Nikki and Brendan Hike

Final day.  One last mini adventure before heading home.  Felt weird stopping for the day when we are maybe 90 minutes from home but we wanted to spend time with friends and not feel rushed. We went to Aullwood Audubon in the morning to see the giant trolls!  Brendan has not seen them yet.  And one last hike to boot! So cool. We were both getting really done with being on the road. One last push home! Made it back safely to one really confused and anxious kitty.   Got stuff mostly unpacked, laundry done and showered.  Looking forward to our own bed tonight.  All in all an amazing trip.  We're very glad we went!  Give me a week and I'll be ready to go again, lol. Miles driven: 5034 Miles hiked: 31 State count: 12

Had a great night with friends last night.  Today heading to Dayton to visit more friends! It was only a 6hour drive but we've had so many longer drives recently it felt so long.  I think we're both about done with driving.  Thankfully tomorrow is maybe 2 hours of driving and we are home. Dinner with friends and i had a meeting.   Games and bed. A great day seeing friends.  ❤️❤️ Miles driven: 4928 Miles hiked: 28 State count: 12

On the road again 🎵🎶 Nice short 3.5 hour drive to St. Louis today.  Going to stay with some friends and visit the STL crew.  Quite a few of Brendan's college chums live out there.  And one of my most favorite places; The City Museum!   If you're unfamiliar, keep reading.  It's not what you think and you'll see why it's one of my most favorite places. I know our trip is winding down and we'll likely be home in a couple of days and we both have mixed feelings.  Sad to go back to "real life" (even though I've been working this entire time) but will be nice to have a while house.  And I sure miss my little man.  Amazing day.  City Museum and dinner/drinks with old friends.  So City Museum...I didnt even take mamy photos because i immediately turn into a 6 year old when we get there.  Like we pay for tickets and I giggle and run off while Brendan has to run after me.  Here's the website but it's still not the best representat...

It's Brendan's birthday!!!  Happy birthday my love! More driving today.  We came within just a couple miles of Colorado.  We could literally SEE it. So close to adding yet another state to this trip.  Anyway if you've never been to Nebraska, here ya go: Now you've seen it. We drove along 80 looking at mostly that but eventually pulled off the interstate, fueled up and drove down some very desolate roads through cornfields with a specific goal:  The Geographic center of the US!  Cute little area set up for it too! complete with a TINY little chapel. Just past this was another goal for us: Lebanon Kansas.  We're HUGE fans of the show Supernatural and this town plays a pretty pivotal role in the series.   The town itself seemed....empty.  Like we literally did not see a single soul in the entire town.  It was honestly a little eerie.  And HOT.   Then just a little further down the road was......*drum roll*...

Another mostly travel day.  But we should get another new state in!  Goal today is really just drive until we're tired.  So I'm not sure where we will end up Driving back eastward the wind is much less obnoxious.  And we're more used to the higher speed limits finally.  A lot more of this today: Which is beautiful in its own way.  We're going back the same way we came in for the first part of the day.  But once in Wyoming we'll go further south before turning eastward. We went alongside Bighorn National Forest for quite awhile  We stopped in Casper for lunch at Sanford's Grub and Pub.  Recommended on Roadside America. Big place full of....stuff.   Pretty cute.  Unfortunately the menu was not anything I had interest in.   We made a brief stop in Cheyenne for a potty break and to get a photo of a sign for Brendan's sister, Cheyenne.  Continued on into Nebraska which is pre...

Today we start the long drive home.  Goal today: Billings, again.  Reserved an Airbnb for the night.  It's only a 6 hour drive (thru anxiety inducing nothingness the entire trip) so we can have time tonight for me to get work done and get a solid plan for the rest of the trip back.  We'd definitely like to make a stop in St. Louis to see some friends.  Overall and (thankfully) uneventful trip. We waved goodbye to the beautiful mountains.   We listened to podcasts and chatted.  I'm deeply curious why there aren't more wind or solar farms out here.  If there is 2 things Montana has an endless supply of it's sun and wind.  🤷‍♀️ We got to our airbnb and I just worked for like 3 hours straight. We ordered a pizza and watched TV for the first time in 2 weeks.  Not the most exciting day but we found some cool Roadside attractions to aim for in the coming days.  (I need something to not get depressed about leaving the moun...

Up at 5 to get in the park.  Weather finally turned last night.  About 20 minutes after we went to bed it started raining and the temps dropped.  Woke up to lower 50s but all snug and warm in our tent.  It was a struggle to get out in the cold and get moving.  Felt like The Long Trail and I LOVE it! It was FOGGY.  Probably the densest fog over seen.  Glad we were driving on a cliff.  💀  but we pressed on and miraculously got one of the LAST parking spots at Logan Pass.  This is seriously unheard of.   We got out and made coffee and hung out in the car waiting for the fog to lift.  I mean check out these views!   that's worth the 10 days and 2700 miles right there!  (Lol)  joking.  It gets better. We did a magnificent hike! About 5 miles round trip with something like 1800 feet of climbing overall.  It was rough but not impossible.  And so worth it.  ...

Another night of little to no sleep.  Up at midnight when we heard these air raid style sirens for no reason we could figure. Then again at 3am to try to get a glimpse of the Perseids meteor shower.  Moon was too bright.  And lastly at 5 to get into Glacier park in hopes of a walk up permit for backpacking.  We waited a bit and decided to just go in to the park and enjoy it and skip backpacking. It was still dark as we got going down the road.  The views were absolutely amazing.  The drive though was equally scary and annoying.  The park is horrendously overcrowded.  And this was at 6am.  We didn't get to see much of anything.  We finally got a place to park near the other end of the park and were able to get in a nice 6 mile hike to 3 different waterfalls.  The photos can't do or justice.  We kept saying the whole thing looks fake because it's so gorgeous.  And we only saw the less exciting parts! We were exhausted and de...

Up early and on the road.  Another long drove today.  Final push and we'll be at Glacier!  Hotel was great choice.  We both slept so well.  Much needed. We had 2 choices for our route today.  One was faster but one looked to be more scenic and only 20 minutes longer so we chose the latter.  Started out with a lot of this: We were both feeling a bit less anxious and enjoying finding little houses tucked into coves in the middle of nowhere and trying to surmise who lives there. Thankfully not too much longer the scenery changed.  Slightly more mountainy and more trees and small creeks/rivers. We buzzed thru a few really cute small towns with old buildings.  Crossed thru Helena.  My dad had a client in Helena for many years and flew out here once or twice a month for quite some time. So I had to check out the B&B where he used to stay! It was just off of our route so not a problem to take a little peek. What a cute little pl...

We had a really lovely evening last night with 2 other families staying at the same camp.  (Hi Karen and Kelly!)  Their kids were super cute and played late into the evening while the adults enjoyed some time by the fire. Woke up with the roosters from the farm next door (maybe a little too early for my taste) and got packed up and on the road.  Plan for today; drive by Devils Tower and on up to Billings MT.  We've decided to scrap the Tetons and just go right to Glacier. Every place we've left so far I've had about 10 more things I wanted to see.  So I guess we'll have to come back to all of this!  We drove out of South Dakota and into Wyoming and the terrain changed yet again.  White rocky mountains turned to red crested buttes and pine covered mountains, which eventually flattened out to miles and miles of open pastures.  The small detour to see Devils Tower did not disappoint!  More driving through endl...

After much deliberation last night we decided to stay put for another day. Our accommodations are so lovely and we really wanted an opportunity to explore this area.  So we booked a second night and looked around for some great hikes to do. We settled on one that seemed to be highly rated and has great views. It was a 7.7 Mi Trail so it's a bit of a stretch for where we are currently with our abilities. Or inabilities maybe. We both had a rough couple of years. The trail did not disappoint but it ended up being more like 9 miles, and they were all very very brutal miles. Got some rain on the back half and a little too much sun on the front half. But oh my God was all of this worth it. I'll just share some photos for you and leave it at that. Miles driven: didn't check.  Too tired. Miles hiked: 17 State Count: 7