Day 8:
We decided to leave Yellowstone through Lamar valley, even though it added about 30 minutes to our travel time. It was a truly gorgeous day. The sun was shining, and it was warmer out. It was neat to see everything in the sunlight! All of the hydrothermal features were less smoky and the rivers and lakes we passes were sparkling. God gave us a treat on the way out – we saw two bears, one black and one a light brown. They were close enough that we could tell they were black bears. It was so cool!
We ate out lunch at the same river as yesterday, and then continued on our way out of Yellowstone. Unfortunately I had accidentally closed the map we were using, and as there was no phone service, we couldn’t get it back. Fortunately Mom and Dad had a general idea of where we were heading, so we got to Buffalo (where we spent the night) just fine. We drove through several back ways to get there, up a mountain and back down (it was slightly freaky to look over the side, though the views were absolute beautiful), and through several small towns. One of the roads we needed to take was closed because of an accident and we were told we would either have to wait for it to open back up, or take a three hour detour around the mountain. We decided to just eat dinner at a small town called Ten Sleep (because it was ten nights from two Indian hunting grounds or camps). We ate at a place called Sleepy Coyote. It was very good and the people were very nice. As we finished our meal we were alerted that the road was open and we were able to continue on our way.
I feel like a lot of what happened today was orchestrated by God – we got to see two bears, the road that was closed was right next to a small town where we were able to eat a great dinner and pray for one of the people there. When we were finished, the road was open again and we could be on our way. I can’t help but see God’s hand in all of it.
One of the places we stopped was so windy!
Day 9:
Today we visited Devils Tower (fun fact about Devils Tower – there isn’t an apostrophe in it because they forgot to add the apostrophe when the proclamation establishing it was published). It’s a huge stone tower (for lack of a better word) sitting on top of a fairly decent sized hill. We were able to hike up to the base of the tower, and then back down the hill. It wasn’t a terribly difficult hike. Since the hike was in the hot sun, we got sweaty and hot, and therefore got ice cream. We bought it from a KOA general store in a town that was practically at the entrance to Devils Tower. The ice cream was very yummy. Then we drove to Custer, South Dakota, where we spent the night. Guys, it was so cool! We saw the helicopters President Trump was in when he flew to Mount Rushmore and we saw the Blue Angels! It was so, so cool! We were able to watch Trump’s speech at Mount Rushmore on the T.V. Don’t believe whatever the media tells you about it – watch it for yourself, and don’t skip Gov. Noem’s remarks. It was a great speech, and the fireworks were cool. I absolutely love hearing our nations highest leader talk about God!
The gas station we stopped at to get lunch had a Caribou Coffee. I though all of them had closed! Devils Tower from a distance. There were a lot of prairie dogs near Devils Tower. This is the side of the Crazy Horse memorial. We drove by it on the way to our hotel. Here are the copters the president was in.
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