I can't get Xanga to download more pictures, which kinda puts a damper on posting a photo blog. I keep trying.....

Still at Dead Horse Point (DHP), we went a bit off trail and climbed some rocks for a scenic vista. This wouldn't be possible if we suffered from vertigo, but since we don't, up we went and down, down, down we looked.

      

The canyon here is about 2,000 feet deep, which, in my mind, justified a shot of my boots overlooking it.

Then one more picture.

Ok, maybe one more.

We peeled ourselves away from DHP and headed to Arches to pick up our tickets for the Fiery Furnace Tour scheduled for 4 pm. We assured the ranger we could squeeze through narrow spaces, climb large rocks and jump over deep holes, and he gave us the tickets and instructions on how to get there.

With time to spare, we went to Moab to do some caching, which didn't pan out too well for us. The kids were hot and irritable and they weren't much interested in looking around or touching anything. Metal outside has a tenancy to burn fingers. On a really, really fun note, you can go through the McDonald's drive-thru and buy a bag of ice. We did this a lot during our stay at DHP, drive into Moab, get a drive-thru bag of ice, dump the water out of the cooler and refill it with ice. We did this a lot. And when I say that, I don't mean a couple times while we stayed here, I mean more or less twice a day. Cause, where else can you get a bag of ice from the drive thru at McDonald's?

Having given up on finding caches, we went to the Museum of Moab, which is free on Mondays. Since it was Monday, we went. The kids loved it there, not so much for the history or fascinating artifacts, but because the staff had hidden 47 tiny plastic lizards throughout the exhibits and the kids got a prize for finding them all.  They may have counted some twice, but who cares? They had fun.

After spending several hours at the museum, we shopped for some picnic items, found a great park and had lunch. The kids, forgetting they didn't want to cache because it was too hot out, ran and played in the park and played with metal musical instruments displayed in the sun. Figures! We hung out till it was time to head to Arches. The ranger had said it would take about an hour from the entrance and there was sometimes a wait to get in so we left in plenty of time, despite there having been a small accident at the park and having to go to the store to buy clean underwear for a certain child of mine.
Once we got to Arches and went in, I wondered why we'd spent so much time at the museum and the park when we could have been driving around looking at this.

And this.

And that.

Not to mention the other!

We arrived in time to wait for others before our tour started. Quin was immediately taken with the ranger and most of the time he was following in her footsteps practically before she'd vacated them. She was very sweet to him and the other 3 kids on the tour, often using them for interactive examples of what she was trying to explain about the geology or biology of the place.

However, Xanga is giving me fits about downloading more photos so the tour will have to wait.

 

 

 

 

I bet you've noticed that some days I took so many pictures to share with you I've had to break the days into 3 parts. Well, Day 8, being one of the best days for photography is going to have a bit more than that. I'll be showing you 143 photos of the 248 I took.....while I'd like to show you them all, I have to draw a line somewhere, right? And the good news is that the photos speak for themselves so I can show them without too many comments getting in the way!

That said, let's start with us waking up with the sun here in Dead Horse Point (DHP).

Our goal for the day was to cache and hang in Moab till 4:00pm, when we were scheduled for a tour of the Fiery Furnace in Arches National Park. We started off by looking around camp.

    

Then we went to the viewpoint. And didn't want to leave.

Some panorama to the left, and some to the right. No matter which way we looked, we were awestruck. You'll see variations on these views several times.

  Even Lewis and Puddles enjoyed it here. 

Quin took Puddles (the dog) and Lewis (baby leopard) with him just about everywhere today, posing them and giving them rabbit ears every chance he got.

   

That rock on the left looked as though it was squeezed out of a pastry bag. The point at DHP had a lovely parking lot and paved walking trails, info boards and cool rock walls.

    

The photo ops were endless for Kendrah and I. Quin just wanted to be a photo op.

It was Kendrah's dream to catch a lizard. This was one of many she missed.

    

I did say the rock walls were cool, right?

More panoramas.

 

 

Kendrah and I with the view behind us.

It was hot, so Puddles and Lewis hid in a hole in the rock to cool off.

As promised, there will be more.

