Jaunts to Expeditions

Today is the last day of the organized tour portion of our trip.  But before heading to the airport, we went to visit Bear Country.  Bear Country is similar to a zoo, but you view most of the animals from your vehicle - in our case, the tour bus.  The animals are segregated in areas where they are free to roam and interact, while natural predators are kept in different areas.  The largest area is reserved for the black bears, by far the greatest in number; I'm unsure of the actual number, but there were probably 50-100 bears roaming, while quite a few were sleeping in the large enclosure. After the drive through the open section of the park, we had about an hour to wander the rest of the grounds.  More like a traditional zoo, there were baby bears, racoons, and several types of wolves.  Half way through the circuit, there was a snack bar where we rested and had a small snack before completing the loop. Back on the bus, we headed for the Rapid City Airpo...

Since we were not moving from point A to point B today, we had a little later start with all aboard being at 8:45am.  We drove only about 20 minutes before we got our first glimpse of Mt. Rushmore. Although the faces carved in the mountain are impressively large, the park itself is relatively small.  It does not take long to explore the broad walk path.  Most of the walk of presidents was closed for repairs.  After 14 years of work, the project was completed in 1941.  Ove 40 scupltors helped Gutzon Borglum complete the 60 foot high faces. Lunch was on our own at either Mt Rushmore or our next stop, Crazy Horse.  We chose to have a small snack at each location and made our way to the gift shop and food area.  Choosing to share nachos, we sat with a view of the mountain as a backdrop and enjoyed the day.  The bus pulled out at 11:30am for our next stop only 30 minutes away. Crazy Horse is the worlds largest mountain sculpting project.  Sta...

Today is another early morning (departed at 7:30am) and an even longer tour day.  First stop, the Little Bighorn Monument in Montana.  As we were leaving Sheridan, a fellow traveler noticed a beauty salon with one of the best names ever: Curl Up And Dye!  On the way to the battlefield we watched a film that discussed using current day forensic science to understand what really happened at Custer’s Last Stand, which is one of the most studied battles in history and still remains a mystery. The landscape today was mostly rolling farmland with fields filled with hay bales.  Both square and round bales were visible as far as you could see.  Cattle and horses freely grazed in the fields.  As we crossed into Montana, we learned that it has more elk than human inhabitants. Entering the Monument, it is hard to miss the rows of white headstones.  Custer National Cemetery is a part of the monument.  It also is the only battlefield to have individual gra...

We were waiting for breakfast when the restaurant opened, as all aboard was scheduled for 7:30am.  This meant that we could catch the sunrise over Yellowstone Lake.  And it did not disappoint.  In fact, it was so spectacular that the resturant staff, including the chef, came out to take a few pictures.  One mentioned that they have only seen one other sunrise with any color this summer. Today is long bus day as we need a cover a lot of miles, hence the early start.  We headed out the east entrance and through the Sylvan Pass taking in our last few views of geothermal activity and beautiful stands of lodgepole pines.  Late morning and lunch will be spent at the Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody, WY. Just after coming out of the Sylvan Pass, we stopped at the Pahaska TeePee. Now a resort, it was the home of Buffalo Bill’s hunting lodge and hotel built in 1904.  Today you can stay in a small cabin and take trail rides.  We only made a pit stop here, bu...

We woke to a crisp morning.  At an elevation of 7800 feet, the nights are much cooler.  We just missed the sunrise as we arrived for breakfast.  Grant Village Lodge sits on the southwest corner of Yellowstone Lake, the largest lake in the US above 7000 feet altitude.  The air was so cool, the lake had an early morning mist rising up. After breakfast we were off to the Grant Visitors Center.  The center is named after president Ulysses S. Grant, as he signed the first law protecting Yellowstone in 1872.   We were greeted by a female elk grazing on the grass between the center and the lake.  The center has an educational movie about the controversial policy of letting forest fires burn rather than attempting to put them out. Reboarding the bus, we followed the Yellowstone River.  The plan for today is to make a big loop around the southern portion of the park, ending with an opportunity to watch Old Faithful.  Not too long after heading out...

