I feel like we got out of the Park sometime around 3:00 or so and we still had about 4 hours of driving to get to our destination that evening: Riverton, WY. The stretch between the two places was amazing. First of all, there was no traffic. We weren't on an interstate or anything - it was just a state highway - but still, we may have seen half a dozen oncoming cars the whole way. Second, this part of the state earned Wyoming the title of "state I was most pleasantly surprised by on the trip". Immediately to the south of Yellowstone is Grand Teton National Park (and yes, we listened to this while driving through the Park), featuring a beautiful view of the majestic Rocky Mountains across Jackson Lake. We pulled over to stretch our legs and chuck rocks into the lake. Just beautiful. Then, after turning off at Moran, we were driving through lush valleys with stands of trees tucked in amongst smaller rocky peaks. We pulled off somewhere along the way here too for a bathroom break. Holly was in the middle of doing her thing when she was swarmed by biting bugs. Yikes! Here are some pictures of the first leg of the Wyoming drive:
We got to Dubois, WY for dinnertime. Dubois was a really cute little place with a rustic Western theme and boardwalks for sidewalks. The only place that looked really appealing was Paya. Unfortunately, the food took a while to come out so we put in our order and then took turns strolling down Main Street and reading to whoever wanted to stay behind. I must say that the food was delicious when it came and we ate our fill before moving on. Around the town of Dubois were a number of dude ranches. I'm not sure I've knowingly seen one before, but it seemed to be the area's main industry. Also, the landscape changed completely in that part of the state. Grey rocks and greenery were replaced by red rocks and scrubland. The colours were unbelievable, particularly as we were getting them as lit by sunset. We've been to Sedona and this sort of red holds up very well against Sedona's. The sheer size of some of the rock faces on the side of the road were staggering too. Witness:
Note that in these last couple of pictures, I tried fooling with the camera. I sampled the colour of the van and then extracted the van hue from everything that had that colour and then converted everything else into black and white. Fun with photography!
I really was trying to get off the road before dark, but there always seemed to be too much to explore and too much driving to do to pull it off. I can't remember how we pulled it off in Western Canada but we were failing pretty badly in the NW States (late into Seattle, late into Spokane, two late nights into Idaho Falls and now late into Riverton). It wasn't too bad as the kids hadn't actually fallen asleep by the time we pulled in. We did our standard "enter the hotel in batches so that nobody knows that we're five to a room" when things went very, very wrong. The desk clerk gave Holly and the boys with her a room key to a room that was already occupied. Holly reports that the lone gentleman in the room was under the sheets when she burst in and there was screaming on both sides. Holly raced back to the desk to get us an unoccupied room. That has never happened to us before. Horrifying. Here is Max's reenactment of The Moment:
The next morning got off to a good start. We popped into the hotel restaurant to load the kids up with an eggs 'n OJ breakfast after they had a morning swim. I loaded the van in 94-degree weather while the boys watched a game show from some past decade that involved making gross sandwiches and racing around a fake shopping mall. The boys erupted into their 349th fight over Pokemon paraphernalia somewhere around Sweetwater Station and shortly after that, we crossed the Continental Divide for the final time (it's tough to say how many times we crossed it - I believe it was 9 or 10).
We blazed across the state (now we were dealing with rolling hills, farmland and these weird fences set up everywhere that we figure were wind breakers...it was extremely windy in those parts!) but were completely unable to escape country music on the radio (seriously about 12/13 stations were country). Eventually, we pulled off the interstate at the Wagonhound Rest Area to celebrate our 10,000th kilometre on the road. I think originally, we were aiming to be home within 10k-12k km so we were starting to see how much extra tootling around we were doing instead of just bombing out to the ocean and back. The shelter at the rest area actually had these little alcoves with picnic tables inside to allow people to grab a bite out of the wind (did I mention it was windy?).
We eventually got back in the van, drove for another 45 minutes and then pulled off the road to try The Iron Skillet for lunch. It turns out the only thing iron you need is an iron stomach to eat there. But at least two of the kids were free! And, as you can see from the picture, we did our best to make it look good.
Just outside the restaurant, by the off-ramp from the highway, we pulled off the road to look at a map and we noticed a "Magic: the Gathering" card on the side of the road. Then another and another. The kids had played the trading card game before so we scrambled around and ended up picking up about 200 cards on the shoulder. The kids sorted and traded them over the course of the next hour, which gave Holly enough time to wander the streets of Laramie, WY. Holly's sister is named Laramie and Holly thought it would be great to get her something that actually had her name on it. Too bad that 90% of businesses were closed by the time to rolled into town. Holly eventually did find a place to pick up some gear and then we split out of there to try to reach our hotel for the night before the kids erupted.
It was already 4 or so and we had 5 hours of driving ahead of us. Thankfully we had a pile of audiobooks to get us through this stretch. The boys latched on to "Diary of a Wimpy Kid", a funny book in which the protagonist has some serious character flaws yet tries to pass them off as assets. We had to point out to the kids a few times that what this guy thought were "great ideas" were in fact kind of mean. I know, we're wet blankets. Sue us.
Somewhere around Wheatland, we pulled off for some Arby's and to grab a couple last Wyoming souvenirs before we left the state. There really isn't much more to say about this leg of the trip. We got off the beaten path a bit and took the scenic route through Fort Laramie. The kids passed out somewhere before getting into South Dakota and then woke up with about 45 minutes left to go before arriving at our destination in Rapid City. The bummer was that Max and Henry were uncomfortable/upset enough that they cried in the dark for the remainder of the drive. That was pretty nerve-wracking. We all arrived in one piece though and tucked into bed in South Dakota just before 1:00 a.m.
It's funny how close we came to crossing over into Colorado and Nebraska that day but just couldn't justify it. We'll just have to go back sometime. Here are some closing pictures from the road in Wyoming.
