What a great vacation! We drove a little over 4,700 miles to visit Yellowstone National Park and Mt Rushmore National Memorial. If you EVER get the chance to go, take it!

Four Thousand Seven HUNDRED miles? Yes, we spent just under $800 in fuel but considering that I had 5 people to transport and the cheapest airline tickets I could find were $600 each and I would still have to rent a car and drive another 1,200 miles or so, it was much cheaper to drive than fly.

My wife prepared all sorts of activities for the kids and we really enjoyed our 12 days together!

We went whitewater rafting down the Gallatin River using Montana Whitewater

And we also went horseback riding in the Montana wilderness. It was spectacular!

We spent a LOT of time in Yellowstone and we saw more beauty than I ever imagined.

The views were spectacular. Words cannot express and pictures just cannot capture the sheer beauty and majesty of Yellowstone National Park.

We also saw a great deal of wildlife. Though we didn’t capture everything we saw on the camera, we saw black bears, grizzly bear, pronghorn antelope, mule deer, whitetail deer, eagles, osprey, buffalo, bull and cow elk, ground squirrels, and yellow bellied marmots. We tried to find wolves and moose but we will have to give that a shot next time…yes, we ARE going back!

Did you know there are more thermal features in the Yellowstone caldera than in the rest of the entire world combined?

Finally, we spent the Fourth of July in Rapid City, South Dakota and were able to see Mount Rushmore and the city of Deadwood. Deadwood was an old cowboy town and it is mostly famous as the place where Wild Bill Hickok met his untimely death by being shot from behind.

The kids panned for gold with Johnny One Feather ^[2]!

Then we went on to Deadwood.

All in all it was the most wonderful vacation we have ever taken as a family. We are already planning to return!

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