springdellgirl

Kansas City Trip: Days 11 and 12 The End

 


Finally!! Yes, we are finally to the end of the big road trip. No one could be more thrilled than me to finish up the journaling of this event. Woohoo. Only took me until Mid-October...but what ev. It's done now.

The day we left Kansas City was bittersweet. On one hand, after eleven days we were pretty sick of traveling and looking forward to getting home and on the other hand, it was hard to say goodbye to Ramon, Jordin and kiddos.

We met up with my Mom and Ken, who were also leaving that day, at Jordin's house. Stacey, Kelley and the little girls were going to be leaving the day after. After shedding lots of tears we said goodbye. We had a couple of stops on our way out of town. I needed to do a bit of shopping for Sisters Creed and ended up finding some great things. We also stopped to get something to eat at the Kolache Factory. Kolaches are a big thing in Texas. We used to always stop for Kolaches on our way to and from Galveston. They are delicious. Kolaches are a thick kind of pastry filled with sausages, or fruit, or eggs and cheese etc. Unfortunately these Kolaches were pretty ho-hum. I guess I need to go to Texas to get my fix. We also stopped to purchase a little more Kansas City flair. We got more Royals, Chiefs, and KU t-shirts, hats, posters etc. You've gotta get the gear...right?

Outside of town there is a great new shopping and entertainment area called The Legends. This stop was definitely on my to-do list. It had to be at the end of the trip so I knew just how much money I could blow. :) At the Legends there is a White House Black Market OUTLET!! Woohoo. That is my favorite store and I have never even heard of there being an outlet. It did not disappoint!!

This was MY multi-level Forever 21!! I found some absolutely fantastic deals and left with some great purchases!! (We also stopped for our last Culver's Frozen Custard gluttony. Sad.)

After that it was pretty much endless driving through Nebraska. While not quite as horrible as South Dakota (really what could be?) it  was still very flat and very boring. We did stop in Lincoln and looked around. Here's a really random tip but if you should find yourself on an endless road trip and in Lincoln, NE...and if you feel that if you were to eat any more fast food you would hurl...the HyVee (a midwest grocery store) has DELICIOUS Chinese food. We chowed. Crazy... yet seriously good.

I also found in Lincoln my new favorite beverage that I cannot find anywhere here and will need to order online. It is delish!!

McClellans are sparkling water/ mineral water drinkers from way back. When I was a kid we always had Perrier and La Croix in the fridge. I just love it. I also absolutely love coconut...the taste, the smell everything. But... I had been burned by coconut water that tasted, as my kids described it, like "squash water". Gruesome. This drink tastes like the tropics!! All coconutty, light, and delicious.

We continued on our journey and drove through the night. We arrived in Wyoming early in the morning into a vastly different landscape. The desert. We had breakfast in Cody, WY and entered Yellowstone from the East Entrance. It had been over 12 years since we had last been there. Only Reilly had ever been there before and that was as a baby. The kids were super excited and the scenery was grand and majestic. Even Ailey who was so worried about supervolcanos and calderas was grinning and excitedly looking around.

The day was hot and dry. When we rounded the bend and saw that beautiful Yellowstone Lake we just couldn't resist. We pulled over as soon as possible and got right in!!
 

Tempting right?

 

Ailey still a bit fearful (calderas!!) but she dipped her toes in anyway.

Lake rats through and through

We started quite the trend. When we pulled over and jumped out there wasn't anyone else in the water...but after a few minutes a whole bunch of people pulled over and were wading into the lake. Yellowstone has such a "mass mentality" if other people are doing something/looking at something/stopping at something well then everybody feels a need to do/look/and stop at things. People are terrified that they are going to "miss out" on something. That aspect of Yellowstone drives me NUTS!! When we left a bus load of Japanese tourists were running to the water. :)

Our next stop was the mudpots. So fascinating to see as children. This year due to the lack of rain they weren't quite as impressive as in the past.

Still pretty cool though.

Brynnie was pretty impressed!!

The kids just couldn't believe their eyes. I grew up going to Yellowstone fairly regularly but it was all new to these guys. They said that Yellowstone was the highlight of the trip. It was fun that the three older kids were old enough to understand geology and to be fascinated by it.

