End of Day 5 and day 6

End of Day 5 and day 6

We headed from devils tower over to the battle of little big horn monument. This was a really somber sight. To see so many graves of so many fallen soldiers really makes you think about things. It was a really good history lesson to walk through the park/monument area. For some reason I felt pretty emotional seeing everything there.
After leaving the battlefield we went to try to find a place to camp for the night. We figured it would be cool to camp near a lake and possibly cliff jump so we found one in the area that we thought would be in the national forest. The drive there was pretty incredible with the way the sky looked up in Montana. Guess it really is Big Sky Country. After arriving we found out it wasn’t in the national forest and was also the shadiest place ever. So we left. The road system into/out of this place was one very long road with a series of dead end roads branching off. This meant we had to back track over the last 40 miles or so of driving we had done. Then we figured it would take us so long to get to the next national forest we might as well try to get close to Yellowstone, which was our next destination. We started driving west and noticed the sky looking pretty ominous in front of us. We figured we would be driving into a thunderstorm or something but we had no idea what mother nature had in store for us.

The storm we drove into turned out to be the worst storm ive seen in my entire life. The winds had to be blowing over 70 miles per hour and the rain was moving horizontally. To add onto this we were driving across an Indian reservation and saw one or two cars in about 90 miles. There were no gas stations, no hotels, no shelters for cars, no homes, no signs of civilization. As if that's not bad enough, they forgot to pave the roads too. Without a doubt this was the most scared I had ever been in my life. I legitimately thought we were driving right into a tornado. The storm finally broke and I stopped fearing for my life…for the most part. Every once in a while a good bit of rain would come down again and id have to ask mother nature to cut it out, but it was not as bad as before. After the storm was pretty much over we drove down some more high way and eventually found a pull off in a national forest and slept for the night, waking up every couple of hours for lightning or thunder.

We woke up in the morning and headed for Yellowstone national park. The drive there was ridiculously scenic, awesome, and pretty dangerous. We stopped a few times to take pictures which all turned out really great. We also had to stop to play in the snow since you don't get many chances to do that in July. When we got to Yellowstone there was a huge traffic jam of people stopping to look at a herd of bison on the side of the road. Once we got farther inside we decided to see some of the top attractions in the part of the park we were in. Hans and I went down by Lamar river/valley and stuck our feet in after eating lunch. We strolled down the river a couple hundred yards and looked back to see a bison right where we started our walk. We also found a skull and spine of some large animal laying in the field we were walking through. It would’ve made a good wall ornament but we decided to leave it instead. We then drove over to tower’s fall, stopping on the way for another free climb as usual. We climbed up a small rock formation above a river and got a pretty good view of the river. When we arrived at towers fall we walked down to see the fall and took some pictures. Then we kept walking down and got into the river a few feet. The water was ridiculously cold. We headed back up the trail and decided to see the mammoth hot springs before we left the park to camp for the night. We hiked up a trail by the hot springs and got a good view from the top. The water was about as warm as a hot tub in some spots and even warmer in others. We weren’t supposed to touch it but obviously we did anyways. Then we hiked down and headed out of the park. The roads get pretty congested whenever there is wildlife to see, which is a pain in the butt, but its worth it. So far we have seen wild bears, buffalo, a bald eagle, a bobcat, rattlesnakes, deer, and several birds and rodents. The bigger attractions causing the traffic jams of course. Yellowstone is a beautiful place to be. We will be here for four or five more days. Im sure we will hike, bike, swim, see lots of cool things, and be satisfied by our experiences before we leave. I cant wait. As for now we are going up to a national forest to camp for the night and then heading back into the park tomorrow. Ill keep you up to date…if anyone is reading this.