Monthly Archives: July 2022

Rapid City trip, days ten and eleven

I’ve not got too much news for our travel days, as we mostly did just that. We got up bright and early on Thursday, said goodbye to the group, and headed west.

Thursday night was spent in Billings; we spent a night dry camping in a local breweries gravel overflow parking lot, using our Harvest Hosts membership. It was quiet and safe, and the beer was very good.

You can see that some of the road was pretty flat. Prairie grasses are nice

Today we headed for Idaho Falls, where we are now. I 90 from Billings to Bozeman was really pretty, and mostly road construction free.

You can see the mountains peeking over Leila’s shoulder. She focused on the job at hand

At Bozeman we turned south towards West Yellowstone. The highway followed the Gallatin River most of the way. There were lots of fly fishermen, and even some rafters on what looked like really crazy rapids.

A picture of the river, with a bonus of our bug collection on the glass

I’ll close with a picture I promised to post a few days ago, but have forgotten. Home in Nampa tomorrow…

Bison riding added to Leila’s resume

Rapid City trip, day nine

Last day of the rally got off to a relaxed start. We didn’t have to be at the bus until 9:45. First stop was Hot Springs, SD where we saw an active mammoth bone dig. They have built an entire building over the site, so things were indoors on a very warm day.

It was great to see how the diggers work, and to get an idea of why these mammals ended up here. After our tour we went next door for lunch. The restaurant owner gave us some background information on the town and its surroundings.

Replicas of skeletons found here
A pile of tusks and rib cages. These are not fossils; they are the remains of bone, and very fragile

Next on the agenda was a bus ride to a bear adventure. Our bus drove through the grounds, then we were able to walk around enclosures that had small animals and some that had baby bears and wolves.

Some animals liked to pose for us
Others were just ambling around in the heat of the day. This guy definitely dressed too warmly
Then there were these guys wrestling over ice cubes. Brothers…

Lastly we had a nice farewell dinner. The two of us had prime rib, cooked very nicely. There are leftovers, we will finish them off on our drive home.

I have no pictures, but for the third night in a row a series of lightning storms came through. At least tonight the storm did not bring along high winds, so the RV was not rocking to and fro as we tried to sleep.

We hit the road for home tomorrow, planning to drive as far as Billings, MT. See you then…