Thursday, December 11, 2008

Thanks giving trip Third Day..

We were little bit tired since we had a long travel on second day but still we were exited to see the Yellow stone national park. We started little bit early since we had heavy schedule planned on that day and needs to travel more than day 2. There are two entrance to the park, the one from the east side of the park and don’t think that it’s just a park for few acres of land it’s almost 5 to 10% (May be in 1000s of acres) of Wyoming state and we were just 70 miles away from the west entrance. We get into the highway and there was message on the road which we used see in all roads we have been travelling. It says “Road closed when flashing” with two yellow light above that and unfortunately the lights were flashing which we didn’t see on those past two days. Everybody has started suggesting their own idea and finally everyone said the same answer “I am ok for anything” but nobody has suggested that “anything”. By that time we have drove almost 10 miles which is going to be closed soon and we saw one big lake that’s what I said but actually it was a Dam, we stopped to take few photos. Damn it was very cold and we just enquired one person (Seems like an army officer) who was sitting in his car and waiting for someone. He said that the road is closed and asked us to return to Cody (from where we started) and enquire in Visitor center. What to do let’s return and go and catch the Visitor center and get some idea how to enter into the national park. “Turn left and you have reached your destination” says our GPS. We were running towards the door, OMG it’s closed !!!!!! Already an hour has gone and we don’t know how to go there and thought of driving to Rapid City (RC) which is 400 miles away and the place where we supposed reach late in the night. In the previous night when we entered into the city we thought it is a big city but we couldn’t find anyone to ask about the alternate route. Thank god there was a Gas station and seems to there is one person inside it and we asked him the alternate route for the park. He said the northeast entrance is always open and we can enter into the park and inside the park most of the roads were closed. We taught ok why can’t we just drive till afternoon and return to Rapid City from there. The route which we are going now is in the opposite direction to RC. So we had to make the travel as less as possible but there was no way for that. The north entrance is 150 miles away from Cody. Ok lets drive don’t waste time says our Guider/Driver. After we reach the entrance we realized that we didn’t miss anything and we had chance to see lot’s good place from there. Yes it was beauty.. see the photo’s..

Now we are in the entrance and never thought of returning back and decided to travel in the same direction since the place was awesome and the road was fully filled with snow. We decided to go till the Cooke City (has only a few 10’s of home and it’s a city) which is in the center of park. We had to fill our Gas and we had only one Gas station in that city and luckily it was open. We were very happy since we say lot’s Snow mobiles standing outside those few houses and when we saw the board “Snow mobile will available for rent” we were almost into the peak of our happiness. Again our bad luck unfortunately the snow mobiles are not available since the snow was very less and they said 10 feet of snow is needed for that. But for us seeing those few feats of snow itself a huge thing. The Gas keeper suggested that if we still drive on the same road we can see lot’s wild animals and the drive will be so nice. As she said it was wonderful we could see lot’s animals and we have crossed one more state and entered into Montana state area. And we were seeing the travel guide, except one place everything was closed and it’s Mamood hot springs. After 3 hours drive unfortunately the place was not as good as we expected. But the whole drive was awesome and it’s evening we are behind the schedule by 4 hours. We need to drive back to RC and when we checked in GPS its 550 miles, ooo god the expected reach time is 1.30 Am. All the fun that we had in the day time has gone after seeing 7 hours of drive in GPS display. What to do no other go, we had to go yo RC and we drove. When 3 hours of drive is being left I took over the driver’s responsibility and what a bad time it was, it started snowing for an hour. Though the snow looks good the driving was really tough. I had to be very careful and my Co-driver was giving me lot’s tips while driving. Finally we reached the hotel one hour ahead of time that GPS shows.. Tomorrow it’s going to be about Mount Rushmore.. So stay tuned..

I am sorry if I had put lots of mokai on this…