Day 10 What We Owe You + Today (Teton Village to Rapid City)

Maura just yelled out yet another sign. North Platte River!! Woo! Let’s see, what other signs have we seen. What’s that? ADOPT A HIGHWAY!!!!!!! Amongst others, there are “be bear aware”, “historic site”, “moose crossing”, “bridge may be icy”, “chains up”, “road closed when light is flashing”, “DANGER wildlife crossing”, “speed limit 75”, “rock”, “slide”, “do not approach wildlife”, “bison crossing” (this actually happened) and “population 10”.

So, we are in Champ leaving Casper, WY and heading to Rapid City, SD. Maura just did that thing she does when she gets distracted by scenery. Champ moves arbitrarily when that happens, Don’t worry – no one is on the road, but us. We owe you some serious details. Mainly the journey has had some really high highs and some looows. Maura and I got truly full of ourselves on the day we left Missoula. We had the ultimate perfect roadtrip sightings, timing, food and weather. Round about 8:45pm, the world decided it had had enough of our egoism. Here’s what happened:

We went to bed in Missoula vowing to each other to leave at the crack of dawn. NO. We woke up late and by the time we bit into the scrumptious blueberry scones baked by Brady and Elaine, our innkeepers, we had to hightail it out of there. We got on the road to Yellowstone with no directions and with no idea about road closures. Don’t worry, Maura likes to rely on her compass, if only to spite me for making fun of her. Montana is beautiful. Creeks and streams everywhere surrounded by gorgeous mountains took us all the away to Bozeman where we stopped for lunch before hitting Yellowstone. Saddles and canoes bedazzled this interior and we happily ate our lunches and jumped back in Champ.

The ride to Yellowstone was phenomenal. Gorgeous weather, views and sunlight, not to mention Maura’s Billy Joel fetish. Then, we had our first sighting; bison. Oh so cool. Huge beasts right out of a movie. Despite the chances we knew we would have of seeing more animals we decided to stop in at the Grey Wolf and Grizzly Bear exhibit at the gate of the west entrance. We bought our tickets and headed out to see Sam and Illie, the 2 biggest bears at the reservation. They were quite active! We went into the viewing booth to check out a wolf pack who incidentally had a lot of drama. The Alpha female had made a snack of the Omega male’s ankle earlier and she was telling it like it was when we showed up. Why can’t life be like that? But, honestly, gorgeous creatures and a wonderful way to see them mere feet away.

We hopped back in champ and were surprised to see a magic shrub on the side of the road which served as a bison gateway to the open road. Nearly 20 bison appeared in the middle of the road. They walked right at champ. Maura took the right approach. Calmly throw your car in reverse and back away slowly from the 2,000 lb animal. Despite my own motives for photos and hanging my torso out the car, we got out alive. What an amazing roadblock.

Oh wait, there’s more, sooooo much more. Maura just said “bucket list, CHECK”. For those of you who know her agenda you understand. Needless to say, I played my part. We’ll skip ahead here. Soon after stopping for an impromptu photo shoot, we got back on the road to Old Faithful.

Here’s the thing, this guy blows every 90 minutes or so. We had no idea if we would time it right, And then the ultimate roadblock. Maura and I were chit chatting per usual and then she slammed on the brakes (don’t worry, Champ forgave her). Next to the sign for the Daisy Trail sat a big honking brown grizzly bear. Yes, a WILD bear. Soon enough, four cars pulled up as well and a Northwest safari was underway. We knew we might be cutting it close on the Old Faithful front if we stayed too long so we jumped back in the car. The speed limit in Yellowstone is a max of 45, we aren’t used to that, but we love animals enough to obey. The signs for Old Faithful are oddly confusing. There is an Old Faithful Lodge, Visitor’s Center and the geyser itself. We parked (if you could call it that) and ran up to the signs. We headed to the geyser and literally as we approached from 15 feet back she blew! How awesome. Thankfully we didn’t get hit with 204 degree water, but the steam and the faces of the people watching were so fun to see. Round about this point we got a little cocky. We took a walk around the geysers and basically praised ourselves for our awesome cosmic timing. We rock. We realized that everyone should know of our wonderful sightings so we headed to the gift shop and visitor’s center only to be smited by fate. Everything had closed moments before we walked up. We even saw the cashier riding away on his bike. Fuck it we said we are on our way to Hotel Terra! Yikes.

At this point it was around 6pm. Not realizing we couldn’t drive out the south entrance (as it is closed until May) we had to back track and go out the way we came. This proved to be worth it when we spotted yet another wild grizzly and a pair of elk! For those of you who haven’t seen elk, they are funny – like Dr. Seuss characters a combo of a buffalo and a horse.

As we cleared the park, we called Terra and got the best route to town. And by town we refer you to this quote “the store has the flu”. Little did we know that our first night drive would involve a mountain pass. The drive started out beautifully. We watched the sky turn purple and the road became a roller coaster. If any of you have seen the opening of “My Cousin Vinny” you know these roads. These roads weren’t SO bad, at least there are reflectors on either side to guide you. But then it got darker. Much darker. We literally had a party every time we were able to follow a fellow car. And when someone turned off the road, Maura would say “Fine. Go.”. We both conferred and decided that the Tetons we were driving toward couldn’t possibly be close enough and that we wouldn’t have to cross them at night. Slowly but surely we made our way toward them. And before we knew it we were on them. Maura navigated a very safe ride over to Wyoming despite my gasps and multiple proclamations of “ Oh Jesus”. Our friend over at Hotel Terra told us that all restaurants had closed by the time we arrived so we went to bed tense, hungry and exhausted. Served us right for all that attitude.

Waking up with a glorious view of the Tetons was the payoff. The mountains have a ton of snow and the …. Oh wait I have to stop writing, Maura has to pull over to pee again. Be right back….

... We're back... We were so tired when we arrived at the hotel that we didn't fully comprehend what she meant when she said everything was closed. She actually meant EVERYTHING was closed. They kept using the phrase 'off season'. How would we know what that meant? If there were an 'off season' in NYC there would be riots. I (Maura) tried to call the cafe, nope got the front desk. Then the pool, the spa and the restaurant. CLOSED. So finally we went down to the desk and got the real scoop. Turns out everything in our Eco Friendly hotel was closed BUT everything in the hotel behind us (literally about 30 feet away) was open.

So, after a glorious breakfast of pancakes and fruit plates we headed out for an awesome hike. I got a little scared that there may be snakes after the tall grass rustled a few times and Jesse was kind enough to about face. So four miles and no snakes later, we hopped in the pool and did some laps. But the best part was after laps when we went up to the rooftop hot tub with the Tetons hovering above us. AWESOME!!!! To top it off we treated ourselves to 80 minute massages, a great dinner at Billy's Burgers and called it a night. Holy moose it was good!!

After a dinner like that it was a damn miracle we woke up today. We headed into Jackson and picked up some bagels and coffee and hit the road for Rapid City. It was a long day of driving through rainy, beautiful hills. We passed through the Wind River Indian Reservation, saw antelopes and tried to avoid hitting deer. Success!

We drove by Mount Rushmore but with the heavy fog couldn't see a damn president's face anywhere. So tomorrow we'll try again and fill you in on that. We arrived at the Alex Johnson hotel around 6:45, checked into our beautiful suite and headed out to have dinner at the Firehouse Brewing Co. Soooo stuffed and sooo happy!!!

We're going to map out a plan of attack for tomorrow and if we're not too tired when we hit Sioux Falls tomorrow night, we'll fill you in... Night night!