The Three L’s Travel The West

We were able to sleep in again once again today.  As we were partaking in the water park side of Silverwood, showers were passed up for a few more minutes of sleep. 

I packed up a bag with the essentials… sunscreen, flip flops, camera, book (for me) and swimming suits.  Unfortunately, I forgot to toss in my floppy hat.  We headed out the door, Louie and Lynnae practically dancing in their excitement to get there.

We stopped at Sonic for breakfast, quite possibly our last Sonic for months as they are scarce in Oregon.  We tried to find wireless internet, but to no avail.  I put the laptop back in the trunk and on to Silverwood we drove. 

We arrived there about 1/2 hour after the park opened.  There was a steady stream of people moving into the park, and as we passed our tickets to the gal taking them, I looked at her computer as she logged our visit.  There had already been 4951 people pass through the gates that morning! 

Following the crowd to Boulder Beach, we began to search for a spot to park our things.  There are very few shady spots here, and most of them are cabanas that you rent for the day at about $80.00 a pop.  We found three lounge chairs by one of the wave pools. I made sure they were both properly coated with sunscreen and sent them on their way to the wave pool.  Last time I was at Boulder Beach, I wasn’t so careful with sunscreen and got a really nasty sunburn on my feet and ankles.  This time I was ready.  Sprayed down with SPF 30 all over.  Twice. 

Louie went to go rent tubes for them to use, and we all took a few turns through the Lazy River.  A nice little man-made river that has several turnouts so you can get out when you want.  You can choose to swim in it, or float with the tube.

The children opted to take in some water slides while I went back to keep an eye our things.  Today the weather was much better, sunny with only a few clouds passing by.  Without my hat, I was a little concerned.  Finally figured out I could drape part of my towel over my head for shade. 

We went into the wave pool, and worked our way out to where the waves start rolling.  The water is only about 4 feet deep here, but with the waves makes it over 6 feet.  I was able to jump them or ride with them, as was Lynnae.  Louie seperated from us and got knocked down by one, and at the same time was kicked in the stomach (accidentely) by another person.  I got to him and we floated together until we reached shallow water.  I had him lay down for a few minutes until he felt better.

By now we are all starting to get hungry.  The children went off in search of corn dogs and drinks.  After that, more slides for them and finally they were ready to head back over to the ride side of the park.  They both wanted to spend some more time in “The BattleZone”.  We had to change back into street clothes to enter that side of the park.  As soon as we did, they took off and I was left to schlep the bags, towels, sandels, etc over there.

By the time I caught up with them, they were already in the tank and having a great time.  I set our stuff down on a bench and pulled out my book.  We were probably there about an hour or more while they played.  After that, they wanted to ride the Corkscrew roller coaster and also take a turn on the Super Roundup.

Amazingly, it’s now almost 8PM.  After Louie stands in line to get his funnel cake, we head out of the park and back to the hotel.  Lynnae and I are hungry, but she only wanted Jack In the Box.  The entire drive back, we didn’t see a one.  So she was forced to have a couple Pop Tarts for dinner.  Probably not my best mommy moment, but if she wouldn’t settle for any other fast food; well, she had to take what we had.

Tomorrow we head home, and need to get some sleep.  Everyone in bed by 10PM, and lights out shortly thereafter.

Today we slept in for the first time in days.  No alarms, no wake up calls.  Lynnae and I woke up around 8:15AM and Louie woke up around 8:45AM.  We took our showers and went to search out breakfast.  We missed the continental breakfast here at the hotel, so we decided on Denny’s instead. 

After breakfast, we went on toward Costco to get replacement tires for the rear of the Buick.  Before we got there, my tire guy called to advise I should go to a Les Schwab instead because that’s where the tires came from originally and should still be under warranty.

It only took ½ hour to get them changed out.  What a difference it makes to have all new tires.  I was also noticing that we’ve gone over 3000 miles since our oil change in Amarillo.  I won’t be getting that done here.  I think we can make it home from here. 

After our visit to Les Schwab, we drove about 15 minutes northward to Silverwood Theme Park.  It was turning out to be a nice day weather-wise.  Mostly cloudy, with a light breeze.  We bought our two-day passes and entered the “amusement” side of the park.  Tomorrow we will take in the water park side of Silverwood.

