Day Three: Monday, 12 July, 2010

Today was the longest scheduled drive so far, which took us from western Montana through northeastern Wyoming and all the way to eastern South Dakota. It’s not often that you get to use all four directions in the same sentence. Maybe I should blog about it…

So, due to the lateness of our arrival in Bozeman, we allowed an extra half hour of sleep more than the plan called for. That meant that we were two and a half hours late leaving town. Don’t ask me how that works. Maybe the problem is that I made the schedule, without considering how long it takes three girls to shower, dress, get made up and eat breakfast. Especially if they’re cranky from not getting enough sleep. If we ever make it out on the road on schedule on this trip, THAT will be worth blogging about.

Delia wanted to swim in the pool before we left, so she raced out first thing this morning. That still left her needing a shower afterward. By then Mica was up, so they had to fight over who was first. Hmm. I wonder if I threw them both in the pool, then in the car, if that would be sufficient. It would make it more likely that we stayed on schedule, at least.

The first major attraction of the day was in Livingston, just fifteen miles from our starting point. A friend of mine that lives in Montana said that the scenery in Livingston was breathtaking, but I really wasn’t seeing it. I mean, it was pretty. In fact, it was very similar in appearance to some of my favorite places in Oregon. Rolling hills, green fields, sprinkler pipe spraying rotating arcs yards across, occasional horses and cattle; all great, but none of it out of the ordinary for me. That was, until we actually got to Livingston.

We came around a bend and there was a blue-black wall of mountains, sharp white caps portraying how they got their name. The Beartooth Mountains. And wow, did they ever live up to their billing, truly breathtaking.

Originally, our plan had been to turn south there and go to Yellowstone Park.

Alas, there just isn’t enough time to see everything you might want to. We would have only had about six hours in the park, and that really isn’t sufficient to do it justice. Besides, YP is close enough to home that we may have a chance to visit there in the future and give it a whole week. We’re giving as much time as we can to sights in the east, which we will definitely never see again.

We stopped in Billings for a short (very short) visit with a college buddy and lunch to go. From there, I-90 turns south and heads toward Wyoming. Before we left Montana, we passed another place I would have enjoyed seeing; the site of the Battle of Little Bighorn. I also saw a town with the oddest name. I don’t know how it’s pronounced, since I didn’t have time to stop and ask the natives. I don’t know, maybe Baauxuwaashe is said just like box-wash. And I thought Racetrack and Opportunity were unique names when I saw them yesterday.

One of the notions that Pam and I were keen on for this trip was discovering those things that are so commonplace to the people that live in a place, yet completely foreign to outsiders. For instance, a number of years ago we took our family vacation in Fairbanks, AK in June. Two things that we discovered in that category were shutters to completely cover windows because it was never getting dark at night, and twenty foot chain link fences around stores and parking lots to keep moose out. I also heard that in Fairbanks they never celebrate Independence Day with fireworks because it’s not dark, but I didn’t stay long enough to verify this firsthand.

Anyway, we discovered a couple of those things today in Montana and Wyoming. I had not previously known that there were several petroleum refineries in this area, nor that I would find small, medium and large oil rigs bobbing up and down and drawing “Texas tea” out of the fields.

Another startling discovering I have made is that, while summer is the generally accepted time for long vacation, it also happens to be the prime season for road construction projects. Both yesterday and today, such projects contributed to our delinquency. Especially today, when it took us nearly two hours to travel fifty miles on our way to Mt. Rushmore. We did eventually make it, and I have the pictures to prove it, but we wound up having to leave before very long and continue our trek.

We stopped for dinner in Rapid City, another grab and dash event. It was dark by then, so we missed out on all of the scenery of the badlands. We crossed into the Central Time Zone about 11, which instantly transformed it into day four. There still remained an hour and a half of driving before we got to our reserved hotel. We’ll see how that affects tomorrow. I mean later today.

We also had bad luck with animals today. The park in Billings where my friend and his family met us was inhabited by 42,000 geese, who believed that we were put on the earth just to provide them a meal, as well at 42 billion mosquitoes which were of the same opinion. Then driving down an all but deserted I-90 tonight, we hit two small animals, species undetermined. Thankfully small, else I’d be writing this from the hospital.

More later.