One last hike then on the road again

On our last day off we took a walk through Gardiner, a charming little city less that a mile from the campground. We enjoyed pizza here earlier in the summer.

Our favorite restaurant was Cowboys where they served up good BBQ.

This is the mall, Montana style.

The Flying Pig District was famous for zip line and rafting tours.

On the other side of the Yellowstone River we walked a trail that was an old railroad bed. Here is a view of the campground from that side.

And this is our campsite. The volume of water in the river has dropped dramatically since we arrived in May.

During the summer we saw lots of elk. One evening a few came down to the campground to visit.

One day on our way home from work there were a group of them in the river.

And one bull elk on the hillside.

On most days we saw them before and after work around Mammoth Hot Springs. They even brought a stuffed elk into the store shortly before we left.

 

 

ON THE ROAD AGAIN

 

On Monday morning we finished our last minute packing chores and began our journey home. We drove 477 miles through Montana, a little bit of Wyoming, and into South Dakota. It was an enjoyable travel day with sunshine and beautiful scenery. Tuesday was a repeat of Monday, but we logged 473 miles. As we drove through SD we fondly remembered all the sights we saw when we visited Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Badlands, and other attractions several years ago. We made it to western Iowa. Our drive through Iowa on Wednesday was also picture perfect. I'm sure if we took the time to get off the highway there would be lots of interesting things to explore, but mostly all we saw were cornfields, farms, and silos. After another 416 miles we stopped in central Illinois. On Thursday we drove just 172 miles to Elkhart, IN to get work done on the RV. I will save the RV repair story for the next blog.