We started off with easy rides.  Louie and Lynnae rode the log flume, and then we all rode on the Tilt-a-Whirl.  We moved on to a few more rides, then lunch.  After that, the big roller coasters…each had a wait time of at least 30 minutes.  I was little worn out after all that (that being continuous screaming for the length of each ride), so I parked myself on a bench while they discovered an attraction called “BattleZone”.  There are three floating “tanks” that shoot rubber balls and water.  Around the outside of the water area are cannons to shoot more rubber balls at the tanks as well as other objects.  Louie and Lynnae went back twice to get in the tanks and do their damage.  I think they had the most fun doing this.

Our last ride of the day was the carousel.  As we walked toward it, the rain started.  The wind had been increasing all day, and was very gusty by the end of the day.  By the time the ride was over, it was just a few drops.  We walked to our car and went in search of Subway.  After getting our subs and free cookies, we headed back to our hotel room.  As we ate our subs, we recapped the day and planned what to do tomorrow.  We are hoping it won’t rain again and that it might be a little warmer.  Louie and Lynnae took showers to warm up and to get all the grime off them from BattleZone.  They settled down by playing their Playstation DS games and I spent time working on our blogs.  I’m a few days behind, and now we can’t access the Internet at this hotel.  So tomorrow I will be searching out some free wi-fi to get this posted.Very tired tonight and looking forward to sleeping in a bit again tomorrow.  Sunday we will be driving home, and I am trying to mentally gear up for that as well.  At least now I know I have 4 good tires to get home on!

This morning we got up early so Louie and Lynnae could spend some time in the pool before we left.  They were so excited about going on the slide again.  But, much to their disappointment, the slide wasn’t turned on until 9AM.  So I got them back to the room for showers, then off to the complimentary breakfast.  We packed up the car in record time and headed north to I-90 to turn westward. 

It was a beautiful drive, and we decided to stop in Deer Lodge, Montana to tour the old state prison located there.  It was worth the price of admission, especially for a history buff like me.  The original parts were constructed in 1879, and the prison was in use until 1979.  We were able to tour portions that were built by prisoners themselves at the turn of the century. 

  After the prison tour, we took a quick walk through the Auto Museum attached to the prison.  The first exhibit was not even a car, but a horse drawn carriage.  It moved from there onto the first cars, then each decade from there.  There were over 150 vehicles on display.

We woke up this morning ready to head back to Yellowstone Park.  After showers and a decent continental breakfast, we stepped outside to get in the car.  Much to our surprise, it was almost cold.  Although sunny and clear, the air was crisp and cool.  And it was fresh!

We drove back to Yellowstone, about 35 miles away from the hotel.  We saw a bald eagle, which was great.  Then a couple more bison as we made our way toward Old Faithful. 

Before we reached Old Faithful, we stopped at the Painting Pots where we saw boiling mud and the Dragon’s Mouth, where we could hear the hissing of the steam as the water boiled out of a cave’s mouth.

 By the time we reached the lodge at Old Faithful, it was lunchtime.  We stepped into the café and bought a light lunch for a very high price.  Then we walked through the gift shop and finally back out to the car.  A few tour busses must have come through as it was so packed one could hardly move around the store.We found a parking spot right near the walkway to Old Faithful.  We could see all the benches were full, and there were people standing around, waiting for the big event.  I think we timed it just right, as we only had to wait about 20 minutes for the event.  When it happened, Louie commented on how most of the spectators had their cameras up and taking pictures or video.  The geyser lasted for about 5 minutes, much longer than I anticipated.

The alarm went off at 7AM this morning, and I rolled out of bed.  This was probably one of the worst places we have stayed during this entire trip.  The only thing that was good was the shower.  Lots of hot water and great water pressure.

We had the continental breakfast and packed up the Buick.  It was so much easier with more space!  We actually made more space for Lynnae in the backseat.  We programmed the GPS for Yellowstone and hit the road. 

We stopped in Buffalo, Wyoming for fuel at $4.25 per gallon.  Louie is getting to be a pro at pumping gas.  Hope it’s not a precursor of things to come.  🙂 

We had lunch at a great little cafe in Tensleep, Wyoming.  It was almost surreal as when we opened the door to go in, almost everyone turned to look at us.  There were about 30 people or so in there, and I soon realized they all knew each other.  The food was excellent, and servers very friendly.  The town was tiny, maybe 300 people total. 