This morning we split into two groups referred to as floaters and shoppers.  The floaters, the majority of the group, signed up for the optional float trip down the Snake River; the shoppers had a free morning to relax or wander around Jackson Hole.  We opted for the float trip. We headed out in the bus, but then transferred to three vans towing our rafts.  Our guide, Zach, drove us up river, where we doned our life vests.  The  rafts were launched and we climbed aboard, literally.    Getting in and out of the raft was the hardest part of the trip.  Zach, expertly guided the raft pointing out wildlife and scenery of interest.  We just sat back and enjoyed the view and as we peacefully floated along.  Although a little hazy, the trip provided the best view of the Grand Tetons.  We also saw people fly fishing or at least trying the sport.  Zach pointed several eagles And their nest, a mother and baby raccoon and some moose antl...

Today was our first day on the move with an end goal of getting to Jackson Hole with enough time to check in and get to the 6pm Shoot Out.  So as to not draw out the suspense, we made it! Just as we finished breakfast, we noticed that our bus pulled up, so we decided we would grab our carryons and get them on the bus, and still have time to sip an extra cup of coffee.  There was only one problem with this plan - as we climbed aboard the bus, we saw that the driver was not Tristan.  I looked at him and said “You are not Tristan.” He responded that I was correct.  He then followed up by telling us that if we chose to r ide with him, we would not have the enjoyment of seeing Yellowstone, but might get lucky  in a casino, as this bus was going to Las Vegas.  We quickly backed down the steps.  We heard from a few others that they also made the same mistake! Once we boarded the correct bus, we officially met Tristan our bus driver.  He spent so...

Today is the official first day of the our 7 day tour, with most of the tour group arriving today.  We were scheduled to meet the bus at 2:45pm at the hotel. After eating the hotel breakfast buffet, we headed out to complete a few errands before the temperature got too hot.  The afternoon high was predicted to be again over 100 degrees.  First stop was a UPS store to ship home the sleep pads from the train ride and a few dirty clothes we won’t be needing again, making our luggage about 10 pounds lighter....and leaving room for new items!  Next stop was a drug store were the objective was to grab a few snack items and bottled water. By the time we returned to the hotel, Glenda and Howard, fellow travelers from Del Webb, and Howard’s sister Bea, were in the first of the tour groups to arrive at the hotel.  After they checked in and a brief chat with the tour director, Deb Howard, we headed off to Benihana for their express lunch.  Returning to the hotel, ...

The day started with returning the rental car to the downtown Marriott. This took no time as we only needed to park and drop the keys in the lobby lockbox.  We found a breakfast place a couple of blocks away and headed to The Rose Establishment.  The blocks in SLC are pretty long compared to other downtown areas.  We actually walked over 2 miles by the time we got back to the hotel. A lot of locals appear to use one of the scooter services available here.  You sign up with an app on your smartphone and then can use any available scooter.  You unlock it with your phone, climb aboard and ride to your destination. You simply leave the scooter on the sidewalk when you get to where you are going and your credit card is billed based on the distance/time you used the scooter.  There appear to be 2 different companies providing this serve in SLC.  We did not give them a try! Our wine tour was scheduled to start at 11am with Wendy and Rick of Utah Wine Tour...

Due to a travel gods’ conspiracy, we did not make it to Dinosaur National Monument as planned.  Amtrak arrived 1.5 hours late into Denver’s Union station which has lots of great looking restaurants, but very poor signage. This caused us to wander for another 30 minutes looking for the car rental counter.  A couple of calls to Hertz had us waiting for them to pick us up and then shuttle us to the rental office. We queued up behind several other renters and waited our turn. The process took a while, as two groups were from outside the US, had multiple drivers and one needed two different types of car seats.  We completed the rental process and headed out of the parking lot around 10:15, a good two hours behind the planned schedule.  This late start, followed by a backup on the interstate due to construction lane restrictions, would have resulted in getting the Dinosaur without enough time to visit the quarry.  It’s back on the list for a future visit to the area...

We are on our way....heading west for our Interlude tour that starts in Salt Lake City and ends in Rapid City.  During the organized portion of the trip we will visit Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons and Mt Rushmore.  We have added a few days both before and after the tour to make our trip unique to us. We left Home in Indy around 10:15am and started west for Galesburg, IL where we will board Amtrak’si California Zephyr.  Arriving around 2pm central time, we found parking and located the Enterprise rental office where we will return a car two weeks from today.  It happens to be within 50 yards of our parking spot.  Parking is free at the Galesburg Amtrak Station, making it a preferred starting point for westbound trains for us. We had a couple of hours before boarding, so we had a snack at local pub, the Sidetrax Bar & Grill and made our way back to the car to gather our luggage and await the train.  Boarding the train about 15 minutes behind sche...