Then we went to check out the West Thumb area to see the geysers, fumaroles, paint pots, and hot springs. It was on this particular little jaunt that Tyler decided to drive off the road and nearly killed us all. For reals. I guess every long road trip must have a near death experience to keep things interesting. It resulted in me being extremely pissed off for this part of the park, not talking to Tyler and refusing to be in any of the pictures.

Bright sun strikes again. I guess I should have provided sunglasses for these guys.

So pretty!!

The paint pots were my particular favorite sights this trip. I especially loved where there were yellow ones, aqua blue ones, purple ones, orange ones and emerald green ones right near each other. Nature is pretty amazing!!

We were seriously the scroungiest bunch. Showers? What day was that? Oh well. I guess I am keeping with tradition. I should unearth some of my childhood Yellowstone photos. We were one grubby bunch of kids!! Clearly nothing has changed. Also, by this point of the trip thank goodness we had amazing geological sites to see because we were DONE with this trip and with each other!! Those smiles...all fakes.
 

Then it was off to Old Faithful to wait and wait for her to do her thing, eat the world's most expensive ice cream, and hear the craziest group conversation ever.

Waiting...and looking mangy!!

This was where we had the most interesting and yet bizarre experience. While we all sat there waiting a big spontaneous conversation broke out. It started out with people asking "Where are you from?" etc. Soon a whole big section of people were joined in on one huge conversation. What about you ask? The beauty of Yellowstone? Nay Nay. It was the incompetence of Barrack Obama. Can you believe it? Very interesting. Especially as it was quite the little slice of American pie. People from all over the US were ticked off at the lack luster job of Barrack Obama and vocalizing it. Not one person in that group defended him. Not one. Even the Canadians were ticked off. They didn't care for him putting the kibosh on the ol' pipeline that would've made them some money. See that big group? They were all laughing and mocking Obama or "that A@#$$$% in the White House" as some people called him. Pretty good random sample of people: westerners, northwesterners, northerners, easterners, Retirees, RVers, Environmentalists, Southerners, Midwesterners all united in complete disgust with Obama. Well... that was enough to jolt me out of my pissy mood at our near death experience. Tyler and I just stared at each other incredulous...yet gleeful.  I hope this represents itself in the voting booth. It was interesting to say the least.

Old Faithful

The next stop was a waterfall that I don't remember the name of but it was pretty. We stopped, walked around, and enjoyed the beauty all around us.

Here we are looking exhausted because we were.

We then continued on looking at interesting things like Mammoth Hot Springs and stopping at several locations and just enjoying the park. We saw lots of buffalo, a few elk and that was about it. I have never in all my times of going to Yellowstone ever seen a bear. Interesting.

When we finally left the park we had one thought on our minds...a bed. We thought that we could push on to Bozeman, MT because when you get closer to home you just want to get home!! We planned to stop and stay the night there but we hadn't made reservations at a hotel. That was a huge mistake. Our night of a badly needed hotel happened to coincide with freshman orientation at Montana State University. Every single hotel was sold out!! Crap. By then we were starving and exhausted. We grabbed some food and thought about trying to keep pushing on to Butte, MT. But that was just not possible especially after driving all night the night before and being up all day. So we did the classy thing...NOT...we pulled into a Walmart parking lot and fell sound asleep. There was a huge thunderstorm that night and the lull of the thunder and the rain gave us a seriously refreshing night's sleep. The kids slept soundly and Tyler and I both slept like babies. We got up early and hit the road. We stopped for breakfast in Butte and headed for home as fast as possible. We got home at around 10:45am. We were just about to pull in when we noticed that our neighbor was trying to surprise us by mowing our lawn before we got home. Darn do-gooders. We had to drive around aimlessly until he was done so we didn't ruin his "surprise". Sweet idea though.

Here's what we looked like while waiting for him to be done so we could come home:

So we survived. We traveled in Tornado Alley during tornado season and didn't see a tornado and Yellowstone, much to Ailey's relief, didn't blow!! All in all, we had an absolutely fantastic time seeing this beautiful country of ours, spending time with family, and creating many memories.

Whew...and now I am done. :)