On the way to Yellowstone, we were slowed down by a herd of sheep.  There were men on horseback, and working dogs moving the sheep across the road.  Neat!

We arrived at Yellowstone around 4PM and started making our way through the park.  The first thing we saw was a bison not 10 feet from the road.  Traffic basically stopped for everyone to take pictures.  We found this commonplace as we worked our way northwest to Big Sky Montana where our hotel is located.  We did make a few stops to take pictures, and finally arrived at the Whitewater Inn around 8PM.

Louie and Lynnae headed for the pool immediately as there is a 90 foot tube/slide in the pool room.  They swam/slid for about an hour until the slide was turned off for the evening.  While they did that, I ordered pizza from a local place here in Big Sky.  I also included chocolate cream pie for dessert.  We ate it all up while watching a bit of TV.

Lynnae fell asleep while Louie and I watched the evening news.  We watched footage of the earthquake in California.  I think this was the most news I have seen since we left home.  I have heard a bit on the radio as we are driving, but it’s very limited (ABC or CNN 3 minute blurbs mostly political news).  I realized that I haven’t been missing much. 

Ready to get up in the morning and start exploring the park again.

I set the alarm for this morning a little later than normal as our trip today is short.  Besides, I thought we all could use a little more sleep.  At least I know I could!

We packed up and started loading the car.  We also packed up two boxes of souveniers and unneeded items to send home.  A little excessive to say the least, but we are out of room in the car (again).  Besides, when we get home it will be fun to go through every thing.

 After taking the boxes to the Post Office, we headed back to Sonic for breakfast.  I will really miss Sonic when we get home.  I think I like it better than McDonalds or even Burgerville.  Really digging the Mocha Java Chillers!

Our first stop was Sturgis, South Dakota.  With Sturgis Week coming up, I just had to see what it was all about.  We stopped at a few shops and picked up some “official” t-shirts for 2008.  The town was already starting to fill up and it wasn’t even the weekend yet.  Harleys, Indians, etc lined the streets and people in their leathers were walking up and down the sidewalks.  I saw a couple billboards from Progressive Insurance saying : “See you at Thunder Road”, advertising they have the best rates on motorcycle insurance.  Made me smile a bit because I’m pretty sure they DON’T insure racing of said motorcycle.

After Sturgis, we drove through Deadwood, South Dakota.  We didn’t stop, but I took some picutres of the historic town.  Hard to imagine it’s gunslinging history.

Moving on, we drove to Devils Tower.  Again, tons of bikers on the road.  The Tower was interesting, but I guess I was expecting more (aliens and Richard Dreyfus perhaps?).  We took some pictures and then had lunch at the cafe right outside the park. 

After lunch, we pointed the Buick west and headed for Gillette, Wyoming.  This is just a stopover on our way to Yellowstone.  We arrived early afternoon, and decided to watch a bit of TV before thinking about swimming.  Louie turned to the Sci-Fi channel and discovered Star Trek, The Next Generation.  We ended up watching four episodes and he loved it.  I had to explain a few things to him, but he seemed to get it and enjoy. 

We didn’t go to the pool, we just walked across the street to Hardee’s for a late dinner.  Took it back to the hotel and sat on our beds to eat it.  Watched a little more TV, and listened to the train across the street add more cars to it’s load.  I tried not to think about it doing the same thing at 3 in the morning.

We are looking forward to getting to Yellowstone and doing some exploring tomorrow. 

An easy start today.  I slept until 8AM, and let Louie and Lynnae sleep until they woke up (about an hour later).  We were too late for the hotel’s continental breakfast, so we decided to seek out our breakfast.

After I checked the oil level in the Buick and added a quart to top it off, we were off to Sonic for breakfast.  We noted there were hundreds of dead bugs under the hood and on the radiator.

After breakfast, we filled up the gas tank at $4.05/gallon and headed toward Mt. Rushmore.  It was only a 30-minute drive from Rapid City, and I think the number of motorcycles outnumbered the cars on the road.  Sturgis week is coming up, and I think they are starting to arrive now.

The town of Keystone was very small and lined with Black Hills Gold shops and other souvenir shops.  Harleys lined the streets and I tried to picture them as horses instead to go back in time.  If we ever come back this way, I will definitely stay in Keystone.  Cute hotels and you can walk to everything.

