Home Again

3752 miles later, we're home. The last two days of driving were a little long, but worth it. We listened to Harry Potter 4 on the way there, and Harry Potter 7 on the way home. In fact, we even had a little left to listen to when we got home, and sat in the car to do it! I'm sure our neighbors, if they had seen, would have wondered what on earth those weird people were doing sitting in the driveway after vacation! :) Our driving days were long enough that we had sunsets while still driving in the car (and in the summer, that's saying something!)Amy took a great picture of one of them:

From Dobbs Trek: Yellowstone & Grand Tetons 2009

I am so glad that coming home is something to look forward to, even after such an awesome vacation. We really do like our house, and it is made all the more enjoyable to come home to by the grinning, wagging dog waiting for us. Goldie did great with Mark's parent's being in the house. She already talked me into an evening walk, which I don't usually give in to. And all my flowers survived and looked pretty happy.

From Dobbs Trek: Yellowstone & Grand Tetons 2009

I think this trip has convinced us to take longer trips - since vacation time is hard to come by with Mark being self employed we have traditionally planned trips closer to home. The two weeks worth of time and the long hours driving were completely worth it. We'll do it more often now. It was wonderful to see a completely different sort of landscape and to feel so "away" from our workaday lives.

Now that we are home, the many details of life are flooding back at us. Orientation at Ball State is next week, our jobs are waiting, and there's always laundry to do :)

What's the next trip? Maybe New England in the fall . . .

Mt. Rushmore and The Badlands

We didn't drive far today, but instead spent some time touring Mt. Rushmore and then the Badlands. Both Mark and I had been to these sites as kids and we were especially curious to see what the changes to Mt. Rushmore had been since the 70's.

From Dobbs Trek: Yellowstone & Grand Tetons 2009

The minute we drove up, we could see that Mt. Rushmore had indeed changed drastically. We paid the $10 parking fee and went into one of the two multi-level parking garages. As we walked up towards the carvings, we passed through huge stone portals that obscured the view of the carvings as you walk up the avenue leading to the main viewing platform. Beyond the platform there is an amphitheater that seats 2500 that is right underneath the statues. The carvings seemed smaller than I remember them, but on the other hand, when I visited them before, there wasn't a 2500 seat amphitheater in front of it - maybe the carvings have been dwarfed by it. I'm sure they needed to add facilities to handle the large number of visitors each year, but it appeared that what they did took more away from the monument than it added to it.

From Dobbs Trek: Yellowstone & Grand Tetons 2009

Next was the Badlands. Whereas the first part of our trip included lots of pictures of steamy water, today I took a lot of pictures of colorful dirt.

From Dobbs Trek: Yellowstone & Grand Tetons 2009

The colors and landforms of the badlands reminded me a lot of the Grand Canyon. Around every turn there were new, interesting shapes. The entire area was blooming with Yellow Sweet Clover, and the smell reminded us of honey! The visitor's center was the best one we've seen on the trip. It explained that erosion had caused the interesting landforms, and that this erosion had happened over millions of years. We also read that the altitude sign put up in the 1950's has had a foot of soil eroded from beneath it since then. Hmmmm.

From Dobbs Trek: Yellowstone & Grand Tetons 2009

We are staying in Wall, South Dakota - home to Wall Drugs. Wall, SD has 818 residents, and at least 818 billboards urging visitors to stop by for a free glass of water or a .05 cent cup of coffee. It was really a trip - I can't possibly describe it - it had everything: A bookstore, pharmacy, rock shop, leather shop, toy shop, cafe, miniature Mt. Rushmore, giant dinosaur, souvenirs of every sort, and odd display windows. The windows, oddly, displayed western scenes in which all the characters were real stuffed animals dressed in western clothes. Just a little odd. A bit creepy.

From Dobbs Trek: Yellowstone & Grand Tetons 2009

From Dobbs Trek: Yellowstone & Grand Tetons 2009

Off to bed. We have two more long days of driving and then we're home!

Prairie Dogs & Little Big Horn

Just some pictures for today - We left our cabin in Gardiner, MT and traveled along the Yellowstone River for quite some time, moving through ranch country. As we left the river, the country became more and more remote. Very rugged. There was a stretch of highway with the following exit names: Dry Creek Road, Dead Horse Road, Crazy Woman Road, and Wild Horse Road. Get the picture? There was nothing out there but the occasional ranch, lots of cows, oil, antelope, and sagebrush. It was remote and beautiful, though. I can't imagine what it's like in winter.

