Rain, books and oatmeal, oh my!

As I alluded to in yesterday's post, thanks to the rain and wind we ended up staying put instead of making our way to Devils Tower.  No biggie, that simply meant we had a nice restful day.  We kept busy making oatmeal volcanos and calderas -



And having further discussions about Native Americans and the history of this country thanks to a cute little activity wheel we picked up at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody -





We also visited the library and spent several hours there reading, playing, surfing and even buying some books at the used book sale they happen to be having.  We do try and pick books up for us and the kids that way since we can't keep every book we read and don't want to dump a new expensive book either!  We've found library sales, book swaps in coffee shops and just book drop off locations, where you can take what you want whether or not you've got one to leave.  It kind of forces us all to expand our horizons and read things we might not have picked up otherwise.  Good for the soul.

As the next day rolled around, the sun came out and off we went.

But first, we needed to make one important stop.  Well, two, if you count the dumping station.  Again.

We came to Gillette so S could shave, remember?  Well, that never happened since we were low on water, but we did make sure we got our photo op in as you saw yesterday. Now he can shave at some point down the road knowing he's got his picture! :-)

On our way out we got one last reminder that this indeed is quite more than a sleepy little town, it's one of the most important locations on this continent energy wise!  The power plant was RIGHT across the street!  They basically collect the coal and transform it right then and there, no commuting necessary!



And on the subject of large heavy equipment, as that's what Gillette ended up being all about for us, I was urged by the boys to take and share this photo with you -



That's our RV on the right.  It's big.  Really.  But that big ol' yellow thing, well, it appears to be bigger.  And apparently it isn't even the biggest they've got!  I learned this from chatting with the big yellow thing's 'wide load' escort while taking the pictures.  It's basically a scoop, that's it.   A massively large and massively expensive one, but a scoop none the less.  We ended up heading the same direction and ended up being stuck behind it for a while, but eventually we parted ways......Thankfully.

I don't know about you, but I've about had my fill of heavy equipment....shhhh, don't tell the boys (including the big one) I said that.