We do a lot of driving and even occasionally deliberately get in the car to drive somewhere and back just for the fun of it. Those rides almost always involve a lot of stops to take pictures of things. This past week we had a reason to drive from Idaho Falls to Ucon for a luncheon after our shift at the Idaho Falls Temple. We could take either the ten-minute version of the drive up the four-lane highway, or the 30-minute version along the rural country roads. We opted for the 30-minute version and saw a fabulous old barn that we’ll need to visit some day in the future with cameras in tow.

Some of the drives happen because we’re vacationing somewhere. The “best car ride” happened this year when we were in Yellowstone National Park in September. Unlike past visits to the Park, this time we did things a bit differently. Rather than visit all the tourist attractions, we put our motor home into a campsite at Canyon Village and then drove out the Park entrances to Red Lodge, Montana and to Cody, Wyoming. We hadn’t take the Cody route in more than twenty years and had never driven the Bear Tooth Highway over to Red Lodge.

Both drives took a full day and both were beautiful drives with many stops to take pictures. The Bear Tooth Highway goes over a high mountain pass and then drops down on the other side over a switch-back road down. The views at the top (as evidenced by the picture to the top left) were quite spectacular. This was definitely the “best car ride” of 2009!

Ta ta for now!