We didn't do much today except drive through three states, Montana, Wyoming and South Dakota. We're staying the night in Spearfish, SD.
Wyoming
Montana had a lot more mountains and interesting scenery than I expected. I expected sprawling cattle ranches and open plains. We stopped in Billings, MT for lunch. Of course there was a steak chophouse next to the supercharger. I was tempted, but steak for lunch didn't seem like a good idea, so we went to a cafe instead.
After Billings, we headed south into Wyoming through Sheridan and Gillette, before crossing over into South Dakota to finish up in Spearfish.
We did make one stop at a place I've wanted to visit since I was about 7 years old.
Today we spent most of the day in Yellowstone. Most of the park is in Wyoming, so we added another state to our visited list. Overall the park is very beautiful with mountains, trees and rivers. The weather was great too.
Our first stop may have been the most spectacular. It is called the Grand Prismatic Spring, and is a hot spring where microbes feeding on the minerals caused a rainbow effect based on the temperature of the water. Very cool.
You had to stay on a boardwalk for safety, but it was windy and there were several hats stranded out of reach of the boardwalk.
After that we headed to the most famous attraction: Old Faithful geyser.
We got tired of waiting for it to erupt and left early. Our next stop was West Thumb which is a giant volcanic caldera that has now filled with water from Lake Yellowstone. There are still some hotspots and volcanic pools there.
After that we had lunch and decided to head back. I still wanted to see Old Faithful erupt so we decided to give it another try. By some miracle we met Yanmei's friend Zhonghua from Berkeley in the parking lot!
And we finally got to see the geyser.
We weren't the only ones.
After that we headed back, but we made one more impromptu stop when we spotted some wildlife.
Finally we called it a day. Since we spent most of the day in the park, we didn't make much progress on our trip. We are staying tonight just south of Bozeman, MT.
After driving 8 hours, we checked in late to an B&B. It was a nice house, but we did not explore it as we were very exhausted and sleepy. I cooked some veg soup and shared some with David, then went to bed.
In the morning, our host cooked the most delicious breakfast for us. Home made whole wheat bread is my favorite. I love the scrambled eggs from their back yard chickens. Coffee is pretty good too. Lucky! A great B&B.
Mormon TempleOrgan and podium in the Tabernacle building
Mormon temple, Salt Lake City
As out host suggested, we went to the center of Mormon religion, the temple at downtown of Salt Lake City.
There are amazingly recruited beautiful girls from different countries to be volunteers providing tourists free guided tours. They are from Thailand, Taiwan, Columbia….
After the tour, we started our trip to west Yellowstone. It was raining, so not much to say.
-Yanmei
Another 3 state day
One thing I found interesting in the Mormon buildings is the pews and other wooden parts are made of white pine, but they wanted it to look like oak, so they painted wood grain lines. They are remarkably well done, especially considering they were done by the original settlers in the 1870s.
Hand painted to look like oak
After Salt Lake City we headed North towards Idaho. Yanmei was taking a turn driving so it was my job to take a picture of the Welcome to Idaho sign, but I wasn't paying attention, so I failed.
Fail
Idaho definitely had more signs of life than most of Nevada and Utah. There were farms all along the road. By the way I forgot to mention one of the great things about Utah: 80 mph speed limit on their highways! Idaho has the same limit, so we were able to make pretty good time, although they had a lot of construction zones.
Eventually we crossed into Montana as we approached West Yellowstone. The forecast was for a thunderstorm. We didn't hear any thunder, but it rained fairly heavily for a while. Hopefully it will clear up by tomorrow when we go to Yellowstone National Park.
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