DAY EIGHT - Bye-bye Big Faces
We told Nora Mount Rushmore was the Big Faces, and she would say hi to them whenever we saw them. So today was the day to say bye-bye to the Big Faces. We had a bit of a long morning at the campground. Since we are heading into Yellowstone and aren’t going to have much in the way of facilities, I wanted to at least have all the clothes clean, so I took the laundry to the laundry area at the campground. Of course it was way overpriced ($2 to wash, $1.75 to dry, and the tiniest washing machines I’ve ever seen with a coin box on them) but it was there and we were there, so that’s how things go. We also took showers. David and Michael went first. There were no benches or seats outside the showers here, so David ended up putting Michael in the duffel bag (open of course) on a pile of clothes on the floor while he got started in the shower. Nora and I had a similarly difficult time when it was our turn. It was really tight quarters in the changing stall outside the shower, so some socks and pants’ cuffs ended up getting a little damp as we both tried to get dried off and changed, and only one of us capable of actually putting clothes on. We were also all using the same towel, since I had put the rest of them in the laundry. By the time I got the towel, I was really just smearing water around. David dumped the tanks and we headed out of South Dakota. We stopped in Gillette, WY for food a couple items. The scenery is pretty and the driving pretty easy on I-90 again, but David says he’s sick of being on 90, which we have been following pretty much since Chicago. Tonight we’ll be turning off it onto a mountainous road to Yellowstone. We are staying on the western side of the park (which is huge), so we still have quite a bit of driving tonight and tomorrow. It is really vast and kind of desolate in Wyoming. We passed roads called Dead Horse River Road and Crazy Woman Creek Road. We pulled off in a “rest area” to make dinner and it was little more than a turnout: a paved lane about 10 yards from the highway, with a wide shoulder to park on, and a big trash bin. We let the dogs run around a little and then David made Hamburger Helper while Nora and I played on the bed with her shape-sorter snail. It’s really the first time we’ve had a real toy out (besides a foam ball and the outside cup) this whole trip. She just say back there, putting the shapes in and dumping them out. She doesn’t make mistakes anymore. Triangles go in the triangle hole, stars in the star hole and flowers in the flower hole. Not sure when that happened. She is growing up so fast. Also back there I was holding Michael and Nora said, “Michael Raymond” which is pretty crazy because I don’t remember even telling her that was his middle name. Maybe she has overheard us telling other people. Anyway, by the time we were done with dinner, the sun was setting. We put Nora in her pajamas, gathered up all the stuffed animals she requested (“Black doggie, brown doggie and Mister Bear, too!) and tucked her blanket into her carseat. We’ll be dry camping tonight - just parking somewhere. We have our eye on a picnic area in Burgess Junction. Hopefully it won’t be too freezing tonight. If it is, we’ll bring the kids in bed with us and close the dogs in with us in the back bedroom. We’ve been seeing a lot of cows and pronghorn antelope along the road. We can see mountains on the horizon, blending in with the clouds. The weather has been nice today. Like no-jackets kind of nice. But there are big swings between daytime highs and nighttime lows, so I’m not getting my hopes up. We stopped in Sheridan, WY, for gas at a place called the Rock Stop. The pillars holding up the canopy over the gas pumps are actually stone, like you would see on the front of a house. Weird. But it’s the prettiest gas station I’ve ever seen. The lady working there gave David his 69-cent cup of coffee for free after pumping 80 dollars worth of gas. We are gearing up for some “real” camping the next few nights. Tonight we’ll be without any amenities, and I made reservations for the next four nights at Madison Village in Yellowstone. I wanted to stay in Grant Village, but apparently it closes for the winter on the third night, contrary to the information in my AAA CampBook. Once we are in the park, we’ll just have a firering and a picnic table and place to park. We can get showers near Old Faithful, I guess, but no electricity unless we run the generator, which is only permitted during certain hours and not overnight. Not like we would really want to burn 8 hours worth of gasoline all night anyway, but if it gets really cold, it could be interesting. Madison campground is at a lower elevation than Grant anyway, so maybe it’s better that we had to switch. Anyway, it will be fun to be totally out of touch for the next few days, playing cards at night instead of updating the blog and emailing. That’s how it should be.
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After all that time on I-90, it was finally time to turn off, but I was in the back feeding Michael and David forgot to get off. The GPS and mapping software rerouted us to get off at the next exit, in 7 miles, and head south. We turned south and after a few yards passed a sign that said, “No services ahead.” A few feet later there was a sign that said, “End state maintenance.” Then the road turned to dirt. Washboard dirt road. It was pitch dark, too. David said, “I really have no one to blame for this but myself,” as we both laughed and everything in this place rattled. When I walked back after we got on a paved surface, there were stuffed animals all over the floor and the over-the-door hook on the bathroom door rattled itself so far toward the hinge that the door wouldn’t shut. While we were driving on the dirt road, the dogs were freaking out and a couple times Dalice had his paws draped over my seat and his head was on my head. We passed a porcupine, ambling down the byway. David said, “Maybe that scene from “RV” wasn’t so improbable after all!” Soon enough we were back on pavement and back on track.
We started through the mountains of Bighorn National Forest, intending to stop at the halfway point. All along the road, about every half mile, were camping and picnicking pulloffs in the National Forest. David said he wasn’t that tired and figured he could get a few more miles in. So we passed up the Visitor’s Center where we intended to stay, and of course, there were no more camping pulloffs, even though we were still in the same national forest. Then we started seeing deer all along the road, which was nerve-wracking. Then we hit dense fog, which was really just the clouds that were along the mountain at that elevation. David decided to turn back because the driving was too bad. So we went back to the visitor center and pulled in. We slept pretty well and woke up before the sun came up. Turns out the furnace blower can run off the coach battery until it goes dead, so we had heat until about 5:30 a.m. We were at almost 10,000 feet.