The next day we did a tour of the city. My siblings and I rode in Susan's convertible over the Golden Gate. We went to Fiserman's Warf first, and got a cheap seafood dish before going to pier 39. The sea lions there were very entertaining, but the rest of the pier was just a big tourist trap. Susan went to work, and we went and visited my dad's friend Cathy who lived in one of the victorian houses that San Francisco is famous for. On the way home, we stopped at Muir Woods, where there is a redwood forest. It was beautiful! I learned that the United Nations met there for one of their first meetings! The next morning, we packed up and got ready to head to Reno. Once we were packed up, we went to Su's hair salon where she showed us her salon and gave us all haircuts. I wasn't too impressed with mine, but I guess I'm warming up to it. It doesn't seem so bad anymore. Then we began our drive to Reno, NV. It took about four hours, and we drove over Donner pass, where the Donner party was. When we got to Reno, we met my dad's friend Jim Troop from School Year Abroad and we went to a taco restaurant. We slept at his house that night, and headed on a 9 hour drive to Park City, Utah. Nevada is probably the most boring state in the country. Yes, I mean more boring than Oklahoma. The only cool part, was when we got to the Utah state line, we went through the salt flats! They looked like snow in the middle of the desert, in May! When we got to Park City, which is on the other side (the east side) of Salt Lake City, we ate pasta at my mom's friend Cathy Beiber's apartment and set up our camper in her driveway. The next day, we did homework. I slept in 'till noon, but I still got a ton of work done. My dad cooked pork for dinner, and my mom made a great salad with fruit in it. The next day, we skied at Snowbird! It was a Friday, and they were only open on the weekends, since it was May. We had a great time, even though it was pretty soft snow. On our way back to Cathy's house, we stopped at the Olympic Park in Park City. The next day, we drove to Yellowstone. Once we got there, the entrance lady told us there was a bear down the road eating a buffalo carcass. We didn't see it, but we were really excited when she told us. We did see buffalo though. Once, we thought we saw a mountain lion in the middle of a bunch of buffalo, but it was actually a baby buffalo. It was lying down, so we couldn't tell. The next day, we went to Old Faithful. On the way, we stopped at a couple of Hot Springs and checked them out. They weren't the kind you swim in, they were the ones that you just look at. You couldn't swim in them because they were like 200 degrees! Old Faithful was cool, but what was even better, (way better) was Grand Geyser. The problem was, we waited three hours to see it! There was a four hour window that it was predicted to go off, and we got there with an hour and a half left, thinking that we'd see it soon, since it was at the later end of the prediction. We were wrong. Rob (some random guy we met that was waiting with us) saw it the day before from the lodge, and encouraged us that it was worth the wait. By the time that was over, it was the end of the day. When we got to the campsite, there were buffalo right in the middle of the campground! They weren't in our site, but they were really close! The next day, we went to Yellowstone Canyon. We hiked down a trail that took us to the lower  falls, and they were amazing! The canyon walls were all yellow, and there was snow all around the falls! After the canyon, we drove up to the northern part of the park where we were told there was a better chance at seeing a bear. We saw coyote, elk, more buffalo, and mule deer. Not until we were on our way back to the campground, did we see our first bear! There were quills in his paw, so he walked with a limp. That night, while my mom was in the bathroom, there were buffalo out (it was dark so you couldn't see them) and they must have gotten spooked or something, and they charged. They were on both sides of the bathroom, and they made quite a scary racket! The next day on our way out of the park, we saw another bear in the same spot as the day before! Closer to the exit, we say a whole bunch of people stopped, and we decided there must be something to see, so we pulled over. Some lady let us look in her telescope, and there was a wolf eating a carcass of some sort! We even watched three coyotes try to fight him for it! We couldn't stay too long, so we headed on our way again. The road we were supposed to take was closed, so we had to take a detour, which mad my dad pretty upset. It turned out that the detour was probably a much better way, since it was so scenic! It went right through the Shoshone National Forest, and it was amazing the views we had there! Then we went to the Battle of Little Big Horn Battlefield. We watched the PBS movie on it on the way there, but I didn't watch because I had too much work to do. We only stopped there for a few minutes to get a feel for how big it was, and kept driving. We stopped in Sheridan to eat, and we used the GPS to find a restaurant. The one we chose was chinese, so we asked a convenience store clerk where to eat, and he told us Perkins. We went there, and the food was sort of iffy. Then we drove to Sturgis, SD and stayed at the Rush-No-More rv park. Oh man, were we happy to have showers! FINALLY! In the morning, we went down to Mt. Rushmore. We were planning on just looking and leaving, but we decided to do the junior ranger program (we did them at every park) and that required going through the exhibit hall and watching a movie. After Rushmore, my mom wanted to see Crazy Horse (it's still being carved) so we drove to the entrance, and got a look from the road, and kept on driving. We drove clear to the other end of South Dakota, with only one or two stops, one of them being Subway, where the lady there made the crappiest Subway Subs we've ever had AND, she was wicked slow! Anyways... we stayed at a state park in eastern South Dakota, just south of Sioux City. In the morning, we woke up and drove... and drove... until we got to Davenport Iowa, where we used the first of the two Cracker Barrel gift cards that the Garners gave us. Man, was that a good meal! Now that we've done Cracker Barrel a couple times, we love it! It's too bad we don't have them in Maine! After Cracker Barrel, we drove to the hotel in Springfield, IL that we'd booked on the way to Davenport. In the morning, we went to the Lincoln Museum which was phenomenal! It had two really new theaters, and they were extremely lifelike. The exhibit halls were spectacular. They weren't like typical ones, where you read a few things and move on. There were people there talking to you, and there were also speakers where you could hear all the slave owners complaining to Lincoln and really making his life difficult! You really got the feel for how hard a time it was to be president, and how much pressure Lincoln was under. After we finished the museum, we got started on our 12ish hour drive to New York State. We went through Indianapolis, Columbus, and we stopped at another Cracker Barrel halfway between Columbus and Cleveland. Again, it was a very god meal and we all walked out stuffed!