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Day 4, 5 and 6-Custer, SD

After leaving Cody, WY, we drove thru the Big Horn Mountains. What a beautiful drive. Especially at the top. There were just oceans of flowers. I took A LOT of pictures but tried to find the best one for the slide show below. We pulled off along the road for a picnic. The view was outstanding! I want to go back to go camping there someday when the girls are older. It's funny the further along we went, the more places I found to come back to when the girls are older.

We camped at the Beaver Creek CG in Custer, SD. Dave's old stomping grounds. The CG was very nice and great for Amanda. They had a nice little playground and a swimming pool with a water slide. The best part was the bunnies. They were everywhere and some of them were tame enough to feed. Good thing we brought along a bunch of carrots.

On the fifth day, we toured around the Custer State Park. We saw Mtn. goats, deer, buffalo, and donkeys. Yes, donkey's. We had a great time driving around. My favorite time was going thru all the tunnels. They had a series of tunnels that are cut in just such a way that when you drive thru you are looking at Mt. Rushmore. It was so pretty. I had been to Mt. Rushmore in high school. Boy, has it changed! It is beautiful there, but hot. Thank goodness they have a great ice cream stand there now.

After Mt. Rushmore, we traveled thru the Needles. Very impressive rock structures. I was afraid we wouldn't make it thru some areas. The tunnels were a bit snug for today's large size trucks. But, it was a lot of fun. And, again, I want to come back when the girls are older and go hiking.

That night some friends that Dave used to work with came to visit us. They had kids and Amanda had a blast playing with them. I could tell she was missing kids to play with. So, I'm glad they came to play with her.

The sixth day we just relaxed around the camper. I sent Dave and the girls off to play for about an hour and totally cleaned out the camper. Boy, it needed it! Then everybody took naps and I watched a movie. Later, Dave took Amanda to the pool. She got in, but wouldn't, and prob. shouldn't have, gone on the water slide.

I got some really cool pictures of the girls with the sun setting. It looks like the forest is on fire behind them, but it's not. There was a fire in the area, so the smoke made for some very colorful sunsets. I just wish the girls would hold still for 2 seconds so the pictures wouldn't be blurry, but I did get one of Sarah. Then the moon was spectacular. I really wish my pictures could be as beautiful as it was in person. I need to take some classes.

Any way....enjoy the slide show below. And, I'll write more later.

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Day three-Yellowstone

Day three in Yellowstone left me begging for more. We didn't give ourselves a lot of time in Yellowstone mainly because the girls wouldn't be able to hike the trails. I really wanted to just drive thru and see as many animals as we could see. I wasn't disappointed. Although, we still didn't see any bears. My parents did the next day.

Speaking of my parents, they drove around with us until after lunch. Then we went separate ways. It was really fun driving with them. We each had small radios, which are very handy when you're in separate cars. We could point out things to each other without having to run up our cell phone bills.

Amanda had a great time every time we stopped. She wanted to be in all the pictures. I felt sorry for little Sarah, she was stuck in her stroller most of the time because everywhere we went was on a cliff, no way did I want her toddling around. It may not look like it, but Sarah was there with us and later you'll see more pictures of her.

We spent way longer driving thru the park than we allotted and got out of the park late. It turns out, that was prob. the better thing for us to do. We left thru the east entrance, and found out later that that exit had been closed earlier that day because there was a fire threatening that area. We had no idea until my parents were able to get a hold of us a few hours after we left the park. We had seen the smoke on our way to Cody, WY, but had no idea how close it was.

We saw so many beautiful sites: Waterfalls, elk, buffalo, deer, pelicans, rivers and mountains. I took so many pictures, I had trouble choosing which ones to share. I wish the pictures of the burned forest turned out as beautiful as it looked to the eye, the color contrast of the blackened wood and the green grass just really was striking. At one point during our drive, we were stopped for about 20 or 30 min. for construction and I looked up and saw the moon peaking around the edge of the forested ridge. Had to get a shot of that!

Well, the kids are up from their nap so I better end this and get to day four next time. Enjoy the pictures!

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Our Trip....Finally!

Many of my friends have been bugging me to update my blog and write about our trip. Boy, it's tough getting back into the swing of things when you get home. I finally get everyone back on a schedule and then I go and get sick on top of it...But, I will start to update you on our trip now. So, here goes some of it.

The first two days we camped with my parents. That's them with the girls above. We went to Missoula MT first and camped at a little spot off the HWY called Yogi Bear camp grounds. It was cute and had a pool, which was nice but a little chilly. The girls handled the car trip rather well. We didn't have to use the DVD at all that day. Sarah slept most of the way and Amanda was amusing herself with a scavenger hunt that my friend Lori made for her.

The second day we continued to travel thru MT and saw some wonderful scenery. I wanted to stop and take so many pic's but if I stopped every time I saw something to take a pic of, we would still be on our trip. We traveled thru a small sliver of Yellowstone on our way to our second camp ground. And, we saw a moose, A MOOSE! I couldn't believe it. That was the first time I've ever seen one not in a zoo. Yippee! We didn't get any pictures because we were going too fast, but I was able to get it on video. I hope it turns out.

The second place we stayed at was Hebgen Lake, MT. It was so pretty there. We saw a pelican swimming in the water there. I didn't know we had these huge pelicans. Hmmm learn something everyday. I got some great pic's of Amanda there.


I couldn't believe I got her to smile and look at me at the same time. They had this building there at the camp ground and while we were taking the pic we were being dive bombed by birds who had made nests in the rafters right above our heads. I can't believe that Amanda didn't notice them, but was glade she didn't.



They also had a great photo op here with this fence along the outside of our campground. Amanda really liked climbing on it. Of course I think she just liked anything she could do that didn't require sitting in the truck.



Here is a the view of the lake when we woke up on our third day. It was beautiful.

Well, I have a ton more pic's to show, but this is taking too long. So, I will sign off for now and return for the rest of the story. And, I think I will do it with a slide show because I got a little camera happy, and took way too many pic's. But, hey that's me. More later.

Home again

Hello everybody. Sorry to be gone for so long. We took basically a 3 week camping trip back to see Dave's family. Whew, that was a long time. But, it went really well. So, expect some really great photo's. I only took about 900, literally. I love my digital camera.

I wanted to thank Lori for introducing me to all her blogging friends. It's nice to meet you all. I like all the comments you leave. I hope to visit you all on your blogs as well. I'm still trying to find time to do it all, but will get around to it eventually.

Well, that's all for now. I'm still getting the house back in order and everyone back on a schedule. Wish me luck and to all you new comers...Welcome to my blog.