies and western Iowa had the fresh look that so often follows a rain.

In Elk Horn we detoured off the expressway to see a Danish windmill. Michelle’s souvenir there was a Lego T-shirt. We took I-680 to I-29 to the Onawa exit, then crossed the Missouri River on a toll bridge. U.S. 75 on the western shore of the river took us through the Omaha and Winnebago reservations. Both kids slept through most of this part of the trip. We couldn’t find anyplace convenient for a picnic in Nebraska so we crossed back into Iowa at Sioux City and ate at the welcome center. The kids played on the playground and we went through the small museum in the Sergeant Floyd riverboat. I-29 took us into South Dakota.

At Sioux Falls we headed west on I-90. In no time at all the landscape opened up and we could spot towns ten miles away by their water towers and grain elevators. We stopped in Mitchell and saw the Corn Palace, one of Scott’s “must sees”, but did not have time to tour the inside. There was a beautiful overlook of Lake Francis Case (part of the Missouri River) at Chamberlain and we stayed there in the Super 8 motel.

We had dinner across the river in Oacoma at Al’s Oasis, a combination restaurant/hotel/grocery store/trading post/general store. Jim and Scott tried buffalo at Al’s but Scott didn’t care for it. Coffee there was 5 cents, much to Lynne and Jim’s delight. Al’s proved to be something of a lifesaver because Lynne had forgotten to pack her pajamas in the excitement with Michelle’s illness and we were able to find a nightshirt there. Driving back to Chamberlain, we thought we hit a bluebird, but weren’t sure. The Super 8 had an indoor pool and the kids took advantage of it.

This was the first visit to Nebraska and South Dakota for Scott and Michelle.

Sunday, June 7 – It was cold and there was frost on the windows when we left Chamberlain. As we headed west on I-90 the clouds moved in. We got off the expressway at Cactus Flats and took State Route 240, the Badlands Loop, through Badlands National Park. The color-banded hills were much more impressive in person than they were in pictures and the kids really enjoyed climbing the giant ‘sand castles’.

We discovered the legs and tail of a bluebird sticking out of the grill on the car. The kids were duly impressed. It started raining as we drove along the loop so we weren’t able to stop at any more of the trails. We saw a herd of pronghorns on the prairie. The rain tapered off and finally quit as we drove towards Wall. We stopped at Wall Drug, had lunch (including their bottomless 5 cent cup of coffee), and went through the entire place. Michelle was scared by a buffalo head that wiggled its ears and by a stuffed buffalo in a barn. The giant jackalope impressed both kids. Michelle got a toy buffalo there and Scott picked up a spear and tomahawk.

After seeing the 70 foot dinosaur on the edge of town we continued on towards Rapid City. One of the tourist traps along the way had a herd of buffalo penned up and we were excited to see the animals at last as we whizzed past. We briefly got lost in Rapid City looking for a gas station but eventually made our way to Mount Rushmore National Memorial. Scott was especially impressed – for weeks he had been looking forward to seeing Mount Rushmore more than anything and he was not disappointed.

While at the Memorial we helped break a drought that was gripping the Black Hills by bringing the rain with us. We drove past the Crazy Horse Memorial to Custer where we stayed at the Chief Motel – first time the kids had been more than a mile above sea level. The restaurant there featured scenes of western wildlife projected on a wall and a teepee that the kids explored

Monday, June 8 – The skies had cleared overnight so we awoke to bright sunshine and cold. We took route 385 from Custer to Wind Cave National Park where we took the natural entrance tour of the cave. Scott was afraid of the cave but our guide, Ranger Larry, did an outstanding job calming his fears. He made Scott his assistant and had Scott shine the flashlight to point out features on the tour. At one point all the lights were turned out so we could experience total darkness but Scott was wearing glow in the dark shoes.

After the cave we started towards Custer State Park, stopping to look at a prairie dog village and some buffalo – at last, some free-roaming buffalo. In Custer State Park we took the wildlife loop, a curving drive that featured buffalo, deer, buffalo, pronghorns, buffalo, a begging burro, and some buffalo. We had a picnic lunch in the park, then took the Needles Highway through three small tunnels and the granite needles. On the drive we saw some more ho-hum buffalo. We decided to stop back at Mount Rushmore to see the monument in the sunlight and came across a mountain goat along the side of the road on our way there.

