So, the last two weeks I went on a road trip with my brothers. We went all over the North West. We went on this road trip on our way to the Doelling Family Reunion (which I will talk about in my next post). On our way out we stopped at 2 national parks, at least 3 national forests, and a national monument. It was quite the ride and I loved being out in the mountains again.
Stop 1: Theodore Roosevelt National Park, North Dakota
We only stopped at this park briefly, as a stretch-our-legs stop. Basically we went on a little hike in one area of the national park. It is similar to Badlands National Park, but not the same. Here are some pictures from our hike.
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| The perfect platform. |
Stop 2: Livingston, Montana.
We stopped for the night in Montana, "The portal to Yellowstone." We went to a local joint and got ourselves some bison burgers (gotta do that when you are in bison territory).
Stop 3: Yellowstone
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| Sheepeater Cliffs, named after a Native American tribe |
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| Marmot #1 |
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| Lower Falls, Grand Canyon of Yellowstone |
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| Another angle |
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| Game of limbo on our hike down |
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| The beautiful Grand Canyon of Yellowstone |
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| Look at those colors in the hot spring! Bright Green! |
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| Hot meets cold. |
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| Prismatic Pool |
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| Old Faithful |
Stop 4: Somewhere along the Snake river
We camped in a primitive spot at the National forest between Yellowstone and the Tetons.
Stop 5: Grand Tetons National Park
The next morning we spent a little time exploring the Teton National Park. We did it kind of fast, because we knew we'd be seeing them again from our next stop.
Stop 6: Table Mountain
My personal favorite stop of the trip was this mountain. It was awesome. I never knew we could get so close to the back side of the Tetons (so much closer than you can get in the national park). We broke up the hike into a backpacking trip, so we could spend more time in the area. The views from the top were spectacular, and we went when there were tons of wild flowers. Here are some pictures:
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| Our camp site. |
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| The nob in back is what we were hiking to. |
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| Although it looks dead, that tree is still living! |
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| Some of the flowers we saw. |
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| We made it! |
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| Marmot #2 |
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| A view of the switchbacks we hiked from the top. |
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| The moose that visited us at our camp. |
Stop 7: Bighorn National Forest
After backpacking we drove across Wyoming to get closer to South Dakota (where the family reunion was going to be). We stopped in Big Horn National Forest. It was pretty awesome. Here are some of the highlights:
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| At the sign. |
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| It rained and I didn't have a rain jacket. So here is my wonderful improvised version. |
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| Grizzhawk poses. A Grizzhawk is a mix between a grizzly bear and a hawk, where the head and body are bear, but it has hawk wings and back legs. It is pretty powerful and can even fly at mach speeds. |
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| W stayed at the Tie Flume campground, but seriously wondered how they cam up with the other campsite name. Did a Swede really die there? |
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| Marmot #3, but this one is a baby and still has its baby fuzz. |
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| I met this guy at the visitor center, and I really missed Jake... Just Kidding! He is really a lumber jack mannequin. |
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| My hat is a buffalo, but you can't really tell. |
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| Mike, Zach, and I climbed up to this rock. To give you perspective, those boulders at the bottom are as big as houses. |
Stop 8: Devil's Tower National Monument
Our last stop before heading to the family reunion was Devils Tower, which is this huge rock tower (an old volcano) in the middle of flat land. If you've see Close Encounters of the Third Kind you'll recognize this place. Also, this is the first place we saw prarie dogs and coined them P-dawgs.
And that was all just on the way out to the reunion :)
P.S. We saw a lot more marmots than are shown here.
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