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So yesterday's plan was to leave the hotel in Buffalo, Wyoming at 6am, which would put us to Yellowstone by 10am, out by noon, and to Salt Lake City by 10pm.  I should have known when I got up at 5:45 that none of those plans would come true.

First off, like I said, I didn't wake up until quarter of 6, which meant we didn't actually leave Buffalo until about 6:30-6:45.  The road to Yellowstone was absolutely beautiful.  We took route 14 west which took us completely through the mountains.  We saw a bunch of wildlife which was beautiful, but the most beautiful part was really just looking down off the winding road through the mountains.  It was absolutely breathtaking - and only partly because we knew one false move and the car would plumet down the mountain and I wouldn't be posting this... anyway... at one point we turn a corner and DJ yells "stop the car!!! stop stop stop!!!"  So I did, he grabs the camera, and after a brief argument he gets out of the car to take a picture of the TWO MOOSE off to the side of the road!  They were really close and just beautiful!  After a minute or so of us being up there by ourselves, another car drives by and stops about a hundred yards past us once they see that we're looking at freaking MOOSE!  I look back at DJ who is (fortunately) only about ten feet from the car, and the moose closest to him is clearly starting to get agitated by his presence.  Then I look back and see that the Jeep that stopped way in front of us was now backing up and parallel to our car.  It was clearly the car that was irritating the moose (plus it was just a really stupid move on that guy's part).  Anyway, by the time the car was parallel to ours, the moose (mooses? meese?) started to cross the road to climb the mountain, it probably passed within about 30 feet of the back of the car, and we got some beautiful photos.

Anyway, between there and Yellowstone there was pretty much nothing.  The first town that actually had anything to talk about was Cody, Wyoming, which was, shockingly, a 2 Pizza Hut town!  Anyway, we drive through Cody and figure it should be about another 45 minutes to the East Entrance to Yellowstone.  To make this story shorter, there was a fire at the East Entrance, so we drove all the way there, through the smoke (which should have been our clue that it was closed), found out that it was officially closed, and had to turn back.  So we were booking it back to Cody where we could drive around and find the route to the Northeast Entrance.  We get just out of the mountains and back to civilization, when I look in my rear view mirror and see the thing that we have been dreading all week... that's right... I was speeding.  I admit I have a problem.  Does that mean I'm halfway to recovery?  Anyway, I pulled into a parking lot, into a spot, and turned off the car.  The cop didn't pull into a spot next to me, but kind of diagonally behind me, and then walked up to the car and stood behind the door so I had to strain to turn around.  I handed over my licence and registration and he says that he got me *on radar* (his emphasis, not mine) going 60 in a 45, and then in a 35, and did I know that was the speed limit.  I said, very politely, that I didn't realize the speed limit had changed, and his condescending response was "Do you know why you didn't see that it changed? Because you were talking on your cell phone."  I responded that I truly was not on my cell phone (which is true - we didn't even get a signal out there).  So he asked why I was going so fast, and I just said that we were trying to get to Yellowstone, and went to the closed entrance, so since we were on a relatively tight schedule we were trying to go around to the Northeast Entrance.  He said he'd look at my info and for us to wait in the car.  While he was at his car, DJ and I talked about what was going to happen... it was certain that I was going to get a ticket - especially with the out-of-state license.  The cop came back to the car, handed me back my license and registration and said that he was going to let me off with a warning!  He said he understood how frustrating it is trying to get to Yellowstone when one of the gates is closed, suggested that we figure out how to get to the next entrance, and let us on our way!

So we grabbed some lunch and figured out our route and we were back on our way.  Sadly, I don't have much to say about Yellowstone.  We saw some more bison up close, and a huge herd about 500 yards away, we saw a deer, and a small group of elk, and we saw a small hot spring.  But since it had taken us close to 8 hours to get into the park, once we were there we were really kind of tired of nature, and driving, and just wanted to get on our way to Salt Lake City.  Again, I got some good pics of the park, and I'm sure I'll appreciate it much more when I'm not so tired of trees and hills and nature.

Finally we got on our way to Salt Lake City - drove through Montana for a bit, then through Idaho, then into Utah.  In Idaho we hit a really random but very ferocious storm - one where we saw the beginning before it began and then a few minutes later saw the end before it ended.  We could see the storm clouds wayyy off in the distance, and once we got through them it was just blue skies as far as the eye could see.

Today we're going to see the Tabernacle church and the salt flats of Salt Lake City, and then head off to San Francisco where we're staying with my old roommate Rachel who lives near Golden Gate Park.

One thing that we've noticed so far on this trip is that AAA seems to have wayyy overestimated the drive times between cities.  From Yellowstone to SLC, AAA said it would be about 8 hours, but we took a slightly different route and we were here in about 5.  I swear we weren't even going that fast.  So AAA says that it will be about 13 hours to San Fran, but Google maps says it will take about 10, so we're estimating that it will take about 11.  We shall see.

Next post will be pictures, so I hope you enjoy them!
Talk to you from San Francisco!!!