The monument was much more crowded with the sun and we soon headed north towards Rapid City. Skyline Drive there took us to Dinosaur Park, a mountaintop park with several life-sized concrete dinosaur statues. The kids posed for pictures on a triceratops and a stegosaurus and made derogatory remarks about the tyrannosaurus. From Rapid City we took I-90 to Spearfish were we stayed at the Best Western outside of town.

Tuesday, June 9 – We drove south from Spearfish on 14A through Spearfish canyon to Lead and Deadwood. Deadwood’s character had changed dramatically since the legalization of gambling and the town was not at all like Jim remembered it from his childhood. In Deadwood we walked through the Mount Moriah cemetery to see the graves of Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickok. We backtracked through Lead past the Homestake gold mine to Terry Peak. We took a chairlift to the top of the mountain (7100′) for a view of the Black Hills. The view extended into Wyoming but we couldn’t see Devils Tower from there.

As we were leaving a fellow in a hard hat waved us to a stop. The gold mine next door was dynamiting part of the mountain and we had to wait for the explosion and the all-clear, about a twenty minute delay. We drove back through Lead (starting to feel very familiar with it by now) to I-90 and headed west. At Sundance we stopped for a picnic lunch. From there we took U.S. 14 to Devils Tower. After a couple of miles we had to stop for a Wyoming traffic jam – three cowboys on horses herding cattle across the road. This was a big thrill for the kids – real cowboys! We continued on to Devils Tower where once again we were amazed to find a full parking lot when we hadn’t seen any traffic for miles. This was another of Scott’s most anticipated attractions.

We took the trail around the base of the tower and the kids were appointed Junior Rangers for filling in the books they had picked up at the visitor center with all the things they saw. It was very hot at the Tower although we had awakened to freezing temperatures in the Black Hills. From Devils Tower Junction we took 14 to Moorcroft. The landscape there was as empty as we had ever seen – the only signs of humanity were the road and the snow fence alongside it. Otherwise, sagebrush hills to the horizon. We saw only two or three cars between the Tower and Moorcroft. There were no exits in the 56 mile stretch from Gillette to Buffalo. Pronghorns were silhouetted against the sky at every hill. The land was all sagebrush and brownish for miles although we could see the snow-clad Bighorn Mountains drawing closer. At last we crested a hill overlooking Buffalo and the world was suddenly green again. Buffalo was a charming town at the foot of the Bighorns and we stayed there in an Econolodge.

First visit to Wyoming for Michelle, Scott and Lynne.

Wednesday, June 10 – After driving down the main street for a look at the town we headed north from Buffalo on I-90. We stopped at the site of Fort Phil Kearny and saw the museum there, learning more about the history of the Bozeman trail. We saw the monuments to Portugee Phillips and the Fetterman massacre. In Sheridan we stopped for gas and to wash the car and drove past the hotel where Buffalo Bill used to audition acts for his Wild West show. We continued north to U.S. 14 which took us to the Bighorns. Signs along the switchbacks that climbed the mountain gave the ages of the rocks.

We were stuck behind a van that was determined to overheat everyone following him and were lucky to get past him. He had a considerable tail by the time we got to Burgess Junction. We stayed on 14 past alpine fields full of deer and cattle and drove past snowfields. The western slope of the Bighorns was much drier than the east and we got back into sagebrush as we descended. We stopped at Shell Falls to see the waterfall where Shell Creek tumbles into Shell Canyon. Michelle had determined that anything named ‘shell’ was named after her so this area was a particular delight for her. The road plummeted through Shell Canyon and suddenly put us in the Bighorn Basin – an arid, hot desert. It was an incredible change after the mountains we had crossed.

In Greybull we had lunch at an A&W that featured carhop service. We pegged the spedometer on some of the flats as we continued west. After driving through Cody the kids got another thrill – a long tunnel through Rattlesnake Mountain. We continued up Shoshone Canyon to Yellowstone National Park. There was a buffalo near the entrance station and we had now seen enough of them that we were getting fed up with “tourists” stopping to look at them. There was more snow at Sylvan Pass and we saw pikas running around the rocks. The kids started getting carsick and we stopped at Fishing Bridge to get some fresh air but the mosquitoes were terrible so we drove a bit farther and parked by Yellowstone Lake to give them a break.

