Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and South Dakota

My trip to New Jersey started off EARLY. I left very early on August 23 and drove all the way through Washington, Idaho, and stopped in Butte, Montana. Montana was pretty...it reminded me of Utah and Colorado. In Butte, there was a HUGE statue of the Virgin Mary up on the TOP of the Rockies. It lit up at night and was really pretty to see. The next day, my mom and I drove to Yellowstone National Park. I loved it. It was beautiful. I learned that Yellowstone is the top of a volcano...for some reason, I NEVER knew that. Haha. But I saw Old Faithful, I saw all of the paint pots, the colored pools, the steam rocks, and I got plenty of the wonderful smell of sulfur. The only funny thing was...I only saw one butt of an elk and two chipmunks...NO OTHER ANIMALS!!! :)

Here I am at the Grand Canyon on Yellowstone, looking at the waterfall. It was GORGEOUS.

This is the Yellowstone River. I wanted to jump in...I was pretty hot. :)

Then the next day we drove through Wyoming and we went to Devil's Tower. I learned the Native American legend about how the rock came to look that way. I also learned this is a very sacred place to Native Americans and they go here to pray and meditate. There were prayers shawls throughout the trees. It was cool. I just wanted mashed potatoes afterwards...(have you seen Close Encounters of the Third Kind...you will understand that if you have!!)

Then we got to South Dakota. We went to Sturgis and Deadwood. Sturgis is where there is the annual biker gathering. So there were motorcycles and biker bars EVERYWHERE. My mom found a cute biker to get a picture with!!! Haha. Deadwood is an old, little Western town. It was so cute. It was where Wild Bill and Calamity Jane lived. My mom really loved it and wants to live there now.

The next day we drove through the Black Hills, the Badlands, Mount Rushmore, and Crazy Horse. It was SO COOL. I love western South Dakota. The Black Hills were gorgeous and I really liked Mount Rushmore...while we were there wild sheep kept running by us...it was pretty entertaining.