I actually wrote this post last night, but it took so darn freaking long to upload pictures that I couldn’t get this published until this morning!
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My good intentions of blogging every day on this trip have, obviously, gone down the drain. Between long stints in the car and visiting with family, I just haven’t had the chance. So, now that I have a few minutes–my parents and my Studmuffin are out fishing and my sister-in-law is busy on her own blog–I thought I’d better get caught up.

The last time I wrote, my Studmuffin, LilBro and I had reached Livingston and had been there for 2 days. On Sunday, the third day, we decided to play hooky from the family reunion and headed down to Yellowstone for the day. Originally, my Studmuffin and I were just going to spend Monday (the next day). However, this gave us the chance not only to cut down our Monday driving a bit, but also to spend some more time with LilBro. If you have a map of Yellowstone, you can see that the main roads form roughly a figure eight. On this particular day, we did the upper loop of the eight. We entered at Mammoth, where we saw many doe elks (who, judging by the “mess” they left behind, had been there for a while) before driving down to Norris geyser basin. From Norris, we headed over to the Yellowstone falls, which I had never seen before. If you haven’t seen these, you MUST the next time you go to Yellowstone…they are absolutely gorgeous! Then, we headed up to Tower and then back around to Mammoth. Here is Sunday’s picture of the day (there is no special point to this picture, other than my Studmuffin and LilBro look especially determined to cram in all the sightseeing they can that day!)

On Monday, my Studmuffin and I headed again to the park, this time to do the bottom part of the figure eight, including Old Faithful. To be honest, Old Faithful wasn’t as spectacular as I remembered but the other geyser basins we visited were worth it. This picture of the day was taken in front of the Grand Prismatic Geyser, which was my favorite of the geysers.

After we were done in the park, we headed over to Billings, Montana to rest up before our 10 hour drive to Ottertail County.

And, then it came, the long driving day. I had been trying to avoid days like this, but it was inevitable. Still, with the cruise control set at 80 through the Eastern Montana and North Dakota Interstate, we did make very good time, stopping only for lunch and to take pictures at in the Badlands. Since the ONLY place we took pictures that day was the Badlands, the picture of the day should be self-explanatory!

We made it to the Lake by dinner time where I FINALLY got my steak dinner! I had been craving a steak dinner all through Montana without satisfaction, but thankfully the Guberif set me up! Then, the Guberif, my Studmuffin and I took a quick fishing trip–which resulted in a few fish that didn’t warrant keeping and a heck of a lot of mosquitos. Ah, Minnesota!

Finally, we are up to today! Morning fishing was out thanks to a thunderstorm that rolled through. But the Guberif took my Studmuffin and I out in the late afternoon for a quick jaunt around the lake. While I love to fish, I have NEVER caught anything in Minnesota other than perch, which we never keep (my mother always told us they were wormy, which is what her father told her. We recently found out that he had only told her that because he didn’t like to clean them). In fact, the Guberif once dubbed me the “Perch Vacuum.” But, today it happened. I caught a feist Northern Pike. While it could have been a keeper, we kept it only for a few pictures before setting it free to grow a bit more. I would post one of the shots as the picture of the day, but they aren’t especially good pictures of me. So, you’ll just have to believe me on this one. After dinner, the Guberif took my Studmuffin and my mother out to fish again. As I had just washed the bug spray off me and didn’t want to cover myself with DEET again, I opted to stay back and spend time with all of you! I did, however, get a wonderful sunset picture which is, you guessed it, the picture of the day!