We continued on around the lake and saw a moose a ways off from the road. We crossed the Continental Divide twice and drove past the geyser basins to Madison Junction and on to West Yellowstone where we got a room for two nights at the City Center Motel. The motel was being renovated and had just opened a few rooms for the season. We ate at a diner that looked interesting from the outside and served us the worst food of the trip.

This was Scott’s, Michelle’s, and Lynne’s first visit to Montana.

Thursday, June 11 – We ate breakfast at the Three Bears Pancake House. They had several photos on the wall they had taken during the Yellowstone fires when the flames reached the eastern border of the town. We drove back into the park and south to Old Faithful. While we were waiting for an eruption we were entertained by a yellow-bellied marmot that kept scurrying out from under the boardwalk. Old Faithful did not disappoint. We headed north from there, stopping at each thermal basin.

At one of the parking areas the kids tried to convince Lynne that we had seen some bears while she was in the rest room. Michelle was quite pleased with herself. “Mommy, mommy, we saw lots of bears! Psyche!!!” When we got to the Excelsior pool and Grand Prismatic spring the weather began to close in and the sky turned ominous. We stopped at a picnic area for lunch and it started to rain. While we were eating a park truck rocketed up and the employees jumped out and made mad dashes to all the trash cans, emptying them as fast as they could, and we wondered if the bears might not be so far away after all.

The sun made a brief reappearance as we stopped at the Norris basin to see the Steamboat geyser and the Porcelain Basin but clouds reappeared as we drove by the obsidian cliffs. The sky was almost black when we got to Mammoth Hot Springs and cold rain was falling so we did not see much of the terraces there. We drove back from Mammoth to West Yellowstone and Jim saw a coyote on the banks of the Madison River. Once back in West Yellowstone it was again sunny and pleasant.

We ate dinner at the Stage Coach Inn across the street from our motel to make up for the dismal dinner of the night before and it more than made up for it. After dinner we drove up to Targhee Pass and saw a little bit of Idaho. We posed for a picture at the sign marking the state border and Continental Divide.

This was the first visit to Idaho for Lynne, Scott and Michelle.

Friday, June 12 – We ate at the Running Bear restaurant for breakfast. It featured a stuffed black bear in the foyer. Scott worried about it. We drove back down past Old Faithful and stopped to walk around the West Thumb basin with its mud pots and hot springs on the shore of Yellowstone Lake, then headed south along the Rockefeller Parkway to Grand Teton National Park. We stopped to take in the view along Jackson Lake and tried to get a cabin at Colter Bay but they were full.

We continued down Jackson Hole to the town of Jackson. After lunch we booked a room at the Wagon Wheel Village. The lobby was full of stuffed animals including a Jackalope wearing glasses. Our rooms there had a nice feel with knotty pine paneling and rustic furniture. We drove up into the park and took a boat across Jenny Lake, then hiked up a trail a half mile to see Hidden Falls.

Back across the lake we drove to Lupine Meadows and to the Chapel of the Transfiguration at Moose. The wildflowers were very pretty in Grand Teton. The church was made of logs and the picture window behind the altar framed the Cathedral group in the Tetons, one of the most breathtaking views we had ever seen.

We returned to Jackson and drove downtown (all of five blocks away) to see the nightly gunfight. Michelle took it all in stride but it was too real for Scott for most of the show. Afterwards, walking back through the town square, one of the actors popped out from behind an elk antler arch and told us to reach for the skies. Michelle burst into tears and the poor fellow couldn’t apologize enough.

Saturday, June 13 – Low clouds obscured the peaks of the Tetons as we headed north through Jackson Hole. Jim saw a pair of coyotes in the valley. In Yellowstone, near Lewis Lake, we spotted something moving in the woods – a black bear! We only got to see it for a few seconds because it hightailed away as soon as it saw us. We skirted Yellowstone Lake to Fishing Bridge, then headed north with stops at the Mud Volcano, Dragon’s Mouth and Sulphur Caldron.

Lynne made the mistake of referring to buffalo as dumb and Michelle became very upset. “Don’t call my friends dumb!” She threatened to call all bears dumb. We looked for bears as we drove through Hayden Valley but did not see any. We saw some moose close up as snow flurries began to fall.