We arrived at Mt. Rushmore and paid our $10.00 to park.  It didn’t seem too crowded as we found a great place to park and didn’t have to fight crowds.  Took plenty of pictures and strolled along a short trail to the base of the monument.  It was awesome to look upon something so huge.  (I swear I saw a zit on Washington’s nose).  As we contemplated the work involved, Lynnae suddenly asked me if this was the same place that was in “National Treasure; Book of Secrets”.  I advised yes, but you couldn’t get in behind the faces.

After dropping a few dollars at the gift shop (I found some great books about Laura Ingalls Wilder), we headed out of the park toward the Christmas Shop to get some local ornaments.  Then we stopped at the Bear Wildlife Park.  This is a drive through park where you are right in with the animals.  We had a pair of reindeer come right up to the car.  The best part was the bears.  There had to be at least 50 grizzly and black bears ambling around their enclosure as we drove through.  I was hoping one of them would start licking the bugs off the bumper, but no luck!We arrived back in Rapid City and took a short rest until dinner.  We walked across the street to the “Golden Corral” restaurant and took in their buffet.  They had a lot to offer, but the wait staff was very slow in our section.

Up early this morning to catch the continental breakfast that was quite the disappointment to Louie.  We’ve been spoiled lately.  I had to remind him this was a true continental breakfast (toast, juice, coffee, cereal, pastry).

After gathering our things, we headed east toward Wall and The Badlands.  Wall’s claim to fame is the Wall Drug store, started in 1937 and has grown to 76,000 square feet since then.  According to the official story, it all started by giving away free ice water to travelers.  So we partook in our free ice water and also partook of their doughnuts.  I think they were about as perfect as a doughnut gets.  Yes, better than Krispy Kreme, Dunkin Donuts, and even our local bakery.  We did a little shopping, then worked our way to the “Backyard” of Wall Drug.

 Louie and Lynnae panned for fossils and also posed for pictures on the six-foot tall rabbit.  After looking around a bit more, we made our way back to the car and continued on to the Badlands.

We got up early this morning in anticipation of our drive to Rapid City, South Dakota.  We knew it would be a long one and wanted to get an early start. 

After another great breakfast, we packed the car and made our first stop of the day at Garden of the Gods, right in Colorado Springs.  This is an area that is full of unusual rock formations.  There is much to study here if you are a fan of geology.  The drive through the park takes about 30 minutes, and that’s with stopping for photo ops.  We also toured the gift shop at the Visitor’s Center as well as the Trading Post that was by far the largest gift shop we’d seen so far on this trip.

Leaving the park, we stopped to top off the gas tank and run through the car wash to get rid of the mud from the Pike’s Peak trip yesterday.  Lesson learned:  “touch less” car wash won’t do the job for this kind of mess.  But at least all the bugs from the front were removed. 

We grabbed lunch and headed north around 1PM.  Our route took us through Denver (saw the stadium where the Broncos play), and then turned northeast toward Rapid City.  Our route took us through Nebraska and saw tons of cattle feed lots.  I remembered from my time at Fulton Provision a good portion of their beef came from IBP (located in Nebraska).  There were cows everywhere! 

As we passed through southwest Nebraska, a massive thunderstorm was forming and we heard on the radio about possible flooding, 60 mph winds, and quarter sized hail.  The sky was almost black and we would see lightening strikes every few minutes; long flashes of maybe two or three seconds arcing across the sky. While I drove to stay ahead of this (worried mainly about the potential for hail damage), Lynnae proclaimed she needed to make a rest stop.  Keeping in mind there’s not much around, we drove about 40 miles before arriving in Dalton, a small town with no gas station, but two taverns and one grocery store that were open.  I opted for the grocery store and we went in, leaving Louie in the car.  This was an old store with wood floors. We were greeted by the cashier (who I assume was also the owner) and he showed Lynnae the way to the restroom.   I browsed the store and picked up some bottled water. 

While I was at the register, Louie came flying in the door, eyes round as saucers.  Apparently the lightening struck a little too close for his liking.  He also decided to make use of the restroom.   We went back to the car and the rain started to fall. 

