McBoyfriend's First Roadtrip

The 4th of July was not terribly exciting, though the week preceding it was. My sister and her boyfriend flew up from California the last Friday in June, and Saturday morning we drove with my boyfriend from near Seattle, Washington to just west of Yellowstone National Park. None of us had ever been to Yellowstone, and the boyfriends had never been on a roadtrip. My own boyfriend had never been east of Las Vegas, though he's been all over Eastern Europe.

Somewhere off I-90 in Montana.

The first night, we stayed in this awesome resort hotel in Montana that had a hot springs pool. Fairmont Hot Springs Resort offered a nice room, four pools--two indoor, two outdoor, each with a 90 degree and 100 degree pool. It was almost too hot at night, and definitely would not have been refreshing during the summer heat of the day. Which was unfortunate, because we all really wanted to go down their enormous slide. I personally don't recommend the food or drinks there--my "blended strawberry margarita" was more of a blended strawberry flavored milky icee that did not seem to be margarita-esque at all.

Sunday, we continued on to Yellowstone. It was quite the drive, and we ended up getting stuck in a queue of cars waiting for a herd of buffalo to decide if they wanted to cross the road. We were all pretty impressed with the park, and I think my favorite areas were the sulfur pits.

Yellowstone sulfur pits and a lone bison.

The trip across I-90 to South Dakota to see my parents went well, despite the enormous suicidal deer in Bighorn National Park Sunday night, and the torrential rain and hail that we followed from Sundance, WY into the Black Hills. Our week was very very busy--McBoyfriend pointed out that it wasn't very relaxing because we always had things to do. BUT the things we had to do included grilling and swimming at a friend's house, floating around Pactola Lake on a pontoon boat [boyfriend received a nice sunburn], playing Deadwood's first night of roulette, and seeing the sites.

Floating around the very flooded Pactola Lake.

The view of a creepy door from our Deadwood, SD hotel room.

Visiting the Homestake Mine in Lead, SD.

Mt Rushmore with my mom and McBoyfriend. Lower right is the creepiest mannequin, found in the Crazy Horse museum.

It was nice going home to see my parents, and I am glad they're finally getting loads of rain, despite the drought on the West Coast. While we did not get to see everything on our list [don't worry, we made it to Taco John's twice], we had a great time and McBoyfriend already wants to go back again.

Blogging the depths of the abyss,
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