On The Road Again

July 18, 2012: We left Seattle Sunday and have been heading East (ish) since. The first day we drove to Spokane, WA and took a very long break. They have a fantastic riverfront park that was built for the worlds fair. The kids played on a giant radio flyer wagon turned into a slide, they rode the carousel, played in fountains, and we took a gondola ride out over a waterfall. Afterwards we took them to Franks Diner to eat in an old railcar from the 1920s. It was beautiful inside, so neat, and we all had delicious breakfast for dinner. We put the kids into pjs after and drove a few more hours to Missoula, MT. We thought of camping but it is still bear country and I've had enough of that. We found a great, and cheap, motel and crashed for the night. Monday we went to an awesome playground and another carousel in Missoula before we drove to Billings to stay with Pat and Charlie again. We had another wonderful stay with them and were able to swap stories about our travels as they just returned home from Germany. Tuesday morning we drove south. We spent a few hours at the Little Bighorn battlefield, also known as custer's last Stand. It was beautiful there and interesting to us to learn about the battle and envision it taking place on that spot. After we continued south into Wyoming. We got to Kaycee Wyoming and set out on one of our favorite adventures of the trip. We wanted to explore the hideouts of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid and the Hole in The Wall Gang. There was very little information and even less signage to get where we wanted to go. We got some information and set out on the back roads. The road quickly turned to a dirt road and the scenery was amazing. There were gorgeous red cliffs rising up like in the grand canyon. At one point there was a sign saying not to go further without 4wd but we tried it out and we're happy we did. The road was really rocky and uneven and we had to take it very slowly. At the end we came to a campground called Outlaw Cave Campground. It was on the plateau of an amazing gorge. We parked the car and hiked down the path to find their hideout cave. The kids did an awesome job hiking. We were scared of rattlesnakes some took it very slowly. We never actually found their cave but went down to the river and played around. James went exploring to try and find it and found some other caves and even saw an owl in one. We missed a turn off half way down the gorge that led way over to the real cave. It was getting too late to get to it when we hiked back up. It was fun and cool to be exploring all around where they did. We set up camp, there was only one other group there and it has to be the most beautiful campsite around. We took the kids walking around in the dark which they loved. The sky was filled with stars and we all lay together looking up through the tent. It all started out great until it got windy. Then James and I got no sleep. The wind was so strong I was certain the tent was going to blow down. The kids slept through it all of course. James and I were up early and we hit the road just before 7. We saw tons of wildlife; deer, pronghorns, vultures, turkeys, rabbits. It was another hairy drive back down that road but we made it unscathed. Now we're heading south to boulder.