It was bitterly cold when we stopped to see the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone so we did not spend much time admiring the scenery, something we doubtless could have done for hours had the weather been more hospitable. It was too cold to walk to the brink of the lower falls so we settled for the views from the canyon rims.

When we climbed up to Dunraven Pass the trees were all dusted with snow and we stopped near the crest so the kids could play a little in a small snowfield but the cold soon had us on our way again. We took a spur road up Mount Washburn to try and spy some bighorn sheep but did not see any. The temperature soared as we descended to the Lamar Valley and was quite pleasant when we stopped for lunch at the Roosevelt Lodge. We saw the carcass of some large animal in the Lamar Valley and took the road (U.S. 212) out of the park to Cooke City up into the Beartooth Mountains.

The forests and tumbling cascades gradually thinned out and before we realized, we were above the treeline on the Beartooth Highway. Snowfields, boulder fields, tundra and alpine lakes alternated as we continued to climb, trying to avoid hitting marmots. The sides of the road were marked with 12 foot orange poles for the snowplows but spring had come early and the road was wide open.

We stopped at the pass itself (10,947 feet) to play in the snow and take in the view which extended for 75 miles. Michelle lost one of her shoes in the snow there and we were never able to find it. Jim and Scott climbed up to the summit a little north of the rest stop. We all had a snowball fight although Michelle was more interested in staying in the warm car.

Once over the pass the road dropped rapidly via a series of switchbacks that induced carsickness once again. We tried to find a room in Red Lodge but had no success so we continued on to Laurel where we stayed at the Best Western Locomotive Inn. The name turned out to be more than a mere convention – there was a railyard right behind the motel and it ran all day and night.

Sunday, June 14 – Once again, gray skies in the morning. We left Laurel on I-94 and ate breakfast in Billings. As we headed south on I-90 the rain began to pour. It quit a little outside of Crow Agency where we stopped to tour the Little Bighorn National Monument. The Indians were having a Sun Dance so the road to the Reno-Benteen battlefield was closed and the Park Service did not charge an entrance fee. We went through the museum and tried to listen to a ranger as she recounted the history of the Indian Wars of 1876 but Michelle was in a bad mood and would not sit still or stay quiet.

We walked to the top of the hill where Custer’s command made its final stand and paid our respects at the common grave atop the hill. We spent a few minutes looking at tombstones in the National Cemetery below the visitor center. We left on I-90 after eating lunch in Hardin at a Taco John’s, or, as it is sometimes known, Toxic Juan’s. Naturally it is Scott’s favorite restaurant in that part of the world. From Hardin we took Montana 47 to the town of Custer and caught I-94. The Big Sky country was an endless stream of badlands and rolling hills with towns every hour or so to briefly break the monotony.

We stopped in Medora, North Dakota and found the Badlands Motel was full. They directed us to the Medora Motel across the railroad tracks. It consisted of dozens of modular houses laid out like the barracks in a military camp. We ended up with two adjoining rooms and the kids had twin beds in theirs and their own television. We thought we had a perfect setup. After a sub-par dinner at the Chuckwagon Cafeteria we played a game of miniature golf that was frequently interrupted by jackrabbits hopping across the course. The obstacles were all things like old farm implements and machinery. Michelle kept announcing Lynne’s putts by saying “Liiiiiiittttttle Mommy’s Turn!”

Lynne said Medora gave her the creeps. It was gloomy while we were there and the badlands hover over the town with a malevolent presence. Back at the motel the kids were watching TV in their room while Lynne and Jim watched a Reds game in theirs. Alas, a coyote howled, and the kids convinced themselves that the coyote would come during the night and peek in the window. Our two rooms ended up with Lynne and Michelle in one and Jim and Scott in the other.

Monday, June 15 – Stopped in Ferris’s General Store to look for crayons so the kids could work on their coloring books. The store did not have any and had not changed much since Theodore Roosevelt used to stop in for supplies. We were greeted by drizzle as we entered Theodore Roosevelt National Park. They had a small museum and the gift shop had crayons. We toured the cabin from Roosevelt’s Maltese Cross ranch, a three-room affair considered quite spacious when he lived there. It made a nice contrast to his cousin Franklin’s “cottage” on Campobello.

