We made the eight hour drive to Billings, MT that night. Luckily we were able to find a hotel to catch a few hours sleep. It was the beginning of Sturgis and the hotels were packed. We had to settle for a smoking room with the worlds smallest pillows. Not joking. The pillows were smaller than the decorative pillows I have on my couch. At 3:00 AM we thought that was pretty hilarious. I couldn't stop giggling!
Next morning we headed out for Yellowstone. On my Dad's recommendation, we decided to bypass the Bozeman way, and go over the Bear Tooth Pass. Now, I have been driving in mountains since I first got my drivers license. I can handle canyons, steep inclines, sheer drop-offs, but I have to say, I have never seen anything like the Bear Tooth Pass. I was all prepared to drive through a winding and beautiful canyon. So imagine my surprise when the highway doesn't follow the canyon at all, but switch backs straight up the side of an 11,000 foot mountain! It was the craziest drive I have ever been on. Breathtakingly beautiful, but CRAZY!
Anna and I were going on about 3 hours of sleep, and there were bikers like you can't believe on the roads. For a good 60 miles, we were only able to do 20 MPH. When we got to Red Lodge (just before the Bear Tooth Pass) I called Andrew in Yellowstone and told him we should be there in a couple hours. This was about 8:30 AM. Well, needless to say, it took us WAY more than a couple hours. We stopped at the overlook on top of the Bear Tooth Pass for some pictures. It was incredible.
One of the many cool things we saw way up there, was a girl doing her bridal shoot on top. There she was in this beautiful wedding gown getting her pictures taken on top of the world. Awesome!
Anyway, around noon we finally made it down the Bear Tooth Highway and stopped in Cooke, WY for a potty break. No cell services, so I wasn't yet able to tell Andrew where we were and what our progress was.
Sometime between 12:30 and 1:00 we made it to Yellowstone! Yeah! We were so excited to be in the park. There were Buffalo and Elk everywhere and the kids were on cloud nine!
It was slow going in the park. Buffalo in the road and road construction kept our pace much slower than we anticipated. We stopped at Tower Falls for another potty break and to stretch our legs. Still no cell service, but there was a pay phone, so I called Andrew and Debo to let them know we should be about an hour. (It's now 2:00.)
Once again, going was slow. More construction, more traffic. Finally I had some cell service around 3:00 and I called Andrew again and told him one more hour! He was getting a little impatient, but I think he was excited to see us.
Finally about 4:00 we rolled into West Yellowstone. I called Andrew again. This time, he answered "If you say your are going to be 'one more hour' I'm going to kill you!" Ha! He'd been waiting one more hour for us since 9:30 that morning! But at that point we were only 5 minutes away and just needed to know the camp site. Yay! Let the camping begin!
No comments:
Post a Comment