From Dobbs Trek: Yellowstone & Grand Tetons 2009

First stop was the prairie dog park. We expected an official state park, but it actually consisted of a sign and a box to drop in your $3 entry fee, and a two block long looping road. Prairie dogs were everywhere, chirping at you. They reminded us of bigger versions of the Uinta ground squirrels at Yellowstone.

From Dobbs Trek: Yellowstone & Grand Tetons 2009

From Dobbs Trek: Yellowstone & Grand Tetons 2009

Next was Little Big Horn, site of Custer's last stand. We lucked out in that it was a free weekend, with no charge for entry. We enjoyed a very long winded ranger talk. The ranger was very good at telling the story and included a lot of background on the Westward expansion and Indian treaties and conflicts. He told the story of the battle with examples of the weapons used by both sides. It was a pretty balanced presentation. The battlefield itself is interesting in that there are markers where they soldiers fell. They were temporarily buried there, but when they reinterred them a year later, they put markers where they had fallen. Very interesting. Now a local group of park rangers and the tribes involved are working with oral histories to try to ascertain where the Indians who died fell and putting markers in those spots, too. My camera died after the following pictures.

From Dobbs Trek: Yellowstone & Grand Tetons 2009

From Dobbs Trek: Yellowstone & Grand Tetons 2009

I can't wait for tomorrow! We'll visit Badlands National Park and Mount Rushmore. I'm much more excited about the Badlands than I am about Mt. Rushmore, but who knows? Maybe I'll be suprised. My camera is all charged up and the weather is supposed to be sunny!

Last day in the park

We had watched the weather forecast for the last few days and knew that today would be THE day. And it was. No rain, clear skies, and temperatures in the 70's with a nice breeze. We enjoyed the cabin and the view from here for a bit and then headed off to the Mammoth area for a much anticipated hike on the Beaver Ponds Loop Trail.

Again the trail head mentioned bear activity, and warned that our safety could not be guaranteed. I hate that sign. After a climb through the forest, the trail emerged into an alpine meadow overlooking the mountains. Beautiful! There were loads of flowers and lots of song birds.

From Dobbs Trek: Yellowstone & Grand Tetons 2009

I had my bear bell jingling and my bear spray handy, but since we had made it through our hike yesterday without a bear, I felt fairly safe. Less than halfway into the hike, however, Mark called out that he saw a bear. I thought he was kidding (definitely not funny), but there it was!!! We thought it was a grizzly since it was large and brown, but it had a yearling black cub with it. We were on the trail and the bear was up near the tree line about 300 feet away, munching berries slowly toward us. I was ready to just retreat back the way we came, but Mark insisted I take a picture (I took one shaky, bad picture) and that we just keep going. Truly, the bears paid us no attention. Talking to other hikers on the trail further on, we learned that there were two cubs, not one, and that the mother bear had charged other hikers when they got too close (what is wrong with these people!). Turned out it was a Cinnamon Black bear, not a Grisly. Amy and Mark were thrilled we had seen a bear. It was cool, but I am very glad it was distant enough not to be a threat - I do wish I had remained calm enough to get better pictures! I didn't even get one of the young bear :(

From Dobbs Trek: Yellowstone & Grand Tetons 2009

We continued on to the lake at the midway point of the hike and enjoyed a nice break. We did not have anything planned except the hike today so we had plenty of time to just sit and relax, enjoying perfect weather and a beautiful meadow and lake. We had a few conversations with other hikers and noted what nice people you meet on hikes. They were of every description - families with three generations, 70-something hikers going it alone, college age friends hiking together. Everyone was thoroughly enjoying their hike and always greeted you with a look that said, "Hey, aren't we lucky to be here today?"

From Dobbs Trek: Yellowstone & Grand Tetons 2009

The trail continued past some beaver dams which looked innactive and down through meadows and sage covered hills back to Mammoth Hot Springs. As we walked through the resort and park buildings to our car, there were Elk on many of the nice green manicured lawns. Evidently they think the nice green grass is tastier than dry old sage and weeds up on the hills. These Elk are the size of large horses at times, and not friendly. I've seen videos on the National Park website of these same elk during mating season and they ram into cars, people, whatever and whomever they feel to be a threat. Today they were just wary, wanting to make sure people didn't get too close to their yummy grass.