 

 

 

 

My sister and BIL fixed us some breakfast, loaded us up with smackage, and waved us good bye. We stopped for a couple geocaches by their house to "mark the territory" of where we'd been and then put some miles on the car.

But before long we decided to stop for an earthcache at Monument Rock. Mostly cause I didn't know it was a long drive on a dirt road in the wrong direction followed by a long hike to the actual rock. But, once there, of course we were glad we'd stopped.

The kids enjoyed the time to goof off.

And to climb on the rock, of course.

Seriously, I can't keep them off of rocks.

   

Finally got everyone back into the car and on the road again, but it wasn't long before we had to stop and get a picture of the sign, which made us all laugh.

We drove till one of the wacky roadside attractions in the book sparked some interest and we got off the freeway and followed Jack to a 20' tall dog made of some 90,000 dog tags that blow in the wind.

 

Quin wanted to take a nap on the dog's tail.

 

But, we had mountains and snow to see! I don't really think about it much, but I see snow just about every day of the year due to my proximity to large mountains. Having gone a week without seeing any made it kinda shocking when we did, so I had to get a photo. And good thing, too, as they were quickly out of sight and we didn't see any snow again the rest of the trip.

But we did see waterfalls. Stopped here for a cache, surprised there was such a pretty waterfall.

Quin was kinda excited about having found the cache, but he really just wanted a bathroom.

Along the way we got to see a ginormously long tunnel. Or, if you want the Wikipedia version:

 

The Eisenhower Tunnelis a dual-bore, four-lane vehicular tunnel approximately 50 mi (80 km) west of Denver, Colorado, United States. The tunnel carries Interstate 70 under the Continental Divide in the Rocky Mountains. With a maximum elevation of 11,158 ft (3,401 m) above sea level, it is one of the highest vehicular tunnels in the world. The tunnel is the longest mountain tunnel and highest point on the Interstate Highway system.

1.693 miles of tunnel, and you'd think Unhappy Frog could crack a smile over the sound the horn made in it, but no. Maybe going to see Doc Holliday's grave would, but we'll never know cause I didn't get a picture of him there. I did, however, enjoy visiting it. Even if it was a half mile hike uphill to get to it. And, since no one really knows where he's buried I was really only going to his grave marker with the understanding he was around here somewhere. And I wanted to see what people had left at his marker, apparently it's a regular thing to tribute his memory by leaving money, whiskey, cigarettes, and playing cards.

  

There was another marker there, the face was falling off like Scrabble tiles or puzzle pieces. Quite sad, but not unexpected. The rest of the grave markers were old and interesting, but then it was time to move on.

  

Heading down the hill (a $1,000 fine and a year in jail if you throw something off the hillside here) I stopped to photo a dead tree. It might have been here when Doc Holliday was alive, who knows.

After that, we didn't do much stopping because we were all anxious to get to our campsite in Utah. As we drove off the freeway and onto the highway toward Dead Horse Point State Park, we were awed enough to stop and get a few pictures.

    

We set up our camp just as the sun was setting. This is one of my favorite photos of the entire trip (from a personal perspective, not as a "best photo" one). And this was my favorite stop along the way -- from a scenic perspective, not a comfort or visiting family, in case *someone* reading this gets offended. Looking at this photo makes me long to go back.

After we set up we got some more sunset photos. It was so comfortable here! At home, when the sun goes down you pretty much drag the sweatshirts out, but here it remained warm and I was comfy in my shorts and tank top all night.

    

I felt like I belonged here.

 

 

After visiting Garden of the Gods and having our picnic there, we moved on to other scenic vistas. We went to the Starsmore Discovery Center where there were enough flowers in bloom to attract several kinds of wildlife, like this butterfly.

And, because I'm a sucker for patterns, I got a close up of this tree bark.

After visiting the Center, we went to the Helen Hunt Falls. There is a visitor's center there, too, but we were more interested in climbing the falls and getting pictures.

And getting pictures of Kendrah getting pictures of my sister and my BIL.

And of Quin's pouty face as he continued his trend of being unhappy with everyone and everything.

And one of him smiling.

And dangling his feet over the falls.

There's my sister, BIL and daughter at the top bridge over the falls.

And my daughter, looking absolutely adorable, at the base of the falls.

