Saturday, July 30, 2011

Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons


Today we left our hotel in Livingston, Montana, but first I took a picture of the beautiful Subway with the mountains behind it. 


Did you ever wonder how we fit everything into the car?


During the night we had heard what we thought was rain, but it turned out to be a bunch of mayflies hitting our window. When we went outside, we saw that they were all over the cars. 




After Grandpa "cleaned" the mayflies off of the windshield, we headed toward Yellowstone. We stopped along the Yellowstone River. 





When we entered the park, we were given this memo. 



This is Liberty Cap which is a dormant hot spring cone. 


We saw hot springs everywhere. 
















I'm glad that didn't turn out to be me. 


Finally, we reached Old Faithful! 




After Old Faithful, we did some more sight-seeing in the Grand Tetons. 








When we arrived at our hotel, we were mesmerized by one of the windows in the front. When my mom went to the front desk, she asked the manager if this was a neighborhood that had a high crime rate. He was not amused. 



When we went in our rooms, we were startled to see that there was washcloth art on our tub. 


Friday, July 29, 2011

Heading West

On Wednesday we left Marquette, Michigan, and headed toward Detroit Lakes, Minnesota.  There were a lot of interesting signs along the road.  First was the gas station where you can take Pepsi showers.  That sounded a bit sticky to us, so we passed it by.


Next we came across an interesting display in a convenience store, right next to the Twinkies.  Leeches, anyone?


If you forgot to buy your leeches, you could probably find your own at "Leech Lake".


We stopped for lunch at Barker's Island, but we skipped the swimming after seeing this sign.


The funniest part of the trip was when we had a detour.  My mom thought the detour looked too long on the map, so she found an alternate route.  We ended up on the closed road, dontcha know? This video shows a little bit of what that was like.



We drove from Detroit Lakes to Bismarck, North Dakota on Thursday.  It wasn't a very exciting ride, so I don't have any pictures.  Grandma, Grandpa, and I went to see Harry Potter when we got there, while my mom went shopping at Hobby Lobby AGAIN!

This morning we took off from Bismarck, and headed to Livingston, Montana.  This was a long driving day - 8 hours!  We passed some interesting scenery along the way.




The mystery rest areas in Montana are a little confusing.  It's always a challenge to see if there really is one there.


Luckily, we did find one, but it appeared to be full of rattlesnakes.


Montana is known as the "Big Sky Country," but we prefer to call it "Big Bug Country."  Check out our windshield.


Thursday, July 28, 2011

Sault Sainte Marie and Marquette, Michigan

On Tuesday morning we sadly left our hotel on Lake Huron, where the chairs were still set up for marshmallow roasting.


We drove to Sault Sainte Marie to see the Soo Locks. Lake Superior is 21 feet higher than Lake Huron, so the locks are needed for ships to travel from one lake to the other.


Here is a picture of a ship just after it entered the locks from the Lake Huron side.


After letting water into the locks from Lake Superior, you can see how the ship is much higher.










After leaving Sault Sainte Marie, we drove to Marquette, Michigan. Grandpa, my mom, and I left Grandma in the hotel to rest her leg while we went to visit Presque Isle Park. We hiked through the woods a bit.


The park is right on Lake Superior.






Erosion is a big problem here, as you can see from these pictures.



There were a lot of warnings about staying away from the cliffs.  Sadly, Wendy Wickstrom did not.















When we got back to the hotel, I went swimming with Grandma and Grandpa.  I then tried to take a shower, but we had some problems.