Asymptomatic

There must be intelligent life down here

Excelsior Day 9
June 30, 2024
excelsior Riley vacation

On Sunday morning, we woke up in our tents in Yellowstone with everyone camping around us packing up to get out for the weekend. We packed up all of our stuff and headed to the Grand Prismatic Spring to try one more time to get a closer look at this thing. We parked in the lot on the ground level near the Prismatic Spring and walked up the boardwalk to where the spring was. It was worth the stop.

There was a hot spring there named Excelsior, which we found — Riley says “steamy.” The Excelsior spring used to be a geyser all by itself! Then we wandered over to the Prismatic Spring, which was very colorful, also steamy and warm. You could tell the water was warm with all the bubbling and the temperature of the water vapor coming off of the pool of water.

Excelsior Day 8
June 29, 2024
excelsior Riley vacation

We started out the day in Lander, Wyoming, had breakfast at the hotel, and headed north toward Yellowstone. We drove some ways and stopped in Dubois, which is spelled like “do-bwah” but is actually pronounced “dew boys”, as we discovered when we went to the Jackalope gift shop where they had stickers that told you how to pronounce the name of the town. There was a jackalope outside the store, and I rode it. Riley refused on the basis that someone would take his photo and put it on social media, I’m sure.

While we were in Dubois, we stopped for lunch. We got some barbecue at a place called Two Z’s Barbecue, which was super, super good. We stuffed ourselves with way too many ribs and made ourselves feel bad, but didn’t feel bad having done so. We rolled ourselves into the car and got the car rolling again, this time heading farther north towards Yellowstone.

Excelsior Day 7
June 28, 2024
Riley vacation excelsior

We woke up in Gillette, Wyoming, in our hotel. We had breakfast, and then we set out for Casper, Wyoming. In Casper, we stopped at the National Historic Trails Museum, an unexpected stop. Still, there were interesting tidbits about some of the major trails that came across the United States in history, including the Pony Express, the Oregon Trail, and the Mormon Trail. It had a good exhibit, showing details about how they got across the country in wagons and supplied themselves during a year’s worth of travel without extant trails. I was surprised and impressed at the quality of the museum.

From there, we decided to grab some lunch. We went to a place in Casper called the Bluebird Cafe, one of the best lunch spots I think we had on our trip. We ate a BLT and a club sandwich. Our server was telling us about places to see if we would go to Lander, which was later on our agenda for the day. She gave us a tip, which turned out to be pretty good.

Excelsior Day 6
June 27, 2024
excelsior Riley vacation

So, on Thursday, June 27th, we woke up in our tents in the Badlands to a bright and sunny day. We packed up our stuff and made our hike back to the car. We did not try to use the GPS to find the car and ended up navigating the dunes a little bit just by feel. The walk seemed a little longer going back than it did going out, just because the dunes where we expected the car to be were different from where it actually was. But we eventually found the car, loaded all our stuff in, and headed off to our first next destination, which was Wall Drug, in the city of Wall.

Wall Drug is well known for being advertised the entire way across South Dakota. There were billboards practically every five feet telling you to go to Wall Drug, and for the most part, they were all distinct, saying different things. One of the major themes of the billboards was that you could get a cup of coffee for just five cents, and the ice water was free! We arrived pretty early, so some of the attractions in the store were not open, but we got to peek inside through the windows of some of them.

Excelsior Day 5
June 26, 2024
excelsior Riley vacation

So, Wednesday morning, we woke up in Palisades State Park nice and chill inside our air-conditioned cabin, which was lovely. We gathered up our stuff and headed out for our day to come. Our first stop on a long driving day was the Corn Palace, a large building decorated with corn. Apparently, they’ve been doing this every year since the 1800s. The outside is covered in different corn, and they come up with a new theme every year. An artist puts together new corn designs each year, and they mark it up with a grid to put all the corn in the right place. It’s like one of those old drawing tests from a magazine, but with corn.

Inside the Corn Palace is a big basketball court with seating where people can watch the basketball game. There’s a stage beyond the court. I assume they put on shows there every so often, considering the history posted on the outside shows different acts over the years, including some famous people from the past that I had never heard of before. They had a bunch of interesting stuff for purchase in the Corn Palace on the basketball court—different shirts, slogans, and souvenirs.