The Center had hummingbird feeders out, and the hummingbirds were loving it. Kendrah got a good photo of one flapping it's wings but the only decent one I got was of it sitting still.

Then we wandered over hill and dale through the outskirts of North Cheyenne Canon (and yes, that's spelled correctly, except for missing the squiggle over the middle n) and caught some fantastic views. My BIL showed us a large mansion-like home with a view similar to this and said it was worth a million dollars. I was thinking that was really good but he thought it was wildly expensive. I explained that the average home price in my town, for an average home, is $500,000. So from my perspective a home with a view like this for only a million was practically like giving it away. Not that I could afford a million dollar home, here or there.

We went through a tunnel, so I took a picture. This time I wasn't driving, but it still turned out looking like I was, and not paying attention to the camera. Oh well.

We headed for The Broadmoor, a 5 star hotel, just to look around the grounds and to see if we could blend in enough to pass ourselves off as guests. We parked a fair distance away and admired two fawns grazing in someone's yard. There was a doe across the street a ways with a broken leg. She was skin and bones, I could count her ribs and I got a picture of her but it's a little too disturbing to post. Instead, I focused on making Kendrah cross someone's yard to get a picture of her with a Mary-Poppins-like statue.

        

There's one portion of the hotel. The hotel is actually in 2 parts, a west side and an east side, with two large ponds separating the two buildings. There were swans nesting on shore, so I walked up close and got a picture of one of the cygnets.

    

There are lots of interesting architectural details that made me laugh, claw feet on the garbage cans, faces in the brick fireplace, a little bear in the waterfall flowing between two staircases outside, staircases with individually painted tiles, eccentric stuff like that. Then, going inside, I was struck by the dome ceiling, the chandeliers, the incongruous escalators, and walls of glassed in, dusty old wine bottles. It was kinda fun to walk around and see what separates a 5* hotel from any other. And, well, the answer is....everything.

      

 

After we had gawked enough in the lobby, we went outside to the Carriage Museum, a free museum on the verge of closing for the day so we bustled in and out with plenty of ohhing and ahhing.

Outside, there was a plaque for the Pony Express rider. We saw a lot of stuff in regards to the Pony Express, kinda fun to have a reoccurring theme popping up everywhere we went.

After that, we headed back to my sister's for dinner and bed. We were planning on taking off early the next day. Next stop, Utah!

 

An interesting tidbit about the Garden of the Gods park, is that when it was "discovered" one dude said, "Yo, we gotta make this place into a beer garden, man" (not a direct quote, but close) and his friend scoffed, "Beer garden? No, this is a garden for the gods." The sober guy won the argument and the other guy went and drowned his loss at a local pub. You can read the more accurate and less entertaining account in Wikipedia under "Garden of the Gods" if you want.

Meanwhile, I took pictures.

    

Got to watch some climbers up close (with zoom, that is). The guy had some spectacular muscles. Not that I noticed.

    

Quin found it first!

But Kendrah felt the need to climb into the crack with him.

Then Quin waited her out, staying in his curved little spot till I could get another picture of him. Pretty sure he's the cutest boy, ever.

 

I thought it was so cool to see how the rocks were formed, curving gracefully here, jagged cliffs there, balanced rocks seemingly about to topple, sections of tafoni randomly placed here and there, trees growing from sheer rock faces. It was all really fun to look at.

 

 Oh, there's the camels again, just above dead center.

I wasn't paying much attention then, but I've since learned that this formation is called the Three Graces.

I love this picture, the way the clouds look, the reds and greens and just the weird formations.

Meanwhile, back to normal, my kids both felt the need to cram themselves into tiny cracks in the rocks. There were warning signs about rocks being unstable. My kids were fine where they were, but a man holding a small child slipped on some loose rocks and fell crashing down. He did a great job of protecting the kid and falling so no one got hurt, so we were able to laugh quietly to ourselves about it.

 

Another photo I fell in love with.

Quin climbed up high, while Kendrah held up the Balanced Rock with other kids climbing on it.

   

The Balanced Rock was interesting. I think of balanced as teetering, but it was really solid and no matter how many people climbed on it, it didn't wiggle. Despite that, I still got the heebie jeebies when the kids were under it.

