Days 4, 5, 6, and 7: Massive Blog FAIL

No doubt you're wondering if we've...decided to stay in Wind Cave, been eaten by a bear, or just gotten plain lost. I bet you'd never think that, in the middle of June, we might have possibly frozen to death. Actually, we've just been in literally the middle of nowhere and there has been no cell service or access to internet. While I did leave my computer at home and have drastically reduced my screen and phone time, you can still imagine how it affected me to not even have the possibility. Needless to say, I am slowly recovering from the lack of access to the outside world. Here now then is your long-awaited (maybe? hopefully?) update on our trip to Alaska.

So let's see if my vacation brain can remember what happened which day.

Day 4

We drove on Monday after sleeping another night in the car. There's been a lot of driving on this trip--hahaha. I split my time between reading my boxes of books and staring out the window at the pretty scenery. I generally have trouble not sleeping in a moving vehicle unless driving, but I think I got over that after the first day. Or maybe the books are just super interesting (they are just that). Anyways, we drove to Yellowstone National Park. On the way we stopped at this dam. The Buffalo Bill Dam? I don't remember which river it blocked. But it was really high up. And the canyon the water fell into was really pretty. We booked a campsite for the next two nights over the phone from a brochure we found at this dam. 

Yellowstone was beautiful coming in. There's lots of hills and mountains and fields with buffalo and elk and things in them. There was also snow. A lot of snow. We should have looked at the campsite before we reserved it. There was about 3 to 4 feet of snow over most of our campsite. The park had plowed a piece of it, but not a big enough piece for our 10x9 tent to fit in it, so Dad had to use the top of our of our boxes as a shovel. Who KNEW there would be SNOW in JUNE? We asked ourselves that question many times over the next couple of days. 

We got the tent set up rather quickly--it's this "1-Minute" set up tent with the poles pre-attached. It really did take 1 minute to pop it up, but then you have to stretch it out some and stake it in, and blah blah blah, so...it didn't really take 1 minute, but it was pretty close. Finally we got everything set up and started to make lunch. And then, of course, it started to rain. We hopped back in the van to finish eating, then we headed out to see the park.

You see, the thing with sleeping in cars or tents is that you wake up really early because the sun is up and then you might as well just stay up until the sun goes down. And since it's summer, well, the sun comes up at like 5:30 (or at least it's light then), and it doesn't get dark out here til almost 10 or so. It's crazy. Anyways, the point is, we got a lot of Yellowstone seen on Monday. Basically we did the top "loop" of the park. There were lots of geyser/mud pot/smelly-sulphury things and a petrified tree. The smell was quite awful, but not really as bad as I remembered it. Maybe my nose isn't so sensitive as when I was 13. 

Then, it was night time, and let's just say, that was not good. Temps fell to around freezing, and it was still raining. I woke up at around 1:30 am to my parents giggling on their air mattress. Not a good sign. Everyone was freezing. So we got back in the van and slept in there. Warmer, yes. More comfortable, most definitely not. 

Day 5

We woke up early again, and we were going to try to go back to Cody, WY to get better cold-weather sleeping equipment, but apparently the road out of the park that was closed. We thought it might be snow. We don't really know what it was, but it wasn't snow. There was quite a bit of new dirt on the road, so maybe it was a landslide. All in all, I think it was good that we weren't up there.

Instead of going to Cody, we hit the south loop of the park. It was quite cold--obviously, we slept in the car again--and there was ice on the boardwalk of our first stop. It was more bubbly things that smelled like rotten eggs, but the sun came up over the hill as we were walking the path, and it was gorgeous. Thankfully there were no bears or dangerous elk out and about that early either. We also saw the "Grand Canyon" of the Yellowstone Park. It was quite grand, but not as the real Grand Canyon.

Eventually, after many more short walks around more geysers or mud holes, we made it to the "big one"--Old Faithful. She isn't quite as faithful anymore, she was about 12 minutes late in fact. She bubbled up and spewed hot water a few times as teasers and then she really blew! It was almost a whole minute of hot water erupting.  

We went back to Cody to get better things for sleeping in freezing weather. That was pretty non-eventful. On the way back however, we got to add a couple more animals to our "seen these" list. First, we saw our first up-close BEAR! I did not throw Ashley out to it, but I could have because the bear, a grizzly no less, was only...50 yards away maybe? Then, a little bit farther down the road, we saw a freaking porcupine! Who would have thought?! I didn't even know they existed, especially not in the snow...! It was really cool. 

We tested the new cold-weather equipment--a couple more sleeping bags, aluminum emergency blankets, and another air mattress--Tuesday night. Things went quite well I must say. It was the first night I think we all got a good 7 hours of sleep. Or, at least, I did. 

Day 6

We got up from our much better night's sleep, despite it still being about 35 degrees when we got up, and broke down camp. It is not a 1-minute tear down tent, either, but it wasn't that bad. We took a long way out of the park to get a couple more of the stamps for our National Parks Passport. It took a really long time to get out. It is very mountainy, so the going was rather slow.

The goal for the day was to get to another National Park, Craters of the Moon, fairly early in the afternoon, then hit a hotel for an evening of relaxation. For some reason, it took a really long time to actually get out there. We barely made it to the visitor's center before it closed. But we did make it, and we got our stamp, and then we went to see what this Craters of the Moon place was all about. 

It was crazy. It was just like the Badlands because it just like popped up out of nowhere! Everything else, all the land around it, was just normal, nice grassy hilly countryside. Then, crazy black lava rock pops up. And sometimes it was big fields of the stuff. Some of the fields had big formations jutting out from the ground. There were even a couple dormant cones in the middle of the park. Even after we left the park and kept driving, the different formations and lava flows kept popping up along side of the road. It was as crazy as the Badlands but maybe not so dramatic because there weren't crazy cliffs. I thought it was beautiful. No one else really did.

Instead of grabbing a hotel immediately, which one didn't exist anyways, we decided to keep driving til Dad got tired. We stopped somewhere right inside of the Oregon-Utah line. 

Day 7

So...that brings us to today. I woke up in Oregon. We got back in the car to drive some more. Today was actually really boring. Oregon was absolutely beautiful. Then we hit Washington. I love the hills; I love the mountains. My book for the day is pretty intense and focus-consuming, but I was still torn away by the beauty out my car window. 

We ate dinner at Olive Garden, and now Ashley and I are chillin' watching the TV program Bones. We are just north of Seattle in Lynnwood, WA. 

I'm sorry there was such a long delay in the updates. There was literally zero service for the most part of the last four days. Now there is cell service AND wifi! And someone singing really badly on TV...hahaha. 

Look for pictures tomorrow. I'm enjoying my break from computers, and I don't have the patience to download and sift through hundreds of pictures right at the moment. Do not dismay though, there will be lots of photos for you tomorrow. And there will be an update about our adventures in Seattle!

Ciao!