Day 57 > 68 - Legendary
DATE: Sunday May 1st
TIME: 7:23pm EST
LOCATION: Independence OH
Im done being behind. Im getting current. This is going to be a really long one, so grab a snack.
So we arrived on day 56 in Montana at Howler’s Inn. For those who haven’t heard me raving about this place, it is a bed and breakfast on a wolf refuge. They have 4 wolves there named Koa, Shasta, Kiowa and Tahoe. When we arrived at the B&B, the owners weren’t actually home, but there was another family there. They were incredibly nice and showed us around the place. It didn’t take long for the wolves to catch onto us being there. After we pulled up the leader of the pack Koa and the youngest Kiowa ran up to the edge of the fenced area. We went around back and got our first look at the wolves. They were absolutely beautiful. Both Koa and Kiowa were a white/grey color with beautiful orange eyes. Koa was missing his tail, apparently due to a fight with another wolf long ago. After taking in the area and the wolves we went into the guest house where we would be staying
The guest house in Howler’s Inn was the best place I have ever stayed in my life. Full stop. There are two bedrooms in the guest house with a kitchen, bathroom and living room containing a woodburning fireplace. This house is the kind of place I want to live in one day, it is absolutely stunning. There was a guest book on the counter where previous visitor’s talked about their time there. It was really nice to read. The B&B has two other rooms in the main house, and a rec room in the basement. Only being 25min from Bozeman MT and 2 hours from Yellowstone, this place is a no brainer when visiting southern Montana. In the evening we went out to a pizza bar called Bridget Brewing. This pizza took the number 3 slot on my list of best pizza of the trip. When in Bozeman, check it out. Delicious.
Our first day we spent relaxing at the house, taking it in. When we woke up we got to meet the owners of the B&B, both lovely people. We had a relaxing morning watching the wolves and sleeping in. Around 11am we got the opportunity of a lifetime. The feeding trough in Kiowa and Tahoe’s pen was broken and needed a fixing. We were asked to enter the pen and snuggle 1 year old Kiowa into submission so that he could fix things. This was seriously the highlight of the trip for me. Going into this, I was expecting to only be within 3 feet of the fence like the rules said, yet there I was giving belly rubs to a real life wolf. It was amazing. Kiowa really was like a huge puppy. Check the pictures below. Later in the day we even got the opportunity to feed the wolves by tossing raw elk over the fence to them. Koa is a really good catch, Shasta gets spooked by it flying through the air, Kiowa thought we were playing catch, and Tahoe had more fun in that 30 min period than I had seen him have the rest of the trip. Such an amazing day.
Our second day we spent in Yellowstone, but we started with Breakfast in Bozeman. We ate at a place called Main Street Over-easy which was THE BEST breakfast I have had all trip. Those biscuits were superb and the pancakes melted in your mouth. 10/10 would reccomend. Our plans got slightly derailed by a road closure so we had to alter our course from going around the big loop, to driving to the southern end of the park and back. Going into the park was slightly anticlimactic. There wasn’t really much going on and the park was covered in snow. Not what I expected. We had our first break when we saw Buffalo in the distance. At the time we had thought that was the closest we would get to Buffalo. We were wrong. As we continued to drive we ran into more Buffalo multiple times. Twice we drove directly through a herd of buffalo with them walking within touching distance of the car. It was amazing. They are even more beautiful in person than I thought they would be. Below there are a ton of Buffalo pictures.
We eventually made it down to the south of the park just in time for the Old Faithful Geyser to go off. I honestly had forgotten Yellowstone was the place for geysers. It was pretty cool to see it go off, however due to the weather and the snow it was kinda hard to see the water in the air, and it mostly turned to steam when it touched the air. Regardless, still cool. I took the drive back from Yellowstone. Towards the end of the road in Yellowstone on the return trip we got one last surprise wildlife encounter. As we came around a turn, we saw a ton of people on the side of the road with long camera lenses. There was a big steam cloud in the field but not much else apparent, so we slowed down and asked one of the photographers. She pointed across the Valley and there it was. A lone Grizzly Bear. Deniz nearly tuck and rolled out of the car before it stopped. We got out and watched the bear for a solid 30min. It was pretty far away and even the long lens on our DSLR wasn’t close enough to get detailed pictures. It was still really amazing. Probably the best bear encounter I could have asked for as it was totally safe. Deniz was very excited since he loves bears. I think that may end up being the highlight of the trip for him.
Unfortunately, all things pass, and our time at Howler’s Inn ended. We woke up in the morning and said our goodbye to the wolves in their tongue. Ill link the video archive below, it was really special to howl with the pack.
Little did we know, this would be our last time on the road for a while. We had a relatively uneventful trip into the north eastern corner of Wyoming on our way to South Dakota. We stayed in a small town called Hewett which was close to Devil’s Tower. Upon arriving, the lady behind the front desk asked me if I was prepared to be snowed in. This confused me since I hadn’t heard about any weather. She informed me that the area was expecting 20in of snow starting any min. As you might expect, I was shocked. After discussing it with Deniz and my parents, we decided to stay put and alter our schedule. We ended up being stranded in that hotel room for two whole days. There honestly isn’t much to say about that time since I pretty much just played Civilization 6 the entire time. We had a fun walk to the local grocery store and I ate lots of Easy Mac. While it sucked to be stuck, especially because that meant we had to drop Duluth MN from our schedule and I would miss out on meeting my friends there, it was nice to relax for a while. Ill just be visiting them later this year.
