The misadventures of our 2006 road trip from Ohio to San Francisco and back.  This is the 4th part in the series.  (3rd part here)

Okay, so we left Cody bright and early and headed to Yellowstone.   We love us some nature so this is right up our alley.   We’re gonna see bears, elk, moose, wolves, eagles and lots of animals we don’t see around our parts at home.  Yep!

We took our time along the way and soaked in the splendor of America. 
My God what a beautiful Country we live in! We even stopped off to walk along a stream.   Then we saw a bear print in the mud and a warning sign about bears.  Of course….we had to scare the kids….yell ‘bear!’ and start running.   I mean…why not?

The goal is building memories.

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Okay, so everyone is in a great mood. Laughter abounds. The sun was shinning it was a glorious day!

We’re entering Yellowstone!   Whoo Hoo!  The plan here is to take two driving routes, see all the wild animals that we have heard of and then exit the park that afternoon….late afternoon on the west of the park and then zip zip zip on to our next stop!   I have a plan you know.   It’s all right… in… the… plan.

So, we enter the big stone archway!  Spirits are high!   We are in!  We start driving.  And driving.   Up a steep hill that has some SNOW on it.  Why snow in June?  We’re at an elevation of over 10,000 feet!  Um…on a gravel two lane road….under construction.   With no guard rails.   Did I ever mention I have a tremendous fear of heights?   That coupled with Shane driving.  I was done-for.    But…we pressed on.  And it’s not like you see on tv like a leisurely drive by yourself.  There’s hundreds if not thousands of cars.  All in a line.  Going 5 mph.  I felt sorry for the tour bus driving within 10 inches of the edge.  OMG I am so glad I wasn’t on that bus.

Ten minutes into the drive….Shane (an avid bird watcher….bird lover…loves birds…)  is driving and what flies RIGHT INTO the grill of the car?  A bird.   OMG, so funny.   We pulled off and saw a few sights.   Beautiful beautiful beautiful.  Nature’s finest right here.  Old Faithful was cool although it was like 40 minutes late.

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We were dying to see some wild animals.   Everyone had their eyes peeled for a bear.  Or a wolf.  Or something attacking and eating something.   We saw nothing.   What about birds?  We’d surely see some huge birds here.   Unless crows or blackbirds count…nope…no big bird sightings.  *sigh*

We stopped at a waterfall and talked with some biker people.   “There’s a herd of buffalo up the road a bit.  Right in the middle of the road!”

“Cool”, we said…as we hopped into the car to get a look!  “That’s what we came here for!”

Turns out yes there was a large herd of buffalo (actually bison) walking along the road.  Did you know that when that happens you cannot pass?   True.   We sat in a line of traffic 2 1/2 hours.  Waiting for these stupid buffalo to move their big hairy, tick infested asses off the road.  We got out to snap some pics here and there and some morons were getting WAY to close.  And those beasts do NOT like that.  We saw them ramming a car that got to close.

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Again, everyone was a bit crabby.  Stuck in the car.  Starting to drizzle.  Hunger.  Had to pee.   We finally got past the buffalo.  We saw ONE elk on a hill in the distance and we were happy again for a bit.  Then we pulled off again and took a short hike to some sulfur pits or something.   It was like something from a scene out of caveman times.   Stinky steamy pits.   But very cool!

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We lost some big time with those buffalo.  And we still hadn’t eaten.  If we went back to the West entrance to leave (as in ‘the plan’), we would have been stuck in the buffalo traffic in the opposite direction.  So…we decided to go out the North entrance…on the border of Montana.   We stopped at one last location which was very very cool.

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Actually, if I recall… is the place where I had a nervous breakdown cried on the trip.   It was an exhausting day.   We just spent about 6 hours listening to the kids bickering back and forth.  Important stuff….you know…like who’s sitting in what seat.  Who looked at who.   Someone might have touched someone while trying to take a picture.   Someone looked at someone else funny.  Somebody was breathing.  You know.

But that was that….we’re off course but we’re entering…….MONTANA baby!   Big Sky.   God’s Country.  And it is!  We actually saw our first (and only) bear while driving along in Montana.   Another pretty sparcely populated state.   We stopped for snacks as it was getting dark in a teeny tiny town called ‘Dell’.  I’m not sure if there was a farmer in the Dell….duh, sorry.

We flew through the pitch black highways that were completely desolate.   At times we were going well over 90mph.   As we passed road signs saying we should watch for large animals running onto the highway….I prayed to God that we didn’t come all this way only to be killed by a frickin elk.  With the brights on, we flew like the Jetsons.  Shane at the wheel, my foot pressed into the imaginary brake.  The kids doing puzzles and singing.

We forged ahead into Idaho where we spent the night.   Right about at the area of the WEST entrance of Yellowstone (where we should have exited.)  So we were off course by about a half a day.

On to Nevada and then California in the morning!  Stay tuned!