Adventures to Oregon: Day 4

Well, today we are starting to get a little antsy to just be there…..in Oregon. And I thought that the trip was going to be really hard, especially on Maddie…. but, suprisingly she has been really great… especially since we have driven so long each day. Last night, as we were driving from Ranchester, WY to Cody, WY we had to go over some really steep mountain grades, and when I say steep, I mean STEEP! the highest Peak we went over last night was in the Bighorn Mountain Range, called Cloud Peak, it is 13,175 ft. Not such a big deal when you are driving a car, but with the trailer…… that was a different story. So, we did pretty good going up, as it was starting to get dark. As we were driving up the mountain, I called Tim’s good friend Steve, who lives in San Diego, and I think I spoke to him for about 2 minutes, and lost sigal completely. So, the real story begins while we are driving down the other side. Because it had been such a beautiful day, and it was a clear night, we pulled over in the mountain range, and had the kids get out and look at the sky, we have never seen so many stars… with no cities for miles, there were no city lights to pollute the view. They loved it! While we were looking at the sky, and smelling the smoke of burning brakes, Tim decided to look under the tires to see the brakes…. and….. they were glowing red. GLOWING!!! I think the descent grade was approx. 12% ! Because we had such a heavy load, we were being pushed downhill by the trailer, even though Tim was driving in 1st gear most of the way. Me, I was mostly wishing that we could hurry up and get out of the mountains in the pitch dark.

After a good night sleep, we are ready to go to Yellowstone for the day! Driving out of the driveway, we notice, on the hill behind our hotel, this large Log structure. There is a story behind this house, it was in our room on the dresser, but, so far, I haven’t been able to find ANY information about it. So, here is the picture, check back later for the story. Today, we are going to make the loop in Yellowstone, but before we do, here are some photos of the scenery between Wapiti and the East entrance of the park.

This Rock that Emma and I spotted at a rest stop pull out, was cool, we both thought it looked like a giant eagle looking over its shoulder….what do you think?

Well, as you can see in the photo above, the landscape dramatically changes, the closer you get to Yellowstone. Tim and I were really amazed by how quickly that happened, and before we noticed, we were at the entrance of the park. There were Waterfalls all along the side of the road leading into Yellowstone, Taylor and Emma counted them, but I don’t think she wrote down how many we saw. There was road construction too. We sat, and we waited, and waited, and waited for what seemed like forever. But, now, finally on our way, we are all so excited to see lots of great things… and it doesn’t take long. Once we get up the hill leading into the park, we see a pull out overlooking Yellowstone Lake, which, from what I read in the Map guide that the park ranger gave us, is the largest Mountainous lake in North America. Not only do we see Yellowstone Lake, but acres and acres of towering white and black dead trees, the result of recent fires in the park. You can see in the background, behind Taylor and Emma, the forest of dead trees.

Because today is such a big day, in a big place, I have LOTS of pictures, so, I am splitting this day into 3 separate entries. See you in the next post.