Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and Idaho

From Teddy Roosevelt National Park, we took a bit of dive into the backwater town of Glendive, MT. Not much to report here, except that we went to a great barbecue place for dinner called Dickey's Barbecue Pit. I had the chopped brisket sandwich, which was excellent.


The following day we visited the Makoshika state park. This park similar to Teddy Roosevelt, but with more dinosaurs. It had some really interesting geology.

We then headed for Billings, MT, where we spent the night after experiencing possibly the worst customer service ever at Hardee's. Incidentally, our hierarchy of big American fast food chains is as follows:

1. Culver's
2. Wendy's
3.  Popeye's
4. KFC
5. McDonald's
6. Taco Bell
7. Hardee's
8. Burger King

And way down the bottom in a category of it's own is White Castle. I do not know how this place stays in business. All I can think is 'Stoners.'

The next day we visited the Pictograph Cave and Chief Plenty Coup State Parks. These were fairly unimpressive, but it was kind of cool to see some real pictographs.

After that, we continued to West Yellowstone, ID, where we stayed the night. The hotel had cookies and hot chocolate every evening, which Micah thought was very special. The next day we made to one of our major attractions: Yellowstone National Park. But first we took a quick trip to the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center. This place is kind of like a zoo for problem grizzly bears and wolves and few other things. They take in bears that have made a habit of going through people's garbage; one of them even entered a doughnut shop to get some lunch. But it's more than just a zoo. Several times a day, the keepers will enrich the habitats by adding food, different smells, different toys and other stuff to keep the enclosure interesting. Then they release the animals back into the enriched habitat. This not only keeps it interesting for the animals, but the humans as well.

Yellowstone was great. Such a variety of mountains, hills, valleys, rivers, geysers and canyons. But I can't figure out American National Parks. There is some limit on commercialisation, but there are lodges and shops right in the middle of the park. You can bring your pets to the parks. You can fish in the parks. I guess it's all controlled in some way but it seems far more relaxed than the Aussie rules. We saw Old Faithful, which Micah referred to as 'old geezer', erupt. Micah did not appreciate the smell.

We took the South exit from Yellowstone and headed through the Grand Tetons and accidentally drove through the park without a pass. Oh well. We then headed West and took the pass over the Tetons. It was spectacular.

After a total of seven hours driving we reached Blackfoot, ID, where we collapsed.