Another interesting thing is that the balanced rock is on a shelf of rock that is balanced by pillars. Quin hid under the pillars while I got a shot of the people milling about.

   

Kendrah finally got a moment to herself on the shelf on Balanced Rock.

 

And I got a picture of a cool tree trunk.

After this visit to the Garden of the Gods, we took a scenic drive to other parts of Colorado Springs, which I will post pictures of next time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My sister and her husband fixed a great breakfast for us, and we headed out soon after. Quin had hurt his wrist before we'd left, and then fell again, hurting it more, so our first stop was to get him a brace in case he fell again before it healed. We were also in their car so I didn't have sun screen, so I bought an additional bottle of that while I was there at Walgreens. We're from Washington, we can't handle the sun! Well, I rarely burn and never use sun screen but that doesn't mean I can't develop good habits for the kids. Ok, fine. I'll admit I only remembered to slather them up maybe 3 times the entire trip.

Whatever.

Our first stop was Garden of the Gods, a 480 acre park in Colorado Springs that has some spectacular red rock formations. We literally had to stand in a line to get our turn for the photo op at this sign. We waited in the hot sun for about 15 minutes, ran up, had my BIL shoot off a couple pictures, and dashed off so someone else could have a turn.

There were a lot of earthcaches there but I was in a mood to go with the flow and if I managed to get the right pictures and information, great, if not, I'd either make it up and not claim it. I knew I wanted to see the Kissing Camels. Seriously, who wouldn't?

That's them, up there. I was confused, too. It took me a while to see them. I eventually did and you'll see them front, back and side by the time you finish this post. Unless you lack imagination, that is. I can't really help you with that.

The red rock formations were cool, but I enjoyed the green rocks and the white rocks as well. Sometime we could walk on a path and to our left was green rocks and to our right was red rocks. It was kinda weird. But really beautiful as well.

Oh, look, the camels are kissing. Pretend along with me.....

Bison in the gift shop! 

A lot less damaging than a bull in a China shop, so the kids had to ride on one. The gift shop was easily the most expensive one we shopped in the entire trip. Well, as least as far as post cards went since that was all I could afford, anyway. Here, they were 75 cents each. Most other places were between 25 and 35 cents, with the latter usually having a "buy 3 get one free" sale. I did buy a tear-away pack of them while I was there, just because I figured they might be better than my own photography.

 

We parked at a scenic overlook, and then walked into the park itself.

 

Quin was in pain from his wrist and was a bit afraid of his uncle so he was quite the grouch today. He hung back from the others, growled, and was generally mean to anyone that came near him, fighting with me about why he had to come on this stupid trip and why he couldn't have just stayed home to play on the computer the whole time. So, I stayed with him, recognizing where his anger was really coming from, even if I missed out spending time with my sister and BIL. Kendrah hung out with them while Quin and I walked together behind them, and soaked up the scenery.

Great example of tafoni on the left,

and a hole on the right

Meanwhile, let's play a game called "Spot the climbers". There's one in each picture below:

  

There's the backside of the lip-locked camels (top, left of center). And the striking difference between the red rocks and the green trees and the silver sky.

  

Here's some examples of the white rock hills. And a close up of a climber with no ropes and no safety gear (and about 1' off the ground).

  

I got a lot of great pictures on this day and it will take a couple days to post them all.

Be back soon.

 

 

 

 

After that exciting night in Nebraska we woke early. The RVer's were also up and out of there early, waving goodbye to us and agreeing that this was the kind of place people only stayed one night at. I got a picture of the campground. No sireebob, we weren't in Washington anymore.

As we finished packing up, I got a couple pictures of the Chimney Rock, since it was famous and all.

Then, to be artsy, one of Chimney Rock with a wagon.

And then, since it was there, a windmill.

Then it was time to work our way to the Tri-State corner. We followed GeePS and Jack to the first cache of the group I wanted to do -- the tri-state corner, and 3 other caches within a quarter of a mile into each state. We found the road off the highway easily enough but we drove right past the road the GPS units wanted us to take because I hadn't recognized it as a road. But then, as I said, we weren't in Washington anymore and maybe 2 deep ruts and some tall grass counts as a road around here. So we backtracked and took it to the first cache.
 
