5,000 miles+ part 15

8/14/14
Custer, SD-->Mt Rushmore-->MN aprox. 10 hrs.
The final leg of our journey.  we spent the morning at Mt. Rushmore.  We played the ranger games and did a hike...and a visit to the gift shop.
Then we drove and drove all the way home.  I think by this time everyone was ready to be done traveling and just wanted to get home.  I am amazed at how well everyone did for traveling so long.  I think this was the best as far as getting along, not getting too stressed out, etc.  Well, maybe Disney World was good too.  But not near as long.  I don't remember anymore. 
I do want to remember that Kwik Trip gas stations are the best.  They have grocery items.  We found out in MN at the last gas station we stopped at for our whole trip.  Now we know for the next road trip.  Which will be a while...I got very swollen with all the sitting and I still feel like it was too much driving.
We debated stopping somewhere for the night, but I'm glad we didn't.  If we had, we probably would have stopped before dark and we would have missed the fireflies.  Once we crossed into a very humid Minnesota, dusk fell and there were fireflies all over the fields.  It was beautiful.
Our magic moment with the fireflies was interrupted with a phone call from my neighbor saying she found our back door open about an inch. She said it looked like someone had been in the house because doors I don't close were closed & doors usually closed were open. She went back with a couple other neighbors to check it for me. Nothing looked messed with...except some of the beds didn't have sheets on them. I mentioned we washed some before we left so we'd have clean ones when we got home- they could be in the dryer. she checked and they were not in dryer. Feeling creeped out, violated, Goldilocks and The Three Bears moment. Who leaves the money and takes the bed sheets? We are so calling the police when we get home if our sheets are really missing, that is psycho creepy. Brian is convinced the police would not care about our sheets and would not be able to do anything anyway. Get home, we have sheets. In the dryer. She checked the washing machine. And it turns out it her son noticed the door wasn't locked so thought we were home and that my kids were hiding so he went looking for them. Lol. It turns out pretty funny. Next time I think we will triple check the doors are locked. (feeling kinda stupid about that one, but glad our neighbors are always playing in our yard...and house...someone would be kinda dumb to mess with us because that person would get caught and we don't have anything to take. Except really nice bed sheets.

 

 

 

5,000 miles+ part 14

8/13/14
Cody, WY-->Devil's Tower, WY-->Custer, SD  aprox. 7 hours
Isaac was very excited to drive through Cody because it's in Tennis Shoes Among the Nephites.  Northern Wyoming was a very pretty drive.  It was also maybe this day that I realized how swollen my body was getting from just sitting all the time for so long every day for two weeks.  My ankles were disappearing.
We stopped for a bathroom break and a short walk to a water fall in a canyon somewhere along the way, and then took a much longer break at Devil's tower.  The Kiowa legend of Devil's Tower is a pretty good one:
Kiowa Legend
Before the Kiowa came south they were camped on a stream in the far north where there were a great many bears, many of them. One day, seven little girls were playing at a distance from the village and were chased by some bears. The girls ran toward the village and the bears were just about to catch them when the girls jumped on a low rock, about three feet high. One of the girls prayed to the rock, "Rock take pity on us, rock save us!" The rock heard them and began to grow upwards, pushing the girls higher and higher. When the bears jumped to reach the girls, they scratched the rock, broke their claws, and fell on the ground.
The rock rose higher and higher, the bears still jumped at the girls until they were pushed up into the sky, where they now are, seven little stars in a group (The Pleiades). In the winter, in the middle of the night, the seven stars are right over this high rock. When the people came to look, they found the bears' claws, turned to stone, all around the base.No Kiowa living has ever seen this rock, but the old men have told about it - it is very far north where the Kiowa used to live. It is a single rock with scratched sides, the marks of the bears' claws are there yet, rising straight up, very high. There is no other like it in the whole country, there are no trees on it, only grass on top. The Kiowa call this rock "Tso-aa", a tree rock, possibly because it grew tall like a tree.  -- Told by I-See-Many-Camp-Fire-Places, Kiowa soldier at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, 1897. (I got this from the National Park website.  For more tribe legends visit:  http://www.nps.gov/deto/historyculture/first-stories.htm)
We were planning on camping this night, but thunder storms were in the weather forecast so we thought it would be better to stay in a hotel.  Since we had planned time needed to set up camp we ended up having time at the hotel to eat, play at the pool, and relax a little.  Looking back we should have planned more time like that in our trip.

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5,000 miles+ part 13

8/12/14
Boise, ID--> Pocatello, ID-->Yellowstone National Park, WY-->Cody, WY
Another long day of driving, but with more stops.  Idaho is about the point where Brian started getting a little frustrated.  Which is pretty good for how much time we had spent in the car. We saw a dog in the road.  Someone sang "Shake that booty watch and learn" but I'm pretty sure those aren't the real lyrics...   Oh, William says it actually goes, "take that money watch it burn" (One Republic Counting Stars).
We stopped at Register rock.  We read something about it at the Nebraska museum we stopped at and mentioned that it might be cool to find and stop at sometime when we are on our way to Utah.  How convenient for us that it was on the way to Pocatello :-).
In Pocatello we were able to visit with Brian's Grandma Anderson, Aunt Gwen, Aunt Radonna and her kids, Glenn, Melissa, and VerlaNorah.  It was a really nice visit.  We went out to lunch at Perkins with Melissa, VerlahNorah, and Brian's dad.
After lunch we drove to Yellowstone taking the south part of the loop and exited out the east entrance.  We were able to see a few geysers and caught Old Faithful around 9 at night right as it was getting dark (so I didn't take any pictures figuring they wouldn't show up).  The rest of our drive was dark.  The moon over the lake was pretty.  We saw two mice run across the road, but that's it.  I think the kids saw some deer or antelope before it got dark.  Just before Cody, probably around midnight, when we went through a tunnel there were long boarders riding through.  Kind of fun.  When we got to our hotel they had given our room away :-( and we had to stay at a more expensive and not that great of a hotel in two separate rooms...but at least it was a place to stay after a long day of driving, right?

Beauty of Idaho...including the bug splats

 

hmm.  we're not dogs on leash.  Think we can still visit?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tetons in the background

Yellowstone (all the next pictures)