We drove through the south unit of the park. The ranger at the entry station was very excited because visitors the day before had reported seeing buffalo and she wished us luck spotting one. Scott told us to stop as we went around a curve because he saw a deer. We scanned the horizon in vain and Scott told us to look right across the road. A mule deer was standing no more than a dozen feet from us and showed no signs of apprehension. We stopped once to walk through some of the badlands and scoria but the clay was slick from the rain so we mostly saw the park from the car.

Jim and Scott climbed Buck Hill where the wind blew so hard, they had to turn their backs to it to be able to breathe. On the return part of the loop drive, a bison stood blocking the road and we had to honk the horn to get it to move. Back in Medora we took I-94 east, stopping for lunch in Dickinson and continuing through intermittent rain to Mandan where we saw Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park. The park featured blockhouses used by the original command of infantry and a recreation of a Mandan village.

Jim remembered being scared climbing the ladders in the blockhouses when he was a kid and Scott continued the family tradition when it was his turn to climb down from the third floor. The Mandan village featured several earth lodges and we walked around inside one. A replica of the house Custer lived in when he commanded the Seventh Cavalry had been built a couple of years before and we took a tour of it. Michelle was very impressed to learn that Custer had a pet wildcat he kept in the basement.

We stopped across the Missouri River in Bismarck at the Kelly Inn and went shopping after dinner to buy Michelle a pair of shoes because the old pair she’d had to wear since losing her shoe in the snow on the Beartooth Highway were too small.

Tuesday, June 16 – Left Bismarck on I-94 under sunny skies. At Jamestown we took U.S. 281 south to Edgely. Scott about gave us a heart attack when he had to make an impromptu rest stop along the side of the road and started walking around the car to get back in as a truck came barreling down the highway. Fortunately the truck driver saw him and swung wide.

We drove to Edgely, where Jim’s father was born and raised, and had lunch at the Burgercade. L. Frank Baum’s wife was from Edgely and the town was starting to capitalize on the connection. There was a statue of the Tin Man in front of the Burgercade and the kids posed with it. We drove around town a little to get a look at things, then headed north to Jamestown. We looked for the giant buffalo statue there but managed to not find it.

In Fargo we ran into some road construction but eventually made our way to I-29 and up to Grand Forks. The kids were glad to see the Happy Tower was still there and we stayed in the Best Western Town House again. We ate dinner with Grandma Thorfinnson at a cafeteria in Columbia Mall and ran into some of Jim’s relatives there.

Wednesday, June 17 – Spent the entire day with grandma, shopping at the mall and taking the kids to some of the playgrounds when we weren’t visiting at her apartment.

Thursday, June 18 – Again the day was spent with grandma. We took her out for dinner to Whitey’s in East Grand Forks. The kids were introduced to Kiddy Cocktails (Shirley Temples) and pronounced them the finest beverages they had ever been served.

Friday, June 19 – We left Grand Forks in I-29, catching I-94 in Fargo. Minnesota was gray and rainy once again. We took U.S. 52 through the Twin Cities, getting to see a lot more of them than we ever would have wanted. The road did take us right past the capitol in St. Paul. We kept going south on 52 through Rochester and onto I-90 because we wanted to see the view of the Mississippi River from the bluffs. It was not as inspiring as we had remembered it from our first visit. We stayed in the Hampton Inn in LaCrosse and ate dinner in a fancy Italian restaurant downtown.

Saturday, June 20 – After breakfast at the Hampton Inn, we left LaCrosse on I-94. In Wisconsin Dells we took a ride on the ducks where we were entertained by the driver’s jokes while we drove down the river and through a couple of lakes. We saw another deer up close in the fern canyon. We had lunch in the Burger King where we had eaten lunch four years before, then took I-90 on to Chicago where the orange barrels brought us to a crawl. I- 94 took us to I-65 and we had dinner about midway between Chicago and Indianapolis. We caught I-74 well after dark and arrived home shortly after 11:00.

Milestones on this trip: New high point (10,947 feet at Beartooth Pass), first time in Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana and Idaho for Scott and Michelle; first time in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho for Lynne. Scott’s highlights: the Corn Palace, Mount Rushmore and Devils Tower. Michelle’s highlight: warning signs in Yellowstone showing a little kid stepping into a geyser as his horrified family looked on. She couldn’t get enough of the signs and stopped to look at them at every thermal basin.

States and provinces we visited: Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin.

Capital cities we saw: Indianapolis, Des Moines, Bismarck, Saint Paul, Madison.