So we left Silvergate and headed East, the direction home. We wanted to drive the Beartooth Highway en route. Well, Louie did. I was happy to let him drive as I don’t like windy roads!
Oh! I forgot to add this photo from the previous post. Our “Cabin” at the Grizzly Lodge. (You can see it behind the car and the awning).
It wasn’t quite as nice of a drive on the Beartooth as we’d experienced before because there was CONSTRUCTION and we were stopped for awhile at first. But finally we got going and as always, the views were amazing.
We always pass places that look like nice hikes and places to camp, but we never do much as we are en route. Such beautiful sights just off the road though!
You can see the road there! This was the top, the Beartooth Pass.
Louie wanted to stand on the snow.
There were a lot of motorcycle riders around, probably on their way to the super spreading event at Sturgis. We tried to keep our distance.
The highway ends in Red Lodge and we stopped there for lunch at a place called the Red Box Drive-In. I think I got fried shrimp and fries?
We kept driving then (I drove for awhile, since we were out of the crazy roads) and headed into the Bighorn mountains. We had reserved a spot at Island Park Campground in the Bighorn Mountains. It was a small campground down several miles of dirt road, and we were a little worried about the rain, but the place was great once we got there.
It was a vault toilet only place but the toilets were clean and the host was really nice. We tried to just relax and enjoy the evening. We were right by a pond with a little meadow on the other side.
We walked down to the pond—you can see the tent back up in the trees.
At night we heard something splashing around in the water and I shined my light towards it. We saw a pair of eyes glowing at us, which was sort of terrifying at first. Finally we discovered it was just a deer so that wasn’t too scary!
The next day we continued driving through the Bighorn Mountains, and took a side road called the Crazy Woman Canyon Drive. I wasn’t “crazy” about the name, but the drive was very cool. You definitely wouldn’t want to drive it in anything without higher clearance though. There were some campsites along the way and nice places to fish probably.
Pretty cool as you can tell! We enjoyed the drive though it had some technical parts.
After that, well, we headed to Nebraska. We did have to go through South Dakota briefly, but didn’t stay long (we were sort of boycotting South Dakota because they didn’t think COVID was real) and ended our evening at Chadron State Park in Nebraska. We set up our tent and went for a short hike on the Black Hills Overlook Trail.
There was really interesting scenery! We also ran into a family who were from Missouri—they saw our license plate and struck up a conversation with us.
We enjoyed a nice campfire and a good night’s sleep.
The next day we packed up and headed for our last official stop: Carhenge. Carhenge is a bit out of the way but not if you plan on it. Interesting fact (which I learned later) is that my dad spent a week or two in the area at Alliance helping on a combine crew one summer when he was in college. That was before Carhenge was made so he didn’t get to see it.
We were glad we made this stop. It was ridiculous but really cool and fun.
And that was it. After visiting Carhenge, we drove along the Sandhills Scenic Byway through Nebraska for a few hours—definitely nicer than just driving on I-80, and then we joined the interstate and headed to Missouri. We stayed a motel past Kansas City which I have blocked (we were not impressed and would not recommend) the name of in my head, though we had delicious Thai takeout nearby, and then got home around noon the next day. The cats were safe and sound but happy to see us, and we were glad to be home and safe. Time went by and it didn’t seem we caught COVID on our trip, and I was glad we went. It was just what we needed at the time, both to get out of the house and see other places, and to be able to leave the house without being really scared and panicky. I think we were as safe from COVID as we could be, and we never set foot inside a building without a mask on.
I hope you enjoyed reading about my trip! Until the next one…it’ll be regular blog posts for awhile now.