It took us about an hour to get ahead of or around the storm.  Somewhere in this time period was my first killing of an animal on this trip.  It was a little sparrow of some sort that just didn’t get out of the way.  Hit the front bumper with a thump and was knocked into the grass along the highway.  Upon later inspection, there was just one feather in the front grill to show its demise.  I’ve considered myself lucky to go this far and not hit something. 

As we drew near Rapid City, we could see another lightening storm forming.  By the time we reached our hotel, it was dark, and that was a first.  The wind was blowing hard and the sky would light up.  We checked in, dragged our bags up the stairs and got ready for bed.   

Miles traveled:  519 miles, travel time 8.5 hours, average mpg 32

We had a great night’s sleep and got up early to discover an amazing complimentary breakfast.  This was similar to the one in Carson City, but instead of eggs, bacon, and sausage, there were two waffle makers.  Yummy!  Lynnae made the first one, then Louie and I followed suit.

Our destination this morning is Cripple Creek, sight of historic town and gold mines in Colorado.  The first thing that came to mind was the song by The Band: Up On Cripple Creek.  According to Wikipedia, it’s possible the town inspired the song.

Our first stop in town was the Cripple Creek and Victor Narrow Gauge Railroad.  This is a four mile track travelled by a steam engine train and educating the riders on the gold mining history in the area.  There were a few stops to view abandoned mines and towns.

After the train ride, we toured the Cripple Creek District museum.   This included three buildings with six floors of mining memorabilia, maps, paintings, glass and china, children’s items, furnishings, an assay office, a photograph gallery, Indian artifacts, mineral displays and two Victorian apartments.  It was a great view into what life was like at the time.

The most amazing thing we learned about Cripple Creek was that it almost became the capitol of Colorado.  A statewide vote proclaimed the city of Denver the state capitol in 1881 by one vote.  Looking at the town now, it’s hard to believe there were enough people there to swing the vote. 

As we drove through town, I noticed an excessive amount of casinos.  There were a couple large ones, but mostly they were little ones, maybe the size of a bar or tavern.  Apparently the state voted to allow Cripple Creek to establish legalized gambling around 1990.  Prior to that, it was almost a ghost town.  I spoke to one lady at the museum gift shop, and she loves living in town. 

We headed to the American Eagles Scenic Overlook, where we drove up a gravel road to an abandoned gold mine.  As soon as we left the car, it started to rain.  Big gloopy drops that drenched one within a minute.  We ran from building to building to avoid the rain, but when the lightening and thunder started, we opted to leave.  As we made our way down the mountain, we had to cross the “highway” for the working gold mine where huge dumptrucks were moving back and forth carrying loads of crushed rock. 

Moving back through the town of Victor and Cripple Creek, we stopped at the Mollie Kathleen Gold Mine tour spot.  Here is where the tour takes place 1000 feet under ground.  Transportation is by skip (elevator) to the tour level.  They crammed 7 of us into the skip before they sent us down to the mine.  It was about a 45 minute tour, including demonstrations of the air powered mining equipment and how the mines were created and worked.

After getting back to the surface, we ran through the rain to get to the car.  After hashing it out, we decided to travel up to Pike’s Peak.  We were too late to ride the cog railway, so we started to drive.  When we paid our entry fee, we noted the temperature at the Peak was 49 degrees and windy.  Elevation, 14,100 feet.  The road is 19 miles of curvy, twisty road and mostly gravel.  It took almost an hour to reach summit.  Seemed like we would never get there.  Along the way we saw a few marmots, as well as passed snow banks.

At the top, it was raining and cold.  We ran to the gift shop and looked out the window.  If the weather had been clear, we could have seen for miles.  We were able to see Colorado Springs down in the valley.  As we walked around the gift shop, Louie and I noticed that we were dizzy, and Lynnae commented that she was getting a headache.  Definitely symptoms of altitude sickness.  We walked back to the car and headed back down the mountain.  I dropped the car into 1st or 2nd gear, depending on the grade.  By the time we were halfway down, the ranger at the brake checkpoint told us we had to pull over and cool down the brakes.  So we sat there with the hood up (along with 3 other vehicles) for 30 minutes.  While there we noticed quite the build up of mud on the car.

The rest of the trip down the mountain was smooth and slow.  We made it back to the hotel by 8PM and got ready for bed after watching a little TV.  It was very tiring and a bit stressful after that drive.  We saw alot today, and took in alot of information.  I bought a few books about the area and am looking forward to reading them when we get home.