Day 3, part 2 started out with driving through Sturgis and Sundance, just to say we did. Sturgis is a neat little town and there sure weren’t many bikers there yet. We’ve seen so many bikers along the way and in the Rapid City area, dressed in many different things, many with a lot of leather. And tattoos.
We then headed to Devil’s Tower. About 13 miles away from it, it emerged on the horizon as a smokestack looking thing. The boys thought it was cool already. It’s funny how these huge things look so tiny from a distance. Once we got into Devil’s Tower Monument Park, we wound around and ended up just below it. I told Tyler to turn around and take a look and once he did, he again said, “WHOA, that’s cool.” We walked around a little bit and could have walked around the entire monument, but little Ryan couldn’t take the warmth and kept asking when we were going back. That was our cue to not go any further and just head back to the car and get going. We had several more hours of driving to go. I did learn from a park ranger there that Ponderosa Pines smell like candy. And boy do they! I had to give it a sniff.
After several potty stops and one gas stop right before we started climbing to just be sure, we finally made it to the Bighorn Mountains. Again, we saw them emerge from about 30 miles away and the kids thought it was really cool to see snow on top! Then they went back to their movie watching.
I did a little white knuckling it and pushed the imaginary passenger brake several times as we were taking the switchbacks to get up the first mountain. Andy did such a great job driving through the areas he’d never driven before and I’m very thankful he’s a calm driver. I did accidentally say “Hey, look at that!” then immediately took it back so he wouldn’t look and we would plummet to our fiery deaths on the cliffs below. We did see a moose on our way through and I REALLY wanted a picture, but it wasn’t in a good place to stop (i.e. going downhill at about 50 with someone on our tail and no pullover). We didn’t go on the scenic pullovers until I saw one with something different. I didn’t know what it was until we got in, but it looked interesting. It was Shell Falls. Wow. It was absolutely beautiful. We walked around it a little bit, which was a nice break from the long ride. The falls had actually been in a different location and had moved due to erosion, which I think is fascinating.
I do have to note that the boys have not been behaving on this trip. They were fighting pretty badly at home and after threatening them with taking all their toys away and actually taking some, they have been a little better. They are best buds, then worst enemies, best buds, enemies all day long. My patience wore thin on the sudden bursts of anger and the taunting they do to each other to get the other one either mad or in trouble, or both. Their mother doesn’t have any tolerance for this and we both get so tired of them getting angry and either stomping off or just saying “Well, then I’m not playing” then having the other one say “He just said he would NEVER play with me”. It could go on for centuries all the stories I’ve heard them complain to me about. So because of their rotten behavior in the car, they’ve had their s’mores taken away this entire trip so far. Each day they start fresh and each day they’ve been threatened to knock it off or there’d be a consequence. Well, it’s obviously not working since there’s been no s’mores. Maybe tonight….but by the looks of Ryan’s sleepy eyes already this morning, I don’t think it’s a huge possibility. We did give them both cameras so they could take their own pictures, thanks for the idea from Beth. That’s another consequence if the fighting gets out of control. It’s a mystery to me but others with grown boys of their own tell me it could go on forever. What?!
When we got to our campsite, we found out how false advertising works. The campsite really looked nothing like the pictures on the website. I’ve never seen so many campers crammed so close together and the huge “gift shop” wasn’t exactly what I was expecting either. Our bathrooms were port-a-jons, which I do have to say is better than 1) an outhouse or 2) finding my own “bathroom”. The teepee that we reserved was right next to about 200 teens in tents and a highway, so we picked out a tent site that was close to the river and NOT near the highway, down a VERY steep slope in a valley. It’s very quiet and you can see so many stars. Camping isn’t camping when you hear semi’s driving by….We are lucky enough to get real showers in the mornings, so I guess our version of camping is a little softer than what others do. But that’s fine with me! The guy running the campsite said that at dusk, we’d see deer coming down near our spot. When we came back from getting Ryan his camera and more tent stakes, guess what we saw? A very pretty deer with fuzzy antlers. Nature!!!
We went to Kmart to get Ryan a camera since Tyler had one and sharing was an issue. No biggie, Ryan can have one! We also needed some metal tent stakes since the ones we had were bigger plastic ones and the soil at Ponderosa Campground was as hard as a rock. The metal ones worked great. Thanks to civilized camping!
We’re off to Yellowstone today to see Old Faithful and maybe some mud pots. We’ll see what the day holds for us, but I know we won’t be driving 400+ miles! Yippee!!!! I’ll be free to drink Diet Coke without worrying we’d have to stop 563 times in 100 miles so I can go.
