Heading East

Hi! This is Alec. I'm writing today.

This is what today looks like in the car. BUT I'm not playing my DS. Because of that, I witnessed my dad killing his fourth animal victim. A bird. He has killed 3 birds and 1 squirrel. Daddy says wildlife 0-daddy 4. In Yellowstone today we got stuck in a buffalo jam. It's just like a traffic jam but it's caused by buffaloes and tourists.

Madi here-now the first picture is correct as Alec has given up typing and is playing his DS. At least typed something on the blog. :-)

I think Wyoming has longer flatter roads than Kansas, but much more scenic. In fact, it's our favorite state so far and y'all might have to come here to see us one day. It's simply gorgeous, down to earth people, geocaches, and many many horses. Oh, and coffee, lots of coffee. I'm happy.

So, yesterday we drove towards Beartooth Pass. It was out the NE entrance to Yellowstone and up 212 towards Red Lodge. We slept in our clothes for the next day and woke up at 5:15 am to have coffee and got on the road by 5:45. We got some neat pictures, many more in our minds as we simply don't have the equipment/aren't good enough with the camera to capture what we see. We got to see some stunning elk with gigantic racks and many many buffalo. We got a video of a buffalo rolling. If you haven't heard buffalo, they make some weird noises. Grunting/growling/gurgling. I walked out toward some and scared the carp out of my kin as one of the bulls decided to stand his ground. I knew to keep my distance. He was just checking me out. He's not used to blondes I guess. ;-) Ben also saw the elusive and much desired bear. We think it was a young grizzly but aren't 100% on that. He was very excited and far from exasperated. The animals left on my bucket list are mountain goats and moose, and not the chocolate kind.


We drove 110 miles total from our campsite and wound up stopping at the Clay Butte fire tower. What a beautiful setting. It was between the Beartooth, Gallatin and Absorok (sp?) mountain ranges. The fire tower is no longer in service, it's a public service spot that keeps track of wildlife and has volunteers man it to give info to tourists and hikers like us. We hiked to a pile of snow there and threw snow at each other. Then drove back to the campsite. It was an unintended 12-hour day. My bad. But enjoyable.

And we ended the car trip with the buffalo jam. The piece de resistance was the ginormous buffalo walking down the road playing chicken with the dually in front of us. Then he moved to the opposing lane and walked right along with the cars as you'll see in the video. We were cracking up. He was the biggest buffalo we had seen. Just struttin' his stuff.

We are currently driving through a canyon in the Bighorn National Forest. There's whitewater to our left and this is simply gorgeous. Wow!! Mike wondered how we were going to get through the mountains. WOW!! Wish you were here!!! Man do I love Wyoming!! Whoa, switchback... what a view!

And we finally had chicken soup for dinner. With biscuits cooked in a pan on the stove. The hail storm helped with our appetites for soup.

On to the Dakotas...
Madi