We are not slack. We ran into a case of No Internet!

Tonight we shall catch all you eager beaver blog followers up on our travels!! I know that all day you've been refreshing the page, just waiting and hoping that our latest blog would load. We are sorry to keep you waiting...but here it is Ladies and Gentleman, BLOG NUMBER 2-0!

Yesterday (Friday) we left Kalispell after grabbing some coffee at one of Kyle's local favorites, bypassing the 35 small drive-thru coffee shacks with clever names such as Cowgirl Coffee, Kangaroo Brew, JoMama's Coffee....The list goes on, and every time you blink you are passing another one.

Took us all day to get to Yellowstone National Park...but we made it! In case you did not realize, Yellowstone is HUGE. We thought we'd just drive around, stop by Old Faithful, and get to where my two old roommates work before dinner time. Wrong. Upon entrance to the park, we found out that Old Faithful was faithfully 52 miles away. And those aren't interstate miles, pal. But, like true tourists, that is what we wanted to see. So we began our trek to the famous geyser, stopping every now and then to see some of the craziest things we've ever seen.

1. Buffaloes 3 feet away from us!

2. Boiling puddles of water....everywhere.

3. Buffaloes 3 feet away from us!

4. A giant bubbling puddle of mud.

5. And my personal favorite, BUFFALOES 3 feet away from us!

Oh and did I tell you? Emily could have practically grabbed a buffalo! Okay, maybe we were a little excited about the buff's (Go CU!) But they are incredible creatures. And they were 3 feet away from us.

Look how close they were!!

Foggy glasses as a result of hovering over the boiling puddles.

Bubbly Mud Puddle.

We got to Old Faithful about 7 and saw a sign that they predicted it to go off around 7:58. Starving, we started rushing around the little shops located at Old Faithful, woefully discovering that most of them were not serving food. We finally made it over the still open cafeteria (only after purchasing my very own Yellowstone Fanny Pack) and were devouring our Bison taco's and lasagna when we spotted a lady pointing out the window...Old Faithful was a-spewin'!! We saw it, rushed outside thinking that it would last a few minutes like the other, smaller and less famous geysers we had seen that day...but nope, Old Faithful was done. So we did get to see it go off...but unfortunately we have no photographic proof of our presence at the event.

My Fanny Pack.

We tried to imitate Old Faithful. Click on the picture to make it bigger and check out our faces.

Lots of snow even though it was warm!

But we do have some shots of us from the live webcam that updates every 15 seconds from my dad! My dad and Em's whole neighborhood saw us live! It was pretty neat.

The saved webcam image.

Spent the night with Lander and Jill, the aforementioned roommates.

___________SATURDAY_____________________

For some reason, we thought it would take about 8-9 hours to get to Mt. Rushmore. Try 12. ish.

Okay, so we took our time leaving the park, partly by choice when we stopped to see the giant waterfalls, partly because you have to go soooooooooooooo slowwwwwwwwwww especially when you get stuck behind some real eggtimers (ref to Christmas Vacation).

So after FINALLY getting out of the park and going down the road some...we stop in Cody, WY, home of the Buffalo Bill Museum and more! It was the first sign of civilization, and we needed a caffeine fix for our addiction we've developed throughout this road trip. We stop at Peter's Cafe, just a local little deli/ice cream shop/etc. and realize it's about lunch time so we decided to get lunch. After accidentally opening the door on a guy using the bathroom, we order some yummy sandwiches with great names: Emily got a Buffalo Bill and I got a Calamity Jane. When we placed our sandwich order, the girl working asked us about drinks and mass confusion ensued. Emily asked for a Fountain drink, which apparently she interpreted as a cappuccino. Emily then speaks us, explaining she didn't say cappuccino, but a fountain drink. The girl even repeats "Fountain Drink" and says she'll bring our drinks out to us. I watched her as she struggled to understand that I ordered a simple iced coffee...and Emily finally just got up and got her own Mountain Dew. A couple minutes later, homegirl comes over with a cappuccino in hand. My only guess is that she just couldn't understand southern talk. We just pretended that we did order instead of confuse her even more. The sandwiches were delicious though!

At this point we also realized that we had left Yellowstone about 4-5 hours before, and had only gotten barely 200 miles east. 

Wyoming is just what we imagined it to be. A combination of Montana and Colorado would be a great way to describe it...and you could throw in a little of Arizona nothingness and red color. But I felt like I was riding through cowboy country with the wide open spaces and the fact that a high percentage of men we did actually see were wearing boots and a cowboy hat.

We almost ran out of gas today. The light came on when we were 40 miles away from the next town and 30 from the last that we passed. But we did ride through Shell, a tiny town with a population of 51...so we turned back around, hoping that somehow Shell would have a pump. Thank you Dirty Annie's Gift Shop for also selling gas! I filled up, walked in to pay, and the lady told me that they didn't have a reader so they ask people to just tell them how much they pumped. I loved that they depended on honesty. Shell people are good people. They were also having some sort of happy hour with assorted fried foods on the porch.

We realized we weren't going to get to Mt. Rushmore until at least dusk. But, we were still happy because one of our friends had actually advised us to go at night. So for hours we pressed on, looking forwards to an illuminated carving of 4 of our Presidents. We got to Mt. Rushmore in the rain a little after nine...and it was all dark on the mountain front. We saw nothing. Oh wait, we did see the profile of who we think to be George Washington's nose. What can ya do I suppose.

Staying with some Castaway friends Chris and Sharon close to Rapid City, SD....and heading to Castaway tomorrow!