Road Tripping - Heading East

Here is the travelogue our east bound travels. I'll get back to what we did in Oregon in a later post. 

Maggie and I left Jill's in southern Oregon on Monday morning. The plan was to travel the "southern" route through Oregon-Idaho-Wyoming-South Dakota-Minnesota.

The majority of the Oregon population lives in the western 1/3 of the state. The other 2/3rds is nearly empty. Once over the Cascade Mountain Range, there is a lot of nothing. I wrote in my notebook,  "desolate high plateau." There are sage brush and trailers. 

Self-captioned

We zig-zagged our way across the state to Ontario, Oregon. There were no rest areas but right before the interstate there was a picnic area with an outhouse so Maggie could get out of the car and I could take care of business.

Eastern Oregon through the bug-splashed windshield

At Ontario, we hooked up with Interstate 84 crossing the Snake River to Boise, Idaho. Another capitol building, yay! There was still daylight and we successfully made it to Mountain Home, Idaho. The hotel was nice and there was a nice restaurant nearby.

Snake River

Idaho capitol - impressive

Our typical hotel setup and relaxation

Tuesday started off a little rough. I wanted to take local roads across Idaho to Idaho Falls but Google Maps insisted we take the Interstate. After some choice words, we finally got off the interstate onto local roads in search of US20. We zig-zagged north and east and north and east on unmarked roads and eventually made it to US20 east bound. As we drove through flat ranch land, an honest-to-goodness cowboy rode by on his horse out to the cattle herd.

There were also lots of wind turbines that were super close to the road. I'm pretty sure one of turbines had blades that swung over the road! 

On US20 is another very cool national monument, Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve. This is a very large national monument with only a small portion of it is open to visitors.

The visitor center was closed (Mondays and Tuesdays) but the trails and a loop drive were open. The site is not asteroid craters but volcanic geology. There are lava fields and huge cinder cones. The guide signs are very well done and focus on preserving and not destroying what the vistor is seeing. I spent more time here than I thought I would or planned. It was so fascinating.

Witches' fingers along the Devil's Track Trail

The view from the top of Inferno Cone to Broken Top cone

From the top of Inferno Cone looking down to the parking area. My car is the tiny black spec in the center.

The goal for the day was to drive through Yellowstone National Park. From Idaho Falls it is not too far to West Yellowstone and the western entrance to the national park.

Eastern Idaho

We drove the northern section of Yellowstone National Park. I stopped at Norris Geyser field where Steamboat Geyser, the tallest geyser in the world, is. It has a very irregular schedule for the "big one" and just my luck the "big one" had occurred at 8:45am that morning -- missed it!

We encountered a little snow squall and a lot of snow along the side of the roadway. A section of the park's road system is still closed because of snow. [I am writing this after the big flooding that has closed the park. Our visit was before the flooding.] 

Lots of bison everywhere in the park. Also, steam vents and geysers are spread throughout the park. I had not remembered that when I drove through in the 1980's.

Kept the edge of the road in the photo to see how close the bison are

Steamboat Geyser steaming

Yellowstone Lake is ginormous. It was also still mostly frozen! The drive to the east entrance (or as I preferred to call it, the east exit) was crazy beautiful.

Yellowstone Lake - ice at the shore and in the distance

The drive out of Yellowstone

We made it to Cody, Wyoming by the end Tuesday. I had hoped to make it to Greybull but the mountain driving and my extended visit of Craters of the Moon and the geyser field in Yellowstone meant we were going to be a little short.

The Cody hotel was okay. We passed a supper club on the way to the hotel and planned to treat myself to a steak. Where better than Wyoming to have a steak? Unfortunately, I ran into the "restaurants don't stay open late" conundrum. I ended up having to get pizza to go at Pizza Hut....ugh.

Wednesday's goal was Pierre, South Dakota. Another state capitol! - but I get ahead of myself. Wyoming provided dramatic views with mountains and wide-open pastures. We continued on US20 to Buffalo where we picked up Interstate 90.

There were lots of antelope which seem to like to be on the highway side of the fencing! And everything was green, green, green. We stopped at a nice rest area where Maggie had fun climbing a tree.

A rest area for Maggie

Made it into South Dakota on Interstate 90 at Spearfish. I had been to Mount Rushmore and did not want to stay on the interstate so at Sturgis we picked up State 34 to head more-or-less straight to Pierre. There is NOTHING on State 34 and US14. No rest areas - no trees - no towns. Desperation to relieve myself meant just pull over by the side of the road. Nothing saw me except for a small herd of antelope across the road. Seriously, no cars, no nothing.

Emerald green as far as the eye could see

The capitol in Pierre is pretty. Again, I couldn't go inside because of the late hour. The odd thing about the capitol is that it sits pretty much at the edge of a field. I parked "behind" the building and walked around to the front for the photo. When I walked back to my car, I noticed that there wasn't anything on the north side of the building...just farmland!

South Dakota capitol

Capitol parking lot looking north

Pierre sits on the Missouri River. Another Missouri River encounter. This time I got to take a run along the river. There is a really nice island park that has lots of paths.

Thursday was intended to be a "short" day back to Minnesota and home. Eastern South Dakota and western Minnesota are farm country. The wildlife consisted of pelicans and swans in the over-full lakes along the way.

Not really much to say or show about this part of the trip. I know I was anxious to get home and pretty sure so was Maggie.