( I recommend to everyone to click on your favorite photos to see a bigger version of the photo. Most of these look much better in a larger format)

This was the beginning of our road trip. Our route took us up through the midwest to Devil’s Tower in Wyoming.

Devil’s Tower is a large igneous intrusion in the northeastern corner of Wyoming. Several months ago one of my coworkers told me about it and I’ve wanted to go ever since. It’s a popular climbing location in Wyoming and offers a range of climbing routes. If you look closely there are a pair of people climbing the tower in the picture I took.

We were luck enough to get a free guided tour of the monument from the National Parks Service. Our tour guide was actually a member of the Lakota Tribe, and he was able to give us some interesting info about the monument from the perspective of the Lakota People. He was also 6’7″; he was very tall.

After our morning tour of Devil’s tower we made out way towards Yellowstone through the Big Horn National Forest. Unfortunately we had to skip the Grand Tetons on this trip. It just made more sense to get a move on to Yellowstone. We had to spend the night in the National Forest outside of Yellowstone; as we would learn tomorrow, all of Yellowstone’s 1,700+ campgrounds fill up very fast.

After driving around for at least an hour and a half we were able to find a free spot in the Northern part of the park. We settled in and then went to go see Old Faithful and stroll the geyser boardwalk. A big rainstorm scared off most of the other visitors so we essentially had the boardwalk to ourselves.

We decided to stay an extra day in Yellowstone. I’m glad we did too; I’ve been to Yellowstone several times before but I swear I’ve only seen 1/16th of the park.

We hiked Mt. Washburn after seeing the waterfall. It was a great, but difficult hike to the top. A good amount of the trail was still covered in icy snow and made for slow going. We were all a little tired at the top. The next morning we woke up and made our way towards Coeur d’alene, Idaho, where we stayed with my old neighbors, Chris and Laila.