Tags
Black Hills, camping, Crazy Horse, family, inspiration, Mount Rushmore, South Dakota, thoughts, vacations, Yellowstone
I went on vacation! YEA! For everyone who missed me… HELLO! For everyone who didn’t even know I was gone… HELLO! *waves*
We went far away.
11 days.
6 states.
4225 miles. Yes, we drove.
Tons of fun, experiencing new wonders, and learned a bit.
And met a mega-fabulousTwitter friend in person! Which rocked! *waves* Hi, RENA!
Vacation. Everyone has a definition in their head. A trip to the beach. A cruise. A ride on a plane to exotic locals. Staying at home doing nothing. A cabin in the woods (though as a horror movie lover, I don’t advise it). An adventure in a big city.
For me, it’s mountains. Waterfalls. Trees. Roasting marshmallows and reading a book by a fire. This trip gave me all of that and more.
As we drove to Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, we encountered many sites and places to stop. First Mount Rushmore, the Crazy Horse Memorial, Wind Cave, and Custer State Park in South Dakota. We spent one fun-filled, super-packed site-seeing day. Whew! We traveled on into Wyoming, stopping at Devils Tower… well, because duh! I hummed the theme to Close Encounters during my entire visit. On our way up through Montana, hubs couldn’t resist a stop at the battle site of Little Bighorn (history buff). Of course, too long wandering and an incident where the keys were locked in the truck we arrived too late to enter Yellowstone so spent the night in the truck in Bozeman.
Yeah. Ew.
NEVER AGAIN!
Anyway… we found a great campsite in the park the following day and spent the next four days SEEING EVERYTHING!
It was fabulous. Let me give you a taste. Let me tell you, what I saw was inspiring… as in ideas, dear readers, ideas for future books!
Yea! Camping!
Aw!
Crazy Horse Memorial
Mount Rushmore
Pretty mountains
Cathedral Spires in Custer State Park
Sylvan Lake, Custer State Park
Devils Tower… and ME!
Camp site in Yellowstone
My kids and me near Wraith Falls
Mammoth Hot Springs
Fairy Falls… hiked there because, well, fairy.
Prismatic hot spring
Grand Teton Mts.
There were Bison IN THE ROAD!
The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, Lower Falls
Dragon Mouth Spring
So… there’s a slice of what we saw. If you have never been to the Black Hills or Custer State Park in South Dakota… if you have never seen the geysers, waterfalls, and wildlife of Yellowstone, I suggest you go. You don’t have to camp. I promise.
Now, back to laundry and unpacking and generally putting life back into the realm of reality. Ug. But I only have a sec, because tomorrow is my writers’ group The Summit City Scribes summer get together where we eat and chat and have a lot of fun! Then Thursday I shall blog about my next adventure… something new and exciting, so I am completely terrified, but I will have support in the form of Twitter friends! Rena! Jamie! But more of that later.
I hope everyone has great vacations. Whatever it is you choose to do, have a blast!
