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Day seventeen was to see us return to Jackson, WY via Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton National Park. As the girls had enjoyed visiting Hoover Dam during last year’s trip the day started out with a stop along our route at Buffalo Bill Dam which is located near Cody in Buffalo Bill State Park. Rich remembered visiting the dam back in 1970 on a trip out west with the folks, but things had changed since then. In 1993 a project was completed that added 25 feet to the height of the dam. This redesign meant that Rich didn’t have to have a death grip on the girls like his mother had on him back in 1970.

After our stop at the dam, we continued on our way into Yellowstone. In the ten days we’d been gone, Yellowstone Lake had finished thawing out and appeared to be ice free. At one overlook we met a couple who had locked their keys in their truck and were waiting for OnStar to unlock it for them. They were very jealous of the number of bears that we had seen as that was to be their last day in the park and they had yet to see any (although they had seen four coyotes earlier in the day).

We decided to head north past the falls and cut across the center of the park between Canyon and Norris since we’d only driven across that section once during our earlier visits. Unfortunately we didn’t see any more bears.

Ashley wanted to stop at Artist’s Paint Pots and hike up to see the one that looked like it was spitting wet drywall mud. It was threatening to rain when we parked, so we threw on our jackets and hurried up the path. Turned out it was a good thing we hurried as the valley was soon filled with the sound of rolling thunder and it started to rain. With the weather turning worse, we didn’t tarry and were soon on our way back down to the van. We were less than ¼ of a mile from the parking lot when it started to hail – fortunately lightly and less than pea-sized. A few minutes later we were back in the van and on our way again through the rain. Then the heavy, but thankfully pea-sized, hail started. With the temperature around 48F, the hail didn’t melt right away and the road soon looked like it was snowing. The hailstorm was short and soon we were back to just driving in the rain.

The rain followed us throughout the rest of our trip through the park and was probably the reason we saw so few animals as compared to previous days. We were very thankful for the good weather we had experienced earlier in the trip.

As it had been several days since we had truly “hiked”. Ashley wanted to stop at the Taggart Lake trailhead in Grand Teton National Park and hike the other trail leading to the lake that we hadn’t taken before. As the weather had cleared considerably after leaving Yellowstone, we decided to give it a try. As it was 5:45 p.m., the trail was 2.6 miles, and our average speed was a little over 1 mph, Rich decided we’d go as far as we could by 7:00 p.m. and if we hadn’t reached the lake by then we’d turn around and head back. Ashley led the way at a fast pace! The landscape along the trail was much greener than it had been two weeks prior and that coupled with all of the bear sightings during the trip had Rich a little nervous about stumbling upon a bear as we hurried along so he had the girls sing songs, and even occasionally had everyone “Sound Off” with a loud “One! Two! Three! Four! Five!” along the line. With Ashley determined to get to the lake before having to turn around, we reached the lake in about an hour, probably doubling our normal pace. As the path we had taken on our first hike was shorter, had considerably less elevation changes, and according to some folks we passed going the other way no longer had snow on it, we decided to take that way back. The hike to the lake definitely had taken its toll as the 1.8 miles back also took an hour.

There were a few people across the road from the parking lot when we got back to the van so walked over to take a look. It was a good thing we did as there was a moose cow down by a beaver dam. We spent about twenty minutes watching her before heading back to the van and heading on our way.

We knew we were going to have to get up early to get to the airport in the morning and the girls wanted to try out the small lap pool before going to bed, so we opted for fast food before a quick swim.

We started out day sixteen with a trip back to Mount Rushmore to see it in the daylight. It turned out that it was a good thing we went first thing in the morning, as soon after we got there the mountain became socked in with clouds. Every once in a while there would be a few seconds where you could see the faces again, but by the time you tried to take a picture, they would be lost in the mist again.

We spent some time doing a .8 mile loop that on a clear day provides several different views of the faces on the mountain. The loop also includes a stop at the Artist’s Studio which includes a 1:12 scale model that was used during the carving of the mountain.

Then it was back in the van for another long day of driving, again in the rain. This time to Cody, WY. Most of the route was back along the highway we had driven east on the day before, I-90. We again saw lots of pronghorn antelope along the way. We left the highway just west of Sheridan, WY and got on US-14. Immediately the terrain changed from rolling prairie to a mountain pass and we got high enough to be driving in the clouds. Most of the drive up US-14 to Granite Pass took place in dense clouds/fog – which may or may not have been better for Rich’s nerves as the road was switchback after switchback. At one point, Rich and Karen both swore that they had seen a large animal (like a buffalo) run across the road less than fifty feet in front of the van in the fog, but it immediately disappeared. They had just come to the conclusion that it must have just been the swirling of the fog/clouds playing a trick on them when the truth became “clear”. There was a car in front of them and they had seen its vague form going around a curve in front of them. Even though their lights were on and it had been so close, it had tricked us completely.

The clouds thinned considerably after we crested the pass, which was nice as we spotted a couple of cars pulled over with people out looking at something. It turned out to be our fourth moose of the trip.

The trip back down was again through the clouds, but the visibility wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been on the way up. Once back down through Shell Canyon the terrain returns to prairie and the road runs almost straight to Cody.

We arrived in Cody in time to see a “gunfight” put on daily during the summer. It was conveniently located right in front of Buffalo Bill’s Irma Hotel which was our destination for the day. The gunfight was pretty corny but entertaining nonetheless. Afterwards we checked into our room at the Irma and had a nice dinner in their dining room.

“Day fifteen was to be yet another long driving day. This time we were trying to reach Mount Rushmore National Memorial in time to see the evening program. The drive through Montana and Wyoming produced dozens of pronghorn antelope sightings, sometimes singular antelope, once a few dozen. In all, we probably saw over a hundred antelope.

The day was dreary and rainy most of the time, which made the drive seem all the longer. It didn’t help things that we ended up backtracking about twenty miles along our route to get gas when we noticed we probably weren’t going to make it to the next available station along our route. It was a good thing we went back – we would have definitely run out. The rain stopped as we neared Mount Rushmore.

As we pulled into the Mount Rushmore parking area, the girls spotted what Alyssa initially thought was a poodle. It turned out that it was Mount Rushmore’s unofficial mascot, a mountain goat. We didn’t get any pictures because we were in line to pay for parking and it was getting dark anyway.

We had arrived in time for the evening program which includes a talk, a twenty minute movie, the lighting of the mountain, and a flag lowering ceremony. It was just starting to drizzle lightly when the program was ending. We were thankful we had arrived in time and that the rain had held off, as the program was very enjoyable.

After the evening program, we drove a short ways down the road (about twenty minutes) to our hotel in Hill City. Unfortunately, Hill City closes sometime before 10:00 p.m. so we ended up having to get dinner from the only place open in town – a gas station.