Wednesday, 10 April 2013

Yellowstone to Mt Rushmore

April 9 - 10th

Our Drive from Yellowstone to Mt Rushmore (Custer city) was quite eventful. We found lunch at an intersting Burger King along the highway.


This looks like an ordinary pop machine. In actual fact this is a touch screen, select your type of soda and then select from 10 different flavors based on that type of soda. That is close to 250 different flavors of soda you can put in your cup. I had to stand there for a minute sampling a few new and interesting flavors.




If that's not bad enough choose your cup size. 
Small does not exist. We chose a Medium which is about the regular Australian Large cup size. Dam the extra large is huge.





We drove through a very heavy snow fall for most of the 12 hrs we were on the road. We stopped at Devils Tower briefly.
An Old Volcano that has been eroded away over time to leave this stack, People come from all over the world to climb this Volcano. We didn't go any closer due to weather conditions.

The drive beyond increasingly became worse to the point that snow fall visibility was 5 meters in front of us and we were driving from road side marker to road side marker for the last 2 hours. Quite a challenge and a very fun drive. 

When checking into our accommodation 12hrs later, we were made aware of a fresh Winter Snow Storm that was coming down from the north, unnoticed until now.This storm has been named Walda.We awoke the following morning to this:


To add to the excitement, we found out this morning that most of the surrounding roads are closed temporally. So we are officially stranded at Mt Rushmore. We haven't and cannot get to the famous faces until tomorrow or the next day. We will be camping at the Super 8 until the weather clears up and other attractions such as the Caves open up again.

 We got stranded at Mt Rushmore for 24hrs. A good days rest looking out the window.

Yellowstone National Park

April 8th
Do you remember that song - On the Road Again. Can't Wait to get back On the Road Again! Annoying huh!.. We had an early start on the road today, our plan was to get there early and explore Yellowstone in the afternoon. Its amazing how quick the Rocky Mountains disappear and the flat roads start. 


Fact of the day:
75 miles = 122km/h

Only go by the little numbers on the tachometer. 











Weather change? 
       This is meant to be Spring!










5 hours along the Interstate Hwy



Only Entrance Open this time of year
Where home Booboo, Where home!
Roosevelt North Entrance - Don't ask me what this means


Mr Bison


And on the left we have......

Prong horn Deer




 And.. Smile Booboo !


Great day for an evening Drive
Mammoth Hot Springs - Head waters

Early Engineer's Building




VIP Treatment Leaving the park











Next Stop:  A Beer for Yogi at the pub
                  Mt Rushmore

                

Glacier National Park

5-7 April
After a Big day of Skiing a Whitefish. We decided to take a few detours.

Detour 1: Instead of heading straight to Yellowstone, we decided to check out the Glacier National park not far from Whitefish. The name sounds impressive, but given the time of year not much is open due to early tourist season and snow clearing. The 'Going to the Sun' road is listed as one of the top 10 drives in the US. Our time in Glacier National park was spent driving along the beautiful Lake MacDonald, there was overcast sky's and great views of the surrounding mountains currently impassable due to heavy snow further up the valley.

Snow Plough - Glacier National Park



 Unfortunately we didn't get to  
  drive the entire length of the 
  'Going To The Sun' road due to 
  spring winter snow clearing 
  operations.



  


 

Detour 2: Shopping That's right Montana has "no sales tax". We spent a good 2 days stocking up on new toys mostly camping supplies and a new laptop. We also now have a new US sim card in our phone to call up the UN when we get in trouble. We had a relaxing 2nd day shopping and preparing for a 5 hr drive tomorrow towards North Yellowstone.






Next stop: Gardiner Yellowstone.
                

Thursday, 4 April 2013

Whitefish - Montana

We have successfully crossed the Border into the US. 

Land borders don't have the latest software updates, Our Pre-Paid, Pre-Printed, Pre-Prepared ESTA Visa's were not able to be processed. This means more paper work and another payment of the ESTA. The 2 big Patrol guys were really nice, doubt they could catch me on foot if I ran from them, but Im sure they could put me down in a heartbeat. 





Immediately after crossing the border the camera comes out with smiles all round. 
It's Miles NOT Km's on this side!

Welcome to the USA - these signs were found after driving a good 20 minutes from the border. Weird huh? Well anyway, this is what Montana looks like.

Well now that we are officially in a new country, we need US cash. After driving for some 50 Miles (80 Km's) we arrived at Whitefish and less than 2 mins of search for an ATM we found this:
 










 





Drive through ATM. Lazy Huh? Welcome to the United States. We also found drive through Coffee stops.

Day 2: In the Morning we located the Whitefish Ski hill - Big Mountain. After some driving around the village we eventually located the Guest Service desk and redeemed our last free ski hill reciprocal. It was a great morning on the hill. Blue Sky's and perfect warm Spring like skiing conditions (slushy, sticky and slow as S*^^&) But it was fun, Every day on ski's is a fun day on snow. This is a short clip showing the views of the Whitefish Valley.

 





As usual last day of skiing for the season means time for a summer wax job (and dropped wax on Kristy's shoes (2 dots)).








A complete Re-Pack of the car. Ready for another 41 days of exploring Fun. 


Next Stop: Missoula, Montana and  
                 Yellowstone National Park