Geysers, mountains, rivers, falls, lakes, wildlife. A huge variety fills the roughly 50-by-60-mile rectangle that crosses the Continental Divide and makes up Yellowstone National Park. Yellowstone, the world’s first national park, was established in 1872, even before the surrounding states became part of the Union. Driving into the park through the east entrance, one would never know a great volcano is bubbling underneath, and that the center of the park is a huge caldera, the collapsed crater of a super volcano that has been erupting for about 16 million years. The most recent was 640,000 years ago, which is the…

Detours seem are becoming common on this adventure! Though I had planned on stopping in Miles City, Montana, as part of my rock hunting journey, I landed there during the 75th Annual Miles City Bucking Horse Sale weekend. Needless to say, I never made it down to the river. Wow! The Bucking Horse Sale is quite a community event! Hotels offer extended full breakfast services for the community, local businesses sponsor all sorts of events, cowboys and cowgirls come from all over, and everything you can imagine regarding horses and rodeos is offered by vendors at the trade show. The…

It is interesting what we can find when we keep our eyes and ears open! My intention was to search for Yellowstone moss agates along the Yellowstone River, which is something I have wanted to do for years, and I found the 11,538-acre Makoshika State Park in Glendive, Montana. Leaving North Dakota after spending a day inside because of heavy winds that left the air hazy with topsoil and dirt, I traveled to Glendive, one of the places with public access to the Yellowstone River. I spent hours the next morning along the river searching for agates. You would think…

On the road again! That Willie Nelson song title keeps popping up in my mind when I sit down to write. One part of the song talks about going places and seeing things that I haven’t seen before, and that really fits my National Park hunt. Yes, I am out and about again, and my first stop was Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota. The park isn’t totally new to me. I had previously visited the Painted Canyon Visitor Center and driven the 36-mile scenic loop in the South Unit, stopping at the prairie dog villages to watch the…

Did you know the National Park Service manages more than 430 sites? Those include National Parks, National Monuments, National Historical Sites, National Historic Parks, National Seashores, National Lakeshores, National Scenic Rivers/Trails, etc. I had decided years ago that I was going to visit most, if not all, of the National Parks and pretty much dismissed the rest. Well, I have to tell you, since I have been on this journey, I have learned a lot! Nearly half of the 63 National Parks were first protected as National Monuments, including the Grand Canyon National Park, which was first declared a National…