September 8, 2006

Day 7.

It's been 6 days and we are not there yet. 'There' being Yellowstone; a place to stop and STAY for a week. I so hate traveling and staying somewhere different every night. Having to pack everything up and rush out every morning. But we have been making stops along the way. I just get so frustrated with being crammed in a van that is over packed and too cluttered and noises bouncing around.  

****Devil's Tower****

Prairie Dog Town.  Awwwww…look at all the cute little prairie dogs! They are so cute and they yelp and bark. Connor tried to catch one, of course.

Wow. That was just so amazing. The boys enjoyed climbing some boulders and then we hiked a trail around the tower. Back down at the information center I remembered to ask for the Jr. Ranger booklet. They actually filled in few pages and the ranger signed their certificates and gave them to me along with their badges. After they complete their booklets I get to give them to the boys.

There is a lot of Native American History out here. It makes me wonder about the Native American History by us. I don't know of much, but I think I'll make an effort to take the boys to a few other places besides the Sunwatch Village we go to.

Connor is just a little Mountain goat on the rocks. He climbs and leaps so quickly and impulsively. Part of me worries with him out there on the large boulders and part of me recognizes it. He acts like I did as a child. I was also impulsive and risk taking in climbing with a lack of concern for safety.

Devil's Tower is called Bear's Lodge by the native Americans, but the name was misinterpreted by Col Dodge as "The Bad God's house" which was changed to Devil's Tower when Roosevelt when it was named as a National Monument.

Then a loooooong drive to The Battle of Little Bighorn. It was closed. So I will have to get some info about it back home. It was on the Crow Indian Reservation.

We about got lost outside of Billings, Montana. Then we had trouble finding a hotel.

I gave the boys a CD of silly, gross and annoying songs. They listened to it on Gavin's CD player. Brian had a 3 way splitter for earphones; peace for an hour!  Silly me, I should have thought of that before we left on our trip and stocked up on stories and silly songs on CD. Actually, I had thought of the DVD player on my laptop, but Brian forgot to install the  driver for the DVD player.  When I did my turn to drive, which only lasted an hour this time, I sang somgs and nursery rhymes with the boys. Then they took turns telling fable type stories.