Then, the "road" got steadily worse. The bottom of my car was scarped clean as I tried to fit my tires where I wouldn't bottom out. I might mention that there is no one, and I mean no one for miles and miles so I wasn't too keen on the idea of getting stuck. Not that I would be with other people around, but you know what I mean. Heading to the monument, I was still about 700' from it when I saw a stream going across the....the place my car was supposed to go (not much of a road at this point). I sat there for a while contemplating driving through it, driving around it, or forcing grumbly kids who couldn't have cared less about some dumb monument to walk the distance.

Which is when a school bus lumbered up behind me, drove around me, and sat in front of the stream. Passengers tumbled out, jumped the stream and started walking to the monument. This, suddenly, turned the situation around as far as walking went. The kids were excited to see other people and were eager to hike with them so we got out and kept to ourselves but engaged in a kind of toddler parallel play as we followed along. Then the bus rumbled to life again and made it's way downstream a bit then crossed and made it's way with us to the plaque.

  
We got friendly with the bus people, apparently a 1994 class reunion field trip, and we took each others pictures at the monument which you can't see cause Kendrah is standing in front of it. Oh well. We were there, that's all that matters. We did our caching thing, drawing interest from a few of the people about it. One man saw my GPS and said he'd heard that the monument wasn't exactly where the state corners meet and suggested I "punch in all zeros" and see just how far off they were. I may have been confused by what he wanted, but explained that the tri-state corner, while very cool, does not have a reading of all zeros so it would not be an accurate way to determine how far off the monument was. I didn't laugh till I was far away.
  
The driver gave us a ride back to our car, then waited to follow me out to the real road. We honked and waved and took off.
 
Off to see Americana in the shape of a tipi hotel. Somewhere along the line we slipped into Wyoming, but I don't know if this hotel was in Wyoming or Nebraska. Here's the sign for Wyoming, with other people hogging the photo ops.

 
And the cornerstone of Cheyenne.

Then, into Colorado we went, followed quickly by seeing a giant bison sign up on a hill.

 

We drove and drove, Unhappy Frog riding right along with us as we went from sunny....

to stormy....

and into the storm and traffic. 

The storm came and went and by the time we got to the Celestial Seasonings factory, it was sunny again, and the prairie dogs frolicked and the tea pot signs led the way.

   

Since all three of us love tea, this stop was a no-brainer. Who needs to drive through another boring place with the words "National Park" tacked to the end when there is a tea factory to see? So, yeah, the Rocky Mountains were nixed off the list and we headed here.

The windows were all plastered with various art they use on their tea boxes and I couldn't resist the one with the bison. That particular tea has too much caffeine for me, but I've always been fond of the bison art on it. Seeing it 10' by 15' was kinda a big deal.

As it was for Quin, who spent some time petting the tiger while Kendrah took pictures of him and I tried to get pictures of Kendrah taking pictures of him.

Then it was time to browse the shop and go through the Tea Sampler Bar while we waited for our tour to start. Quin agonized over some chocolate choices, a moot point since they were about $5 each.

Once our tour started of course it was time to put the camera away. They weren't actually making tea that day (figures!) but we got to see stuff. Quin's favorite part (maybe of the whole trip) was standing in "The Mint Room" deeply inhaling the menthol till his eyes watered. He bought a postcard that said "I survived The Mint Room!". Altoids and their curiously strong mints have nothing on The Mint Room, it was downright intense and many on the tour had to step out.

Interesting fact about mint, its sticky. They said if they didn't have separate machines to run the mint on, they would end up with 76 varieties of peppermint flavored tea.

And speaking of varieties, there is a guy that has worked there almost 40 years that has such a refined tea palate that he can sip any tea from any company and identify every ingredient, and what region that individual ingredient had been grown. He tastes about 100 cups of tea each day to assure that the mix is done perfectly. That's so crazy cool. They told us that if we wanted his job when he retired, we needed a 4-year degree in some kind of food management or something, plus be his apprentice for 4 years before he'd consider hiring us. No thanks. I like tea, but I also like burning my mouth off with spicy food and I suspect that can't be good for later identifying some herb in miniscule quantities brewed in hot water.

After the tour and browsing the tea shop again, we headed back outside to grab a cache called Prairie Dog Preserve. Along the way....you may be shocked by this....we saw a lot of the creatures between teh factory and the cache.