From Dobbs Trek: Yellowstone & Grand Tetons 2009

Tired from our hike, we decided to relax with a trip back up to the Lamar Valley, since this was our last day. We saw several Bear jams. I wanted to get a picture of what the people do at bear jams - it is so crazy - but I never did. Yesterday people were standing on their cars to get a better view of one little bear up on a hill. Today we saw the bear jam to end all bear jams. The cars who first saw the bears pulled off if they could, but those that couldn't pull off just stopped where they were on the two lane road and got out of the car to go take pictures, effectively stopping all traffic on the road. Eventually everyone gave up and got out, creating a huge parking lot. The bears causing this bear jam were down in a valley - a mother black bear and two tiny cubs. The cubs were so tiny they kept getting lost in the grass and pouncing out on their mother and each other. The amazing thing about bear jams is that the rangers seem to know when they are happening and appear within minutes to make people get moving again. Several times we passed a bear along the road with a ranger already in place, telling cars to just keep moving. What an interesting job that must be - protecting the bears from the people!

Finally, the day was ending and we drove one last portion of the Grand Loop that we hadn't been on before. It was a good choice. This high, mountainous road took us right up to the snow pack we'd been admiring from the meadows. Snow was still packed along the side of the road 2-4 feet high and the views were awesome.

On the way back to our cabin, we even saw a Bighorn Sheep (will to get our very blurry picture up soon). Our next few days will be spent getting back to Indiana. We'll visit Little BigHorn, the Badlands, and Mount Rushmore. The fun isn't over yet!

Day Seven

Day Seven: Bears!

We spent today tooling around the Mammoth Hot Springs and Roosevelt Tower areas of the Yellowstone. This place is so huge, it’s hard to comprehend the wide range of landscapes we have seen – all within the same national park!

First thing we drove into the Mammoth area and toured the Visitor’s Center. It is the historic home base of the park, where the Army core was stationed when they were charged with controlling and preserving the park in the 1870’s. The exhibits were better than any other of the visitors centers in the park (these have been really sad – hardly any exhibits or information about the park’s history or geology). We actually went ahead and sat in the theater to see the “history of Yellowstone” video. It was kinda depressing. It was pretty much a huge commercial for the National Park Service and was a bit generic – about all National Parks instead of giving any real information about Yellowstone. The funny thing is, the Yellowstone Park website has tons of excellent video shorts on every topic from geology to history to hikes – we had them all downloaded on Mark’s laptop and have been watching them in the evening, but not one of those excellent videos has shown up at any of the visitor’s centers.

From Dobbs Trek: Yellowstone & Grand Tetons 2009

We didn’t spend much time at Mammoth Hot Springs, as a lot of the area seemed a little dried up. There were elks in the area, however. We’ve seen a lot of elk here, something we didn’t see much at all on the other side of the park. This is also bear territory. We had two bear sightings today, both of the same bear. A little two year old bear was up in a tree the first time, and the second was running around the tree line. How do we find bears, you ask? We don’t – we find the hordes of people and the traffic jams. The bigger the crowd, the more likely it’s a bear. They
even dispatch rangers to keep things moving. It feels a little weird. The amusement park mentality people have is a little disturbing, causing them to make poor choices as they run to get that picture or show their child the animal in question. Even though it’s not as crowded on this side of the park, certain areas were positively gridlocked. Ew

After the 8th traffic jam of binocular toting tourists, Mark was ready to get away a bit, so we pulled off at the petrified tree parking lot and we took a trail from there to Lost Lake. We were the only ones there. Before starting the trail, we read the notices at the trailhead that said “Active Bear area. Your safety cannot be guaranteed.” I was not excited about taking this hike, considering this. Mark and Amy bullied me into it, however.

From Dobbs Trek: Yellowstone & Grand Tetons 2009

I took my bear spray and off we went. It was a nice level walk and we saw quite a few of the little ground squirrels that pop up all over the place. We think they are called Uintas. I put a picture in the slide show. We found Lost Lake without any trouble and walked around a bit (carefully since the buffalo had been there recently) and enjoyed the quiet. On the way back I beginning to be relieved that we had not actually been eaten by a bear (although we saw the bones of something large that had been eaten by something!). . . but had a start when we found three large buffalo right on the trail. The trail was in a narrow valley, so it took a bit of doing to dodge up the side of the hill in the weeds to avoid them. Each one kept a wary eye on us but left us alone. We reached the car without incident. It was an adventure! Hopefully our hike of Beaver Ponds Loop tomorrow will not be any more adventurous than that. I’m taking my bear bell AND my bear spray!

From Dobbs Trek: Yellowstone & Grand Tetons 2009

From Dobbs Trek: Yellowstone & Grand Tetons 2009

Tonight we’ve enjoyed a meal at the cabin and after dinner saw a rain storm sweep through the valley – afterwards there was an absolutely neon bright double rainbow right over our cabin – look at the photos!

