Post trip notes

Cool mountain passage.

We drove south from Thermopolis WY on Rt 20. The road was downhill to the south... however the river was flowing North!!!

Go figure. Another really cool feature of nature.

Home again

Almost home - still in NY

Cooperstown NY

Entrance to the baseball hall of fame.

Cooperstown founding info

Home stretch

In jamestown ny home of Lucille ball. Ate at Fenton's - Great place. Headed to cooperstown tomorrow.

closing the loop - Pennsylvania

I was in the other lane going the other way exactly 2 weeks ago.

Rock and roll

Back in cleveland.

Pictures

2gb digital and a dozen rolls of film. Hoping for a bulk discount.

My dad remembers when these were in burlington.

Airforce museum Dayton

Just went through the presidential and exp section.

Ohio

Indiana

Now we can do multiple states in one day. Todays destination is dayton and the airforce museum.

Iowa

Council Bluffs IA

We're staying in Council Bluffs IA (across the river from Omaha). This is a large city area.

Union Pacific Golden Spike Tower was cool and worth the stop over. We spoke with a guy who is a model train hobbyist. He told us that the local club had acquired a working N-scale model of the North Platte "East Hump." (25 ft by 5 ft) It was originally created in the 1980's as a working scale model used to train people on how the hump yard worked. They are working to reassemble it and get it back into working order. It was housed in a box car and then removed sometime in the mid-80's and given to the university. Union Pacific was able to find the box car sitting on a side rail somewhere in Mexico. The hope is to get the car back to North Platte and put the whole thing onto a rail beside the museum by 2010.

Golden spike tower

The largest classification rail yard in the world. Operated by union pacific. 2850 acres. www.Goldenspiketower.Com Computer run with remote control engines. We decided to stop because we probably wont be back this way for a long time.

Welcome to colorado

Well. Since we were driving by we made a short detour to colorado.

Nebraska

Better photo

Nebraska

Goodbye Cheyenne

testing

Just text. okay - sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. no idea why. Anyhow I've lost many great master pieces of prose.

dang - text not working

Okay - I just realized that many (most) of my TXT posts aren't exactly readable. dang. This is the first time I've used the laptop in a week - maybe now I will get a smart phone.

We're in Cheyenne WY. There is an amazing thunder storm rolling through right now. Oh and a huge Union Pacific rail yard too. It would be cool to stay here just to watch them move trains.

A few days ago we drove south of Yellowstone into the Tetons. While talking to a Park Ranger about road conditions to Cheyenne he told us that our planned route was pretty dug up. 30 miles of "by escort pilot car only" - plan on "many hour" delays - so long that they come by and give you a newspaper and tell you turn off your car. So we rerouted for today and went back through the park to Cody and then down south through Casper. 65-75 mph most of the way.

We are now officially East bound on I-80, be back in a week.

passing Casper WY

Just passing through Casper WY.

Last day

Figured i'd get a picture of the sign before we leave.

Animal crossing

Bison Induced traffic jam. I don't know if you can see it in this low res photo - but the traffic goes all the way up the hill to the right. There was a large herd of Bison crossing the road, and they don't exactly "cross" like cows do to get to the other side. They kind of take their sweet old time (and they can - each one is as big as a honda civic)... plus all us tourists stop in the middle of the road to take pictures rather than pull off.

Eastern side grand loop

We watched Osprey fly below us.

West yellowstone

Downtown west yellowstone MT. Nice little spot. Turns out the road between madison and noris is closed. This means a 112 Mile detour to get to the north end of the park. At 40 mph it will take about three hours. Today was spent at old faithful. Maybe mammoth tomorow and everything else north.

Long beautiful drive to the park last night. Lesson learned stay in Cody next time.

Cody WY

Sheridan WY

Stopped to have lunch. Pretty big town. Good place to stop. They have one of everything.

Crazy horse

Sorry. There are out of order. Digital signal is sparse so i send when i can.

Now entering SD

Hiked around base. Beautiful drive from Custer This morning. It started out as a rainy day but cleared up when we got to devils tower. The speed limit on country roads has been 65. Elevation around 4500-5600.

Mt Rushmore

Bad lands

Beautiful country

Rest Area in South Dakota

If you read closely it contains LAT LONG

(edit) Here's a link of Google maps using these coordinates. It appears close - I'm not quite sure gmaps has exactly the right spot - either that or my conversion lost a few digits.

Corn palace

Totally decorated with corn - lots and lots of corn. The birds are stealing it and living within the art work. I didn't check if the corn is dyed or they used different natural colors of corn. The stalk is also used (or maybe both). For those interested check this out

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Would have sent earlier no signal

Ge in sioux falls

entering Minnesota

Made it through chicago - heavy traffic. Later we hit a big storm - black sky and super heavy rain. Pretty smooth sailing north of chicago

entering Chicago

It really was a big left turn looks like a few miss it regularly

Almost done for the day

Yellowstone trip begins tomorrow

6:30 am - ready or not. Just need to finish packing and get to bed.

Cleveland, Madison, Sioux Falls, Rapid City, Yellowstone West.

Strange info

I'm not sure, but I think I can walk that far in 240 days.