  

  

It was so fun to watch them! They moved so fast, if you blinked you might miss them entirely as they dove in and out of their tunnels. They also hid very well just sitting in the grass. You may also be surprised to know that there are 2 prairie dogs in each of three of these photos.

After that we just made our way to my sister's house in Colorado Springs and got some rest and visiting and laundry done before heading off to bed so we can have another full day tomorrow.

 

It's the 4th of July and I've seen Mt. Rushmore, Needles Highway, the outside of the Jewel Cave, rocks, trees, cemeteries and roads that mirage into nothingness in the distance and still we drive on and on. We listen to audio books, the kids sometimes play Battleship or Bingo. Kendrah rolls down her window, pumping her fish wildly at each trucker in hopes of getting them to honk (many do, most don't). When we need to switch things up, we stop the book and listen to Daft Punk with the windows down and stereo cranked. We stop and buy ice. We stop and buy ice cream sometimes, too. We ask Kendrah questions and she answers them all with "Edible painted squirrels."

Life is good in Nebraska. We start with a geocache at the base of the state line sign, a picture and a "Hurry up, we're almost to Carhenge!"

Have you even heard of Carhenge? I hadn't, but when I'd sent Kendrah on a task to find a good place to visit that's on our route, that's what she found. That, and Chimney Rock, which is where we ended our day. So for those that have not heard of it, it's a replica of Stonehenge, made entirely out of vehicles. American made ones, I might add. All painted a stone-gray, of course. Carhenge is surrounded by other cars for those aspiring to be graffiti artists. We had a can of spray paint and a handful of Sharpies ready, but there was still some road to travel. Even if it disappears.

If you asked Quin a question he'd always answer "purple pickles." What does he eat for breakfast? Purple pickles. What does he wear to bed? Purple pickles. This silliness set the tone nicely for the place called Carhenge.

It's a place that could bring tears to your eyes, isn't it?

  In case Carhenge wasn't enough,    

how about having a dinosaur in the outskirts?

But seriously, THIS is art, people. Even if you study edible painted squirrels in school. Or wear purple pickles on your head in a rainstorm.

You can imagine that when I took this picture, Kendrah was pretending to be one of the truckers she was trying to get to honk at her. Feel free to add sound effects.

Then, off to see graffiti cars!

And add to the artistry! There was a cache there, of course, so first things first, find, sign and replace the cache, then...why stop there? Add our caching names to the car!

And the words "EPIC ROAD TRIP 2013" on a tire!

There goes Quin with a Sharpie!

He let the world know that he's cool, while Kendrah expressed her obsession with Dr. Who by drawing the TARDIS and quotes on various vehicles.

Another view of Carhenge and the sun peeking through the windows of a graffiti car.

 

The carfish seems to be a mostly harmless species, but Kendrah discovered the dinosaur has a tendency to give chase. Her nighmares have finally subsided, don't worry.

  

This half-buried car intrigued Quin and he wanted me to "tilt the camera so it looks like I'm getting in."

Then, saying good bye to Alliance, Nebraska and the weird art at Carhenge, we turned our car to Bayard, also in NE. Well, okay, honestly, I didn't see a Bayard, NE, perhaps I blinked, but that should go without saying, since we spent the night there. Next to the trains. That went by every hour. For a half hour. Blasting their horns. Once when they arrived in Bayard, and once when they left. It was a looooonnnng night.

But, before we discovered how close the train were (and they weren't all that close, but there was nothing to block the sound out there but grass), we knew our camground was at teh base of Chimney Rock so we drove and drove till we spotted it. Yeah, that teeny tiny spindly rock in the distance.

 

Even close up, it wasn't the landmark of monumental proportions that pioneers used to navigate by that I was expecting. Still, it was interesting. And we're all about interesting right?

