She Touched a Buffalo

July 6th-7th, 2014

The time had come to finally let the girls touch a buffalo.  It was, after all, the primary request on this little adventure of ours.   The long trek from Reno to Yellowstone was a predictably uneventful one.  We did, however, stumble upon a bizarre roadside spectacle in the tiny town of Imlay, NV.   Thunder Mountain Monument was erected by a WWII veteran from Oklahoma who proclaimed to be a Creek Indian.  I was curious about the name Thunder Mountain, since we were distinctly in the middle of a desert.  It turns out that the artist who developed the site, Frank Van Zant, gave himself the name Rolling Mountain Thunder.  We traded that little mystery for many others, most unsolved, as we snaked through the monument, awestruck at the creativity and madness that apparently inspired it all.  It was a memorable little side trip on an otherwise long and hot road.

We ultimately crossed Nevada and entered into Idaho on a pleasant note.  Our kids gasped as we crossed the Hansen Bridge over Idaho’s Snake River.  It was a curious thing to see the Earth split in two that way.  Naturally we had to park at the overlook and take a look for ourselves.  Our country is such a vast and diverse landscape.  

Eventually, we did approach the gates of Yellowstone National Park.  Tom and I have been to Yellowstone before.  We both loved it and duly gave it the geologic respect it deserved.  I REALLY want to tell you that it was everything the kids dreamed it would be.  The truth is, though, that they were very hot.  And they really didn’t like the smell of sulfur.  Let’s just say they were more than happy to rush us through it as quickly as possible.  It wasn’t all rotten eggs, mind you!  They reverently awaited the gush of Old Faithful and celebrated with considerable zeal!  They couldn’t get enough of those bison babies in the field.  And they did, with a little assistance from some forced perspective photography, touch a buffalo.  So, all being considered, it was a great success.  

 

    

It just goes to show you that you can always have an agenda in mind when you are seeking adventure.  But the best parts are rarely on that agenda.  Our favorite part of the day was when we exited the park and stopped at a high overlook to eat our dinner.  I cooked grilled chicken out of the back of our camper and we watched the sunset together.  It was peaceful and we made friends.  Also, we lucked upon an additional surprise as we made our way into Wyoming!  After all the weeks in this hot, hot summer…we stopped for a little midnight snowball fight in that glorious elevation.  Bonus!

Our trip summed up so far:

Currently in:  Yellowstone National Park

Days Remaining:  5

Miles Driven: 5,631

Money Spent on Gas:            $1,601

Money Spent on Sleeping:    $   313

Money Spent on Eating:       $   914

Money Spent on Other:        $   363

Grand Total Spent so Far:   $ 3,191

It is official.  The budget was blown.  And we were not sorry. 

From the Golden Gate to the Biggest Little City in the World

July 2nd - 5th, 2014

We loved Santa Cruz, but it was time to move on.  We began to realize that we had only 10 days left to make it home.  It was so hard to believe that we had been roaming the countryside for 24 days now.  We arrived in San Francisco in the middle of the night.  The kids dozed all the way across the Golden Gate Bridge.  And that is where we found one of the sweetest free overnight parking spots of our trip. At the north end of the bridge is a parking lot called Vista Point which happens to have an eight hour parking limit.   So we popped up the camper in this sleepy little parking lot and settled in for the night with a twinkling view of the Golden Gate Bridge out of our windows!  I admit that it was most hilarious to wake up to a bustling parking lot full of shuttle buses and tourists waving large cameras. 


Tom couldn't resist sketching our view from the window onto the camper wall.  I love having it there.  We had been letting the kids draw something about their days onto the walls.  Notice the Frosted Mini Wheat.  You know.  Sometimes it is the little things they remember!

We were certainly in the right spot, since the parking lot was the primary access point for walking across the bridge. We walked breathlessly across the bridge.  Literally.  The wind was so cold I couldn't breathe most of the way!  We did our best to walk single file so our children wouldn't be taken out by a tourist who had decided to rent a bicycle for the day.    The bridge was beautiful with it's lines and shadows.  

After walking across the bridge, we spotted a road on the hillside across from us that we wanted to explore.  It looked like it might lead to really neat views, so we headed out.  We stumbled across this little place called Rodeo Beach in Sausalito, CA.  We loved it here so much that we popped up and stayed the entire day, without a single view of San Francisco.

  

On our way out of there, we rounded a hill and found ourselves with a totally new view of the bridge.   But we weren't the only ones who had discovered it.  This incredibly social raccoon had apparently made the place his home and took whatever liberties he wanted with anyone who ventured into it.  I wish we could have gotten a decent picture of him at the steering wheel of the convertible parked next to us.  

It was a very nice place to look at the city right through the Bridge.  We debated over whether or not to venture into the city.  I mean, seriously... we had spent an entire day in San Francisco and never once stepped into the city.  But honestly, there wasn't a single cell in either of our bodies that cared! We had purely stumbled onto a perfect day, and it was how we wanted to remember that place.  Not with cable cars or recitations of the Rice a Roni theme song.  Of course, I realize that there is more than that to San Francisco.  I realize it might seem crazy we bypassed it entirely.  But this was our San Francisco treat...and we were more than happy with it.  It was time to head east.  Such a sad and happy realization.

We needed a place to stay for the night, so we headed towards Reno, NV.  On the way, we caught sight of the Truckee River Log Flumes, built in the early 1900s.   It was just such a cool thing.  And then Tom insisted that I step out onto it.  It was such a cool thing UNTIL I stepped out onto it, at which time, it became the most terrifying thing I had so far experienced.   Every step produced an ominous creak from this 100 year old structure.  Don't let my collected sauntering in the photo fool you.  I am shaking like a leaf and cussing like a sailor.  I want off.  NOW.   But don't get me wrong.  That thing is pretty awesome!  From the sidelines.


Finally, after one more night of some free en route camping, we cruised into Reno, NV.  But not before one more truck repair.  Welcome to the second half of our trip.

 We decided to stay in Reno for a night because you just can't beat the free entertainment.  We took the kids to Circus, Circus and let them play in the arcade and watch the shows.   We thought we might catch some amazing fireworks in The Biggest Little City in the World...but we were sadly mistaken!  Thankfully the kids were totally exhausted by that time anyway and already asleep in the truck while Tom and I marveled over the five or six fireworks that we saw...in the distance.  

At the end of the day, we settled in for the night at an RV Park outside of Reno.  I took my first hot shower in over a week.  The showers smelled so clean that I went back for seconds.  

Yellowstone was next on our list.  After all this time out West...we still had not seen a buffalo.  Ivy was getting restless about this fact.  Time to go.

Our trip summed up so far:

Currently in:  Reno, NV
Days Remaining:  8
Miles Driven:  5,126
Money Spent on Gas:            $1,479
Money Spent on Sleeping:    $   283
Money Spent on Eating:       $   865
Money Spent on Other:        $   310
Grand Total Spent so Far:   $ 2,936.77

Ummmm...wasn't it our goal to get back to Tennessee on $3,000?