The sunset in Cody was amazing. Purples and pinks with white…very pretty.
Goodness, here come the cameras. It will be interesting to see the trip from their perspective!
We then headed to Devil’s Tower. About 13 miles away from it, it emerged on the horizon as a smokestack looking thing. The boys thought it was cool already. It’s funny how these huge things look so tiny from a distance. Once we got into Devil’s Tower Monument Park, we wound around and ended up just below it. I told Tyler to turn around and take a look and once he did, he again said, “WHOA, that’s cool.” We walked around a little bit and could have walked around the entire monument, but little Ryan couldn’t take the warmth and kept asking when we were going back. That was our cue to not go any further and just head back to the car and get going. We had several more hours of driving to go. I did learn from a park ranger there that Ponderosa Pines smell like candy. And boy do they! I had to give it a sniff.
After several potty stops and one gas stop right before we started climbing to just be sure, we finally made it to the Bighorn Mountains. Again, we saw them emerge from about 30 miles away and the kids thought it was really cool to see snow on top! Then they went back to their movie watching.
I did a little white knuckling it and pushed the imaginary passenger brake several times as we were taking the switchbacks to get up the first mountain. Andy did such a great job driving through the areas he’d never driven before and I’m very thankful he’s a calm driver. I did accidentally say “Hey, look at that!” then immediately took it back so he wouldn’t look and we would plummet to our fiery deaths on the cliffs below. We did see a moose on our way through and I REALLY wanted a picture, but it wasn’t in a good place to stop (i.e. going downhill at about 50 with someone on our tail and no pullover). We didn’t go on the scenic pullovers until I saw one with something different. I didn’t know what it was until we got in, but it looked interesting. It was Shell Falls. Wow. It was absolutely beautiful. We walked around it a little bit, which was a nice break from the long ride. The falls had actually been in a different location and had moved due to erosion, which I think is fascinating.
I do have to note that the boys have not been behaving on this trip. They were fighting pretty badly at home and after threatening them with taking all their toys away and actually taking some, they have been a little better. They are best buds, then worst enemies, best buds, enemies all day long. My patience wore thin on the sudden bursts of anger and the taunting they do to each other to get the other one either mad or in trouble, or both. Their mother doesn’t have any tolerance for this and we both get so tired of them getting angry and either stomping off or just saying “Well, then I’m not playing” then having the other one say “He just said he would NEVER play with me”. It could go on for centuries all the stories I’ve heard them complain to me about. So because of their rotten behavior in the car, they’ve had their s’mores taken away this entire trip so far. Each day they start fresh and each day they’ve been threatened to knock it off or there’d be a consequence. Well, it’s obviously not working since there’s been no s’mores. Maybe tonight….but by the looks of Ryan’s sleepy eyes already this morning, I don’t think it’s a huge possibility. We did give them both cameras so they could take their own pictures, thanks for the idea from Beth. That’s another consequence if the fighting gets out of control. It’s a mystery to me but others with grown boys of their own tell me it could go on forever. What?!
When we got to our campsite, we found out how false advertising works. The campsite really looked nothing like the pictures on the website. I’ve never seen so many campers crammed so close together and the huge “gift shop” wasn’t exactly what I was expecting either. Our bathrooms were port-a-jons, which I do have to say is better than 1) an outhouse or 2) finding my own “bathroom”. The teepee that we reserved was right next to about 200 teens in tents and a highway, so we picked out a tent site that was close to the river and NOT near the highway, down a VERY steep slope in a valley. It’s very quiet and you can see so many stars. Camping isn’t camping when you hear semi’s driving by….We are lucky enough to get real showers in the mornings, so I guess our version of camping is a little softer than what others do. But that’s fine with me! The guy running the campsite said that at dusk, we’d see deer coming down near our spot. When we came back from getting Ryan his camera and more tent stakes, guess what we saw? A very pretty deer with fuzzy antlers. Nature!!!
We went to Kmart to get Ryan a camera since Tyler had one and sharing was an issue. No biggie, Ryan can have one! We also needed some metal tent stakes since the ones we had were bigger plastic ones and the soil at Ponderosa Campground was as hard as a rock. The metal ones worked great. Thanks to civilized camping!
We’re off to Yellowstone today to see Old Faithful and maybe some mud pots. We’ll see what the day holds for us, but I know we won’t be driving 400+ miles! Yippee!!!! I’ll be free to drink Diet Coke without worrying we’d have to stop 563 times in 100 miles so I can go.
The sunset in Cody was amazing. Purples and pinks with white…very pretty.
Goodness, here come the cameras. It will be interesting to see the trip from their perspective!
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