Interesting would describe our campground, which I'll show you on Day 5. It was easy to find, as the only building on a flat town, and we pulled up to a closed office, and a huge campground with one lone RV in it. I shrugged and picked a spot, any spot to park at. Considering it was 7pm and it was practically empty I wasn't too worried about stealing someone's spot so I chose one that had thick green grass to set the tent on. As we got out of the car to stretch, the RV'ers came over and asked us if we were the managers. I said no and that I was surprised no one was here. They said they'd called the office number to get the bathroom key but no one answered. They wandered back to their RV and we set up camp. Around 7:30, a car pulls in and a woman with a clipboard gets out. She talks to the RV'ers then comes and talks to me, giving me the bathroom passcode, taking my money and telling me to come have a drink with her sometime.

After she left we finished setting up and headed off to the bathrooms. The passcode was in Roman numerals in a circle but it got us in to the cutest bathrooms on the prairie. Knotty pine walls, "barbed wire" towel holders, Mason jars over the light bulbs, tin tiles just above head height. Totally cute. We did our nightly thing and then went back to the tent and got settled in. Or as settled as you can get with trains chugging through the tent all the time. Quin's position in the tent afforded him a smidgeon of a view of some fireworks. I heard them between trains once, but was too worn out to move and take a peek. Happy 4th of July, now GO. To. Sleep.

Sometime in the middle of the night I had to pee, and I got up, slipped my shoes on and enjoyed a walk in the star-lit darkness to the office/bathrooms. There's no light over the bathroom doors. There's no way to see the keypad without a light. I figured if it was too dark to see a keypad it was too dark for anyone to see me so I peed outside. And they were such cute bathrooms! But, only from the inside. I went back to the tent and slept/woke/slept/woke/slept/woke all night. I could easily get used to the train noise, but the horns blaring were a different matter altogether.

Day 5 involves three states, a school bus, and more gorgeous scenery. But you'll have to wait a while, I'm off to have a mini adventure and will be away from my computer.

Till then, if you ask me a question, I might say "Grandma's smelly sneakers."

Just an FYI.

 

 

 

So there we were on the Needles Highway in South Dakota and it was pouring down rain. But it was still gorgeous, especially when we drove up to this birch grove.

  And saw a deer.

I enjoyed the tunnels and tried to get a photo whenever we were about to, or driving through them.

  

There was an Earthcache here at Sylvan Lake. We were supposed to get out and walk around to see things but the raindrops were the size of marbles and no one was interested in getting out for a stroll since we had brought no rain gear. So we answered the questions to the best of our car-locked ability.

 

After that, it was just a matter of poking the camera out the window when we saw something interesting, like trees growing in the rocks or crazy formations.

       

       

Some formations were more interesting than others. I believe this one is called Clinton Rock. But I won't explain why.

 

Every where we looked there was something that made my eyes pop, and I was glad there was little traffic because I would just slow down in the road and pull aside regardless of how much space was on the side to do so.

  

Another very determined tree.

And another shot of our Unhappy Frog.

Unhappy Frog (his name is Jonathan, but we never call him that) and Quin had a lot in common. They both acted like they were miserable most of the time (well, all the time in the frog's case) but deep down they were having a blast.

 

Bisons are one of my favorite animals and I was excited to see these big guys (you can also see raindrops falling if you look close) but in the 5 minutes or so that I sat waiting for them to lift their heads, they neither one did. Not even for a moment. Just graze, graze and torment.

  We found a hideaway! 

And another rock shop, where I fell in love with these stone bison figures but was not willing to pay $30 for (the smallest) one.

   

We stopped at the Jewel Cave National Monument but the tours were booked for the day  so there wasn't much to do but pose at a sign and pick flowers.

 

How can one NOT stop at a town named Pringle? Especially if there is a cache in the cemetery and a pile of oddly painted bicycles welded into a pile? It also had a very fine public rest area (Quin: why do they call these rest rooms public? Don't most people want to pee in private?"), ok, pit toilets, a couple houses, a mechanic's shop and....and....well, then I blinked and missed the rest of the town.

 

We also stopped to see this giant blue bison on a rooftop and realized we were close to an Earthcache called Kidney Springs, where we read about the solids content in the posted analysis of the water. This water will cure ya of what ails ya. Or it will kill you. We didn't take that chance and got our info and some pictures and then headed out again.

Out on the open road. There were many beautiful stretches of open road like this and yet it was not boring to drive through because it was so different than what we were used to.

We drove into Nebraska on this road, but that will have to be yet another post because Carhenge deserves it's very own post, wouldn't you agree?