Day 4 - Island Park, ID to Keystone, SD

So, we packed the night before and consolidated into just a couple bags to bring into our "road" overnights for the next couple of nights. Good thing. As it was, we didn't hit the road until 9:25am this morning. We spent some time taking some last pictures around the lodge.

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We really enjoyed our time at A River Runs By It Lodge. Tom and Judy are fantastic hosts. I'd recommend it to anyone looking to stay in the Yellowstone area.

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Day 4 - mile 933
9:25am

On the road, on Tom's advice, we travel up to I-90 in Montana via US-287 and Ennis. According to Tom, the road is straighter and has less traffic than some of the alternates. Taking the road through Cody to head East would have meant 2-3 more hours in the park driving 45 mph so we ruled that out, too. Our trip up through Ennis was very scenic. Much of the route followewd the Madison River through the Madison Valley. We began to understand why people liked to come here and called it "God's Country".

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Day 4 - mile 960
10:10am

Stopped at a rest stop along US-287. There was a funny poster about the seat belt law in Montana.

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After we got going again, we passed some honest-to-goodness cowboys herding cows along the shoulder.


Day 4 - mile 1050
11:50am

We stopped at an Applebees in Bozeman. It was a nice Applebees. Elodie had a cute moment feeding her pink tiger some chicken strips.



Along the way to Bozeman, Laura and the kids got into some serious video game playing. It was pretty funny with Katie coaching Laura.

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I was laughing my head off while I was driving.

Day 4 - mile 1182
2:48pm

After leaving Bozeman at 12:45 we head towards Billings. Along the way, we saw some nice wide open rangeland

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When we got to Billings, we stopped for gas. Katie had some fun with Laura, pointing out where the bugs were on the windshield and making her work harder to clean off the imaginary ones.

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We stopped at a Holiday station and I went into the Holiday Pantry (which is what they call the food mart at the station). I was impressed with the beer marketing. They had a full walk-in for customers to use called the "Beer Cave".

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It was a temple to cold beer. Totally awesome.


Day 4 - mile 1348
6:00pm

Pulled into Buffalo, Wyoming for dinner. Ate at the Bozeman Steakhouse in the "Buffalo Room". The place was a trip. The inside walls were lined with mounted game. In the parking lot, we witmessed the delivery of the newest trophy, a mounted moose head.

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Charlie tested The Amazing Weather Rock which is located in front of the restaurant.

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Back on the road after dinner at 7:26pm.

Day 4 - mile 1568
11:25pm

After a long day of driving and 635 miles, we arrived at our hotel in Keystone, South Dakota. The road after dinner was long, boring and dark for the most part. It was a harsh country. There was a big coal mine outside Gilette. The winters along this stretch of highway must be severe. Every so often, there were these big gates they used to close the highway. It must be a common occurrence.

Anyway, we're all very tired. Laura and I are feeling like geniuses for getting us down to a couple bags to bring in.