I'm Baa-ack

Last week was spent with my husband and 2/4ths of our kids, in a Honda CRV, crisscrossing the land between Yellowstone and South Dakota. The most American of vacations, the road trip is "see the USA in a Chevrolet" kind of fun. In fact, when I read that 1960's slogan, a picture forms in my head of a family: Mom in capri pants, a string of pearls adorning her crisply starched peter pan collar; Dad smoking a pipe, hair Brylcreamed into a perfect wave above is forehead; 2 children, a boy and a girl, both with a spray of freckles across their cheeks, bright-eyed with the excitement of "seeing the USA in a Chevrolet" and the joyful anticipation of riding in a 72 sq. foot space for hours on-end with people they love and can't get away from!

We got into West Yellowstone and were unable to check into our hotel until later. When we finally went back to check in, they explained that we were actually booked into the "annex" just around the corner...OMG.

This picture doesn't really do it justice. It was like the the Bates hotel meets a serial killer's knotty pine hide-away. I loved the ingenious way they "updated" the bathroom, in 1972 or so, by building a formica counter top around the wall sink. And what a touch of class the truckstop style soap dispenser adds! After dropping off our luggage, it was decided over dinner that we just could not stay there and we began an earnest, and ultimately successful, search for a new place.

The next morning we began our 3 day Yellowstone adventure.

















We had dinner at the Lake Lodge. Very, very lovely and delicious. We joked that it looked like something out of 'The Shining'. When Don asked where the bathroom was, I told him to look for the creepy twins at the end of the hall.










On to Montana, Pictograph Cave State Park. These ancient cave drawings reminded me of the trendy "Ugly Dolls" that are so popular now. Fantastic images!

I LOVED the terrain of the pictograph caves, the quiet with meadowlarks and crickets providing the soundtrack for viewing the grand arches and
primitive artwork.









The Hampton Inns are our favorite places to stay, always nice, with the required free breakfast. But there were other little hotels, that were nice with a friendly, homey feeling, especially one in Cody. Their clean rooms and colorful hanging flower baskets and pots surrounding cute bistro sets showed the owners took a lot of pride in their place.
We saw so much, I won't bore you with more pictures, but Devil's Tower, Rushmore, Little Bighorn, Crazy Horse..the Black Hills are all so gorgeous. There is just soo much to see and so many pictures to take. If you haven't been to Yellowstone and East to S. Dakota, go!
I want to go again, someday!
Should we make it a girl's road trip!