Last week I took a cross-country road trip stopping at the Badlands, Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse Memorial, with our final destination being Yellowstone Park. We had great weather the whole trip, making for a nice drive & great sightseeing. Total driving time was about 37hrs out there and about 35hrs on the return trip.
Here was my agenda:
Day 1: Driving
Day 2: Driving, stopped in the Badlands, more driving
Day 3: Mount Rushmore & Crazy Horse
Day 4: Driving day to Yellowstone & sightseeing
Day 5: Sightseeing at Yellowstone
Day 6: Sightseeing at Yellowstone
Days 7 & 8: Driving return trip home
But needless to say, every attraction has its SG’s, and I have a few SG stories that I would like to share. I was surprised that Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse, and the Badlands lacked SG’s. Just some SG’s in the Badlands getting stopped by the park rangers for speeding I would presume…which leads me to think, why would one want to speed through a national park? Some of the cars that were stopped had tags from Florida, New York, Maine, and even some from Canada. I just don’t understand why somebody would drive 2-3 days to see a national park then speed through it, but then I reminded myself that they were just SG’s.
On day 3 we stopped in Bear Country which is a drive-through park with roaming goats, bears, elk, wolves, etc. So we get to the bear section...and there's bears EVERYWHERE you look. (all the animals here were in captivity) In front of us, there is this car with a cooler strapped to the back bumper. 1st off you have to be a SG to drive through a bear area with not no only one, but 3 coolers full of food. I'm surprised that they let that car go through the park with the coolers. On top of that, there is a bear on the side of the road...and they crack their window and start calling out to it by banging on the window!
Fast forward to Day 4. We had to drive through Yellowstone to get to our hotel on the other side anyway, so we used it as a sightseeing day as well. We came across a herd of buffalo, and we noticed that two of them were about to cross the road. We stop, as well as the other traffic. In my mirror I saw this blue sedan coming up on the wrong side. I mean, traffic is stopped in both directions, you would thing that it would give the SG a clue that there was something in the road. He came up, saw the 1st one and stopped. He didn’t see the 2nd one, and the 2nd crossing buffalo just made it across the street. Luckily, the buffalos are pretty passive and aren’t too overly concerned about our presence. But they could have easily flipped that sedan. :D:
Still day 4. We come up to some sulfur springs, and notice that traffic is pulling off the road, which is a sign that there’s wildlife nearby. That was the case, and it was another buffalo. It was grazing around the springs, and as many of you know, thermal areas at Yellowstone are strictly off limits. People are getting out of their cars, and there’s these SG’s with small children that cross the thermal area warning sign and begin to approach it. They backed off as it began to approach the road (in their direction). I just did not understand the motivation behind their actions, but remember they are SG’s.
So we start fresh in the morning on day 5. Not too many tourists at Yellowstone yet since the park just opened. We saw the Mammoth Hot Springs, and other geysers and thermal features. That morning, we came to a scenic view from a ledge about 3,000ft up from the Yellowstone River. On the way to the scenic walkway, there are pull-offs on the road there on the same ledge. I saw SG’s standing there, but this one lady tried to climb over the guardrail…which was right on the ledge as well. I didn’t understand it, I know the people try to get the best pictures they can just as I do, but it’s like “let me climb over this wall so I can get another foot closer” …I didn’t get it.
That same day I got to see Old Faithful go off…it was about 5min late but still was an amazing sight to see. Not too many SG’s there. Just a few people that had their back to Old Faithful looking for what everyone else was taking pictures of. :D:
Once the sun started to set, we set course to look for some bears. We got a tip from some locals, and sure enough we saw 3 black bears. During one of the sightings, some SG’s tried to approach it, but luckily there were about 3 park rangers there doing riot control.
The evening of day 5 we’re on the way back to our hotel after the bear sightings, and we come to a thermal area with a hot pool. It was dusk, and the SG’s must have figured that they could get away with walking on the thermal area. They were standing right over the pool
(which was boiling)…maybe they figured that at night it’s not hot anymore. To be continued...