After two days, we made it out of Wyoming. We stopped at Devil’s tower and Wind cave on the drive. Devil’s tower was cool, but entirely closed, so we only got to see it at a distance. Wind cave on the other hand was very cool. We got to take a 1 hour cave tour and learned a lot about the cave’s formation. This was my first time being in a cave ever, very very cool. After our tour we took the scenic drive up to Keystone SD where we were staying. That was a beautiful drive and I cannot recommend it enough. Tons of wildlife to see there. When we made it to Keystone we finally got to stop at a restaurant and get some non microwaved food. At long last.
I don’t normally talk about standard hotel rooms, but this place was different. It reminded me a lot of my senior year apartment, in that everything was a little off. The lamps didn’t always work, the layout was very strange. No windows, there was a tiny shelf in the wall deep enough to sit on, the microwave changed its power level on its own when unsupervised and the cherry on top was that the lights randomly turned themselves off. I don’t believe in the paranormal, but even I checked if there were reports of it being haunted. Not a great place lol.
We had two days in South Dakota. Our first was spent at Badlands national park. We briefly stopped at the minute man missile memorial and got stamped there also. Our time in Badlands was spent on the scenic drive and on the Notch Trail. Notch trail was absolutely amazing. It was basically a giant desert with metal stakes marking the trail. Halfway through you need to climb the cliff side on a log ladder. It was a really cool experience and one of my favorite hikes of the trip. The rest of the drive was very beautiful. It was very diverse so its hard to describe, so just take a look at the pictures below.
Our second day was slightly uneventful. We had brief stops at a bunch of places. Those being Mt Rushmore, Crazy Horse and Jewel Cave. Mt Rushmore was much smaller than I had expected so that was a bit anticlimactic, but Crazy Horse was really cool. We watched the movie about its construction and walked the museum. Both were really cool. Once Im home my dad and I are gonna compare pictures to see how progress has been! We then drove out to Jewel Cave, but didn’t actually go down as the only available tour was multiple hours away from when we were there. After Jewel Cave we went back to Rapid City and saw the new Fantastic Beasts: Secrets of Dumbledore movie. I liked it a lot, Deniz slept through it. So take that for what you will.
After leaving South Dakota we had an overnight in some random town in MN that I honestly dont remember the name of. We tried Hardee’s and slept. Thats about it lol. The next day however we picked up and headed towards Chicago!
After a long drive we ended up in Morris IL and got to stay with the Sharp family! I hadn’t seen Mary, Jim and their puppy Eloise in a really long time, and had never gotten to spend time with them one on one. It was really really nice, it felt like a little slice of home to see them. We talked a lot that evening and Jim gave recommendations on our plan for Chicago the next day. Mary got us up around 7am on our Chicago adventure day. Which made me pretty tired, especially since I didnt fall asleep until 3am the night before. I was tired enough that I drank coffee. Which I never to. Regardless, she drove us to the train in Aurora and we made the 9:10 train into the big city.
I had a really good time in Chicago and we got a lot done. We started out with breakfast at Lou Mitchells, which is a hoppin place for good reason. They serve donut holes there and all of the pastry is baked day of. I had some really delicious Pancakes and a Hot Chocolate, definitely in the top 3 breakfasts of the trip. Our second stop was an Architecture Boat tour which ran for around 80 min. It was really nice to get off our feet and watch the city float by. The only two downsides were that it was raining and the person telling us about the city was really hard to hear. But it was nice to just look at the buildings. We took a brief stop at the apple store there because it looked really unique (It was under a huge stair case in a glass box) then walked over to “The Bean”. I had never heard of this Bean but Deniz really wanted to see it. The park it was in was very nice and the bean itself was dope. There was a gender reveal party happening there which we waited for. It was a boy. Congrats to the lucky parents!
After the bean, it was time to try Chicago Deep Dish. Deniz right at the beginning of the trip told me he didn’t like Chicago pizza. After some questioning, it became clear he was talking about Sicilian pizza, not deep dish. He thought it was very bready which is a common misconception about Chicago pizza. We went to Lou Malratis and got our pizza there. I got a standard cheese and Deniz got the classic with onions added. I had only ever had the Chicago deep dish I had made (poorly) so I was so excited for this pizza. I had been waiting all trip, and it did not disappoint. This was the best pizza I had on the trip, and Im not sure that will change in the remaining days. It was buttery, crunchy, not overly cheesy or saucy, just delicious. I am so happy that I finally got to try this incredible style of pizza, now I know how to perfect my own recipe. So amazing.
After pizza time we were pretty stuffed. We briefly tried to get into the Sear’s Tower but tickets were sold out to go to the top. So we ended up just wandering around it for a while, then headed back to the train.
We had a rather uneventful train ride back, and when we got into the car with Mary, there was a new doggy to meet. Jacks! He was a very very small terrier of some kind, couldn’t have been more than a year old, and possessed all of the energy of the sun. He is Mary’s niece’s dog and the entire way to her house he was bouncing off the walls between Deniz and I. It was a lot of fun to play with him. On the way back home we went through a pretty nasty rainstorm, but got to see both ends of a double rainbow which was insanely cool. We got Portillo’s on the way home then went on a small tour of Morris. The evening was spent in conversation and was absolutely lovely. It was nice to get to chat with everybody.
We left around noon from their house and drove here, to Independence Ohio. Tomorrow I get to see my college roommate Jeremy and go see our last National Park. Very exciting days coming up. And with that, Im all caught up! I hope you enjoyed reading this extra long recap. We have less than a week left of the trip now. Which feels crazy to think about. Soon Ill be home again. But until then, see you next time! Ill be getting these next few done on time now that Im caught up. I don’t want to be writing once Im home lol.
Thats all for now, stay safe out there
Signing off
-H
