Before I continue with my current adventures, Nate, Sean, and I have been visually recording our adventure on Instagram! If you want in to see the trip, we've been tagging everything with the #wyomingorbust hashtag. Check it out!
 |
| 540 Miles of Pure Fields and Highway to Blue Mounds! |
Anyways, back to the journey: The Western Adventurers woke up mad early to shower, breakfast, and pack up from Nate's Uncle Nacho and Aunt Ria. We were out and about to put some gas and miles on the cars at 6:45am CST.
 |
| Gorgeous views of the sunrise leaving Joliet |
Around 8:38am we crossed the Illinois borders into Wisconsin. We passed so many windmill farms along the way.
 |
| Wind Power - it's the new green! |
 |
| Geology...it's getting better as you go west! |
10:00am brought a pit stop and gas fill up and then an hour and a half later we entered the city of La Crosse, Wisconsin.
 |
| The city where we ate lunch and saw Grandad's Bluff |
Aunt Ria suggested this area for a lunch and rest area. There was a really cool bluff that we could drive up to that had a great view! Had lunch in town then made our way to Grandad's Bluff at 12:45pm CST.
 |
| You could see it from town! |
 |
| Great views! |
 |
| Summit Posing our way west! |
 |
| WHATTTT!?!?! |
 |
| I need to learn western & central plants...womp. |
After getting a great view of the Mississippi River and the La Crosse floodplain, we went back on the road.
 |
| Mississippi River! |
 |
| More Windmills! |
 |
| The only thing that was keeping us from going insane! |
Nate discovered a little treat along our way. So
at 3:45pm, we pulled off I-90 and into Blue Earth, MN. Off the highway awaited a Jolly Green Friend, the Green Giant Statue! It was hilarious!
 |
| Visiting our Jolly, Green Friend! |
 |
| There are no words for the moments we had! |
For the next two hours (5:30pm CST) we pounded through and finally came upon our destination for day 3: Blue Mound State Park. This was a really pretty place to car camp for the night.
 |
| Chert at Blue Mounds! |
We picked out a nice grassy site and while the boys did a quick run around the park roads, I took a stroll to drop off the camp registration and look at the new flora and fauna on the site. So many things I didn't recognize, made me feel pretty in knowledgeable but it was still pretty cool to see new things. Also we saw some really cool geology and potential bouldering areas. Nate claimed that this magenta, purple rock was chert. It's texture was so smooth and the crystallization was really cool to see too! Totally wish we made some time and try it out. Oh well!
When we all got back to the site, we grabbed our swim suits and headed to the lake on site. As we were walking we saw a herd of bison grazing in the summer field! I got so excited! We were definitely going to have to stop there before heading back to camp.
The lake we swam in was so nice; after a whole 7-8 hours of driving it was a nice way to cool off. It was pretty amusing that the area they roped off for swimming was only about 2-3 feet in depth!
 |
| Swimming in knee high waters! |
 |
| Totally went all the way under! |
Next stop: the BISON! Oh my gosh, my highlight of the day! It was so amazing to see these things in person. However, they were pretty far away from the viewing stand. We had to look through the lookout telescope thing to see them.
I totally used it with my phone to take photos! There were huge profound males with those broad shoulders, big heads, and horns, and then there were a few babies all prancing around their mothers. I literally fell in love!
 |
| Heart Started to Explode! |
 |
| Buffalo in the Summer Grazing Field! |
After my heart just exploding, we headed back to camp, got the fire going, watched the sunset, ate pita pizzas over the fire, then sleep. We were soooo exhausted, I literally passed out as soon as I hit my pad!
 |
| Poor Little Guy - He had no eyes! But seemed to be doing well for himself! |
Wednesday's Agenda will include heading to the Badlands National Park! Get ready for the first legit GEO-ness portion of the trip!
Xoxo,
TheChristyBel
 |
| Prairie-Living for the Night! |
No comments:
Post a Comment