We said goodbye to the Alpine Motel today – and to the neighboring Dude Motel, Westward Ho Motel, and Round Up Motel. All of these old motels make you feel like you are in a time warp. How can this area not have changed since 1965?? We spent the day hiking around the Norris Geyser area and climbing around the upper and lower falls of the Yellowstone River before heading on to our cabin in Gardiner.

From Dobbs Trek: Yellowstone & Grand Tetons 2009

From Dobbs Trek: Yellowstone & Grand Tetons 2009

From Dobbs Trek: Yellowstone & Grand Tetons 2009

From Dobbs Trek: Yellowstone & Grand Tetons 2009

Norris Geyser Basin

The Norris Geyser area is the hottest and most active area of the park. The geysers, thermal pools, and fumeroles here all behave very erratically since there is so much pressure and heat beneath them. New features are formed and existing ones change form frequently (geyser to fumeroles to pool). A few years ago part of the basin had to be closed to tourists since the temperature on the walkways was high enough to melt tennies! While hiking the 2.5 miles of walkways here we also saw a Pine Marten (of the weasel family). The Porkchop geyser in this area exploded in 2005, hurling rocks and debris 200 feet into the air – you can still see the mess it made. Eight tourists happened to be there at the time but were unhurt. When you hear the sound of the pressurized steam in that area, you have no problem believing the whole area could just blow at any time – no matter what the ranger says.

Signs, Signs, Everywhere a Sign

Yellowstone is big on signs. They have a caution sign for almost everything. The most frequent sign we have seen warns guests to stay on the trail or boardwalk to avoid falling through the thin crust of the thermal areas and being boiled (as baby buffalo are from time to time - smells like beef stew for a while, they said). All of these signs include a graphic of a boy falling into a geyser while a girl covers her mouth in horror and points at him. This is a serious matter, really it is. But these signs make me laugh every time. They strongly imply that boys are silly, reckless beings (possibly true) and that girls are totally useless in a crisis (absolutely not true!). I’ll add a photo of the sign to the slide show.

From Dobbs Trek: Yellowstone & Grand Tetons 2009

Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River

We hiked down a horrendous, steep trail today to the edge of the Lower Falls – 10 switchbacks at about a 35-40 degree angle. Ugh. But once there we stood feet above the spot where the river plummets 308 feet to the rocks below. Standing right above it was heart stopping. Walking back up the switchbacks was also almost heart stopping!

Our Cabin!

Our next three nights will be spent in Gardiner, Montana. The town is right outside the Roosevelt Arch at the North entrance to the park. It’s a little wild west gaggle of buildings and businesses perched along the raging Yellowstone River. Our cabin is in a kind of back alley location and from the outside looks about as big as a postage stamp. It has a loft bedroom (accessed with a ladder) and two other bedrooms. One has ship like bunks built in and the other has a queen bed that literally takes up the entire room. The kitchen is more properly a galley and the living room is cozy. The absolute best part of the cabin is the view. The back porch and living room have a full view of the river and the mountains beyond. The river is so loud! I keep thinking it’s pouring rain outside, but it’s just the river. When we arrived it was storming a bit so the photos we’ve taken so far don’t do it justice. More to come tomorrow. We ran out to the local store and picked up some steaks to grill and had a wonderful dinner, cozy in our cabin. It appears we’re only the fourth guests to stay in the cabin – it’s brand new. Pictures coming soon.


*A sad note. After writing this entry, I saw on Fox news that a young man committed suicide yesterday by throwing himself into the Lower Falls of the Yellowstone. We were there yesterday, as well, and had no idea. Today we saw rangers with high powered binoculars in areas of the river and falls that are normally closed, and had no idea they were actually looking for his body. Very, very sad.

Buffalo or Bison?

Day Five

We got up today with every intention of doing a long hike. On the way to the trailhead we stopped by the West Thumb of Yellowstone Lake to see a string of geysers and thermal springs right at lake’s edge. Some are even in the lake! One famous spot was Fishing Geyser where tourists used to stand to catch a fish, and then lower the fish still on the hook right into the geyser to immediately cook it. Cool, unless you’re the fish. Of course, it’s not allowed anymore. The thermal features in this area are more thermal springs than geysers, but they are vividly colored and make a great foreground for the deep blue lake and snow covered mountains beyond.

Next we went to Yellowstone Lake and the central part of the park, thinking of doing a hike out that way. The lake is huge! On the shore is Yellowstone Hotel – a turn of the century resort for the well heeled tourist. It still has some echoes of elegance on the inside, but the yellow, clapboard outside is very weathered, and, oddly, COVERED with mosquitos. From a distance, I thought the building had mild hail damage, but it was mosquitos from the roof to the ground. They were inside, as well. It was very odd, and kinda creepy. I had read that the park owned lodging was quite run down and unfortunately a lot of that turned out to be true. In the end, we decided against a hike due to the storm that was brewing and chose some exploring instead.

Hayden Valley, which used to be a shallow part of Yellowstone Lake, is now a beautiful marshy meadow with a river. Here we saw a pair of coyotes across the river from us – pacing back and forth about an 8th of a mile away from each other and howling back and forth. Now granted, we have coyotes at home, but these were cooler, because they were Yellowstone coyotes! Once more there were a lot of bison. Or buffalo. Mark insists that Bison is technically correct, and so we have an ongoing argument. I mean, it’s not the Bison Nickel, is it? Or the Bison Soldiers? I rest my case. We also saw a few elk, but too far away for my camera to pick them up. No bears yet!

Next we saw a mud geyser area (can’t remember the name of it) which was cool – just a little area, but it had a huge mud geyser (hands down the smelliest geyser so far). The best part of that stop was what they called the Dragon’s Cave. It is SO cool! There’s this ominous cave with steam billowing out from inside. Deep rumblings can be heard and waves roll out of the mouth. I should have taken a video of it. If there’s not a dragon or a demon in that cave, I’ll eat my hat. And I bought a hat, so I have one to eat.

On the way back (the long way, of course) we visited Artist Point. I will try to put up some pictures of all this when our internet cooperates. It is truly remarkable. There are the upper and lower falls, and both are breathtaking. We decided to go back to this area tomorrow on our way to our cabin, as there are some really nice trails along the cliffs above the rapids and falls. Artist Point is also the name of a restaurant Mark and I went to at Wilderness Lodge. It's been amazing how well Disney did with incorporating the colors and drama of the real location. Even Wilderness Lodge, which was modeled on the great national park lodges, nailed it. You would expect the original to be grander than the copy, but no so. The Old Faithful Lodge is beautiful but it is not as big or over the top as the Wilderness Lodge. But the lamps, woodwork, comfy leather chairs, floor to ceiling fireplace, and carpet are all elements we have seen at lodges here that were faithfully copies and enlarged by Disney. But the National Park Service has also copied Disney . . . there are gift stores and restaurants everywhere.

We are really ready for our three night stay at the cabin in Gardiner which begins tomorrow. Hopefully it will be a little more spacious than our current digs and give us “being” space. One of the downsides to the motel we’re in is that there’s really nowhere to sit other than on the beds or in one rocking chair. It will also be nice if the internet connection is better. Tonight we really have no internet, so this will probably be posted tomorrow (well, what do you know - it came up for a minute. There's no way pictures will go in tonight, though!)

Monday, June 15th, Geyser Day!

What a good day! We started by sleeping in a bit, since we had not had much chance to rest up on the long drive to Yellowstone. We were out the door by 10:00 and off to the park.

Our hotel is very close to the entrance, in West Yellowstone. It’s the Alpine motel, a cute little place family owned and operated. They are very nice, and have added several amenities, but two things we have noticed: the walls are paper thin and there are two young (noisy) boys living just a thin double door away. We were woken by their shower at 7:30! Second, the internet service is very spotty. I think they are using a satellite connection because there are times when there is simply no access , and it coincides with the Direct TV going out. There are lots of clouds in West Yellowstone, and they block satellite connections. But otherwise, it’s a nice place to stay; within walking distance of all the shops and restaurants eager to part you from your money.

After waiting in line to get through the entrance (it did seem a lot like going through the parking entrance at Disneyland), we took a few side roads, and then got caught in Bald Eagle traffic. There is small section of the entrance road with signs saying, Don’t Stop Here: Bald Eagle reclamation area, or some such, and of course everyone stops there. I have yet to see the Eagles but both Amy and Cheryl attest to them.

We took another side road down the Firehole River canyon. That was well worth it! Several waterfalls and cascades (go to the bathroom first, they make you want to pee, and all the rest stops were closed for repairs)! When we came out the other end, I looked back up the road and there was a huge traffic jam that we had bypassed, with flashing lights and traffic. Whew! Turns out there was a large herd of bison walking up the road with their young. Very Cool! We saw the Bison and we missed the traffic, and the word was, it was more than an hour wait. The rangers were actually herding the bison to get them out of the road, but because it was a narrow gorge area, there was nowhere for them to go. We watched as long as we dared, and then drove on. We got some good photos and saw them very close indeed through the binoculars (it was scary close!).
We then meandered through several Geyser Basins: Lower, Mid, Firehole lake, Fountain Paint Pots. We got lots of pictures and saