Home From Yellowstone

I'm home from Yellowstone Park, my feet are up and I am basking, no, wallowing in the comforts of a real house.  After two months in my little cell of a room, this feels like Oprah's place. 

I promised to catch you up on the trip home, so here are the highlights.

Route 90 was my yellow brick road home.

I decided that Mount Rushmore was not worth the side trip....old presidents carved on a mountain sounds enticing, but I'm not paying for the privilege.

We did drive through the Badlands.

Appropriately named, by the way. 







I'm smiling here because it was our first stop to take in the view.

Hubby was smiling too

Then we started seeing these signs everywhere.

If it's not the danger of stepping in boiling hot springs or getting gored by bison, it's snakes.

After fifteen minutes of heat and rocks and utter despair, we started to worry that the Badlands was our Hotel California.

You can check in but your can never check out.

We finally found our way out of the Badlands before the vultures started circling our car.

We saw a lot of this.

And this.

There are ranches out here with miles of nothing around them.

To the women of South Dakota, I will come to rescue you.  I will take you away to places where there are malls and coffee shops.

Send a message by carrier pigeon and I'll be there for you.

I had to take hubby to the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota, cause he just didn't believe it existed.

They change the pictures on the front every year.

They use 12 different colors of corn to accomplish this.

We still have our Christmas lights up and these folks redo the entire front of a building with corn.

I am in awe.

We went inside, where there are corn products, corn snacks, corn earrings, corn mugs....and wowee zowie...I got my picture taken with a walking ear of corn.

I find these mascot creatures rather creepy.  They don't talk and  you don't know if they are male, female, young, old....yes, I don't like clowns or mimes either.

But I touched it and posed.

Yuck.

Lookee at what we found in Blue Earth, Minnesota.

A 60 foot statue of the Jolly Green Giant.

You're starting to see the kind of tourist attractions I like.

The big green guy isn't standing in the middle of the town just because the locals have a thing for tacky statues.

They actually can the Green Giant peas and corn there...my favorite veggies, by the way.

I'm probably skipping over a state or two, but it became a blur after a while.

Probably because we started to see endless miles of corn and grain elevators.

By the way, hubby has certain snacks that he eats on road trips...sunflower seeds, sweet tarts and fried pork skins.

Yes, I said fried pork skins.  If you've never heard of them, they are real and exactly what they say they are.  I won't go into anymore detail.

Finally, at last, Ohio greeted me with open arms.

There was even an arch for me.  Sweet, huh?

We were only home a short time before we took off for an early 4th party which involved shooting lots of guns at a variety of targets.

That's what we do here in Ohio.

Shoot guns, drink beer, scratch, cuss...

Yes, that's me, with a gun in my hand.

Hubby likes it when I shoot with him, but he also gets a little nervous.

This is hubby looking over all of the testosterone toys available to him.

Guns and ammo.  I know how to keep my man happy.

So, enough for now.

I've got my feet up, remember. 

I'm wallowing.  I'm a happy wallowing piggy.

More tomorrow with reflections on my two months in Yellowstone.