June 18th – 20th

We started the day going back to Yellowstone where we drove the Virginia Cascades loop before going to the Upper and Lower Falls and the seeing the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. We took many pictures and were in awe of the grandeur of the scenery. After enjoying the area we went to the Canyon Village and ate some food, the options weren't all that great but it was fine, we also enjoyed sharing a small pint of Huckleberry ice cream. After feeding our appetites we made our way to Mammoth Hot Springs which is where the north entrance to Yellowstone is. The Mammoth Hot Springs is cool with all the little pools of spring water like a giant fountain. There were also several columns of natural mud formations. We got out and hiked on the foot paths and drove another loop around several other springs and saw a bunch of elk and gophers around the buildings. It was pretty cool, we even got to see a couple of bears which caused a traffic jam on the road because everyone wanted to take pictures of them.

After Yellowstone we drove out the North entrance and made our way to Pine Creek where our next Airbnb was. This Airbnb was up a dirt road toward the base of East side mountain and was quite interesting. There were several little places to stay on this property and definitely felt like a Cabin. We enjoyed it and got to run off through their field and take fun family pics. This property had a little stream that went through the middle of the property which supplied us with nice clean water.

We had a lot of driving to do this day. This morning I tried to start the car after packing from last night's stay and the car didn't want to start. I grabbed my battery jump starter and tried again and it fired right up. This wasn't the first time this happened on the trip but we definitely made it the last time as we drove to Billing Montana to get a new battery from the local Costco. I panicked a little while wondering around the warehouse not finding where they kept the batteries and there were no advertisement of them in the main warehouse but once outside there was a tire center and I figure I'd just go check there. Lucky for us they did sell new batteries and we bought one and installed it right in their parking lot. We gave them our old battery core and got a deposit back, filled up the car with gas and continued to Gillette. We averaged around 83 miles an hour to Gillette Wyoming were we stayed at a bed and breakfast hotel. We did some laundry and then ran across the street where there was a park of large work vehicles and a train or two to climb all over and explore. These machines were the true earth movers. We made our way back to the hotel and tried to go hot tubbing but the hot tub just got a new heater and made the water too hot and were forced to swim in the pool until it cooled down. We swam with the kids for a little bit and then put them to bed and ran back to see if the hot tub was ready and it was so we enjoyed a little relaxation before going to bed,

7 hours of driving, 2 detours, 2 National Parks, miracles, and a 3 story Airbnb house. The day started with waking up and getting our the door the earliest we could. We ate breakfast in the hotel/lodge, which made the morning go a lot better, and got on the road by 8:30am. We got a few miles down the road before stopping for gas. After a quick top off we made our way to Mount Rushmore. We got a few miles down the highway before realizing we should have taken a different highway and instead of back tracking we decided to take a detour off-road to get to the highway we were suppose to be on. We called it "the true Wyoming experience" because we had a cow block us on the road and we also got to see a bunch of wildlife running in the fields. The off-road road was about 5 miles or so and by the time we made it to the highway we were supposed to be on we heard a strange noise that wasn't the road. We pulled over and found our passenger-side rear tire totally deflated. I pulled out the tools and the spare and got to work. By the time I was able to get the spare tire out from under the car a truck with a young man pulled up behind and assisted us with getting the flat tire off the van and told us he had a shop down the road about 30 miles where he could patch the hole that I plugged up before the trip. He took off before we got the spare on so we could meet him and he'd be almost complete with the patch. I was able to get the spare on in about 10 minutes and we were back on the road. We drove to the city where Billy took our tire and met him at the ranch he worked at which had shop for tractors. He helped me lift the car up and I took the spare off and he did a quick patch on the tire. The only problem we had was the tire tread was pointing out and he recommended that we get a new tire. Unfortunately all the shops in the city were closed since it was Sunday. We carried on and made our way to Mount Rushmore. Once at Mount Rushmore we took a lot of pictures and enjoyed making the small walk around the loop and reading the plaques and letting the kids run around. After about an hour or so we made our way to the nearby city call Rapid City. Fortunately we located a Walmart close to us where we were able to make an appointment to get a couple new tires put on so we wouldnt have to worry about them the rest of the trip. It was a miracle that they had an appointment time very close to when we were passing through. It took about an hour to get them done and so we ate some lunch and let Alan and Tammy to continue on without us to Badlands National Park.

After getting some lunch the van was ready to be picked up and we were on our way to Badlands to meet up with Alan and Tammy. We drove fast and efficient to get there before the visitor center would close. We only were 20 minutes behind Alan and Tammy once we arrived in the park and going through the visitors center to get our prized magnet. Alan and I got to do a hike call the Notch. It was a simple hike that took us to a notch in the mud formations that overlooked the valley and had a cool view. The hike probably took us 35 minutes but would have taken longer if we had to wait for the ladder that everyone else was using to get up and down the steep rock formation. We found another way up and down that cut down on the time so we got it done in record timing. Alyssa and Tammy had the kids and struggled to keep them contained so they got the stroller to control them but by the time they got to a path to go down Alan and I got back and were ready to continue on to Nebraska. We did a little drive around to see some more things in the park and then made our way to Alliance Nebraska. We took a lot of back roads and at one point we were stopped by an Native American to ask some questions and we realized we were in Indian Territory for a couple hours. Everything seemed to be run down and boarded up in the little towns we passed through. It looked like we were the only white people around we were in search for a bathroom. Fortunately we found a clean outhouse to use after we were stopped by some natives that told us where to find them. Shortly after we found ourselves outside the Native lands and onto more frequent used roads. It took a few hours to arrive in Alliance and when we got there Alyssa had ordered some pizza and some other items from Pizza Hut. We were hoping it was ready when we got there but it wasn't and we ended up waiting another 30 minutes before getting our food. We were quite annoyed but finally got our food and made our way to the Airbnb. We were surprised to find we reserved a three story home built in the 1910's. It was updated to an extent but the floors still creaked loudly and only one bedroom had an attached bathroom out of the 5 rooms in the house. It was quite a nice place and even had a park for the kids to play at across the street.