Minneapolis sculpture park, minnesota
We're afraid this blog post isn't about food, but we thought you guys might like to see some lovely photos of where we've been camping for a week ? No? Well you're gonna hear about it anyway.
Badlands national park, South dakota
We are coming up to our next foodie destination but we've had a little break ( not from food, although some of the things we've concocted, having had no cooking device are laughable!) to get in some camping and to see America's beautiful national parks.
Badlands national park, South Dakota
We decided to drive 800 miles across South Dakota and Wyoming, as there was no bus, we were unaware of the fact it is about a 2 road journey of nothing but open plains. (should've guessed from the fact that these states are called 'the great plains.')I thought my eyeballs were going to explode from the stress of looking at nothing for 12 hours straight! They didn't thankfully and we made it to camp just outside grand Teton national park, not without first having to embarrassingly ask a stranger at the gas station, what fuel our car took. Nowhere did it say and my English SIM card doesn't work to ring the company. The man was very kind and proceeded to tell us how he would love to visit Australia with his wife some day (we didn't feel the need to correct him on the accents.)
Camp set up, Grand Teton national park, Wyoming
Eating posed a problem in the parks but we decided to turn it into a game, 'what can we make from absolutely nothing?' I think the best dinner experiment included a tin of beans, (cold) some cream cheese, (warm) and a tin of corn (at least it had a ring pull.) As we had no light after the sun went down, our evening entertainment consisted of playing top trumps, using the daily guideline amounts on the back of chocolate bars....the 4 bar, peanut butter twix won.
Grand Teton is an amazing park and we thoroughly enjoyed hiking, although we managed to pick a trail with no one around for 4 hours and were yelling at each other the whole time, (to make noise to keep the bears away' not because the company was bad.)
Homemade granola for breakfast
Grand Teton national park, Wyoming
Grand Teton national park
We drove on to Yellowstone and were awed by the scenery that seems to change every 5 miles. Basically the whole park is a ticking time bomb waiting to explode as a super volcano, so naturally the campsite next to numerous, smoking geysers was the safest choice.
We were lucky enough that night, to be able to watch a meteor shower, lying at the entrance of our tent, you could see the Milky Way and it was one of the most magical things I've ever witnessed.
The next day however, a mahoosive thunder storm rolled in, covering the entire sky, Steve proclaimed that he would not be hiking in the current weather, I tried to convince him that as our shoes had rubber soles we would be fine but he provided better reasoning, explaining that if a tree were to get hit by lightning and fall, the rubber shoes may not save us.....the storm carried on into the evening and the lightning was pretty terrifying, we sat in our car for 'dinner' and watched the tent hang on for dear life.
Yellowstone national park, Wyoming
Yellowstone national park
Calm after the storm, Yellowstone national park
Lightning obviously, Yellowstone national park
Our final stop at Glacier national park, didn't start off great, as we picked up our rental car, we watched as 20 firefighters entered the airport arrivals and overheard a woman get told that 'the park is on fire'...I mean, on the bus down to Missoula, the driver had mentioned that there was 'a lot of smoke today', but we naively thought that the heat had caused a larger than average dust cloud......well I feel stupid.
Turns out that there are 3 fires ravaging the park but we thought we'd go see if we could get in anyway, (sorry mum but it's all ok, were fine.) The park is open but in a bit of a smokey cloud which is a shame as it is stunning, apart from a sore thought and not being able to see much blue sky it's fine!
Bear encounter
We had our first bear encounter today! Luckily we were in the car as we were within 5 feet of it but it was scary all the same, it ran right along the road towards us and briefly glared a bit, before running back off into the forest.
Glacier national park
We have thoroughly enjoyed this camping experience but having spent our last hike today, reciting every food item that we have ever eaten, our bellies rumble and we are definitely ready to get to the next city and eat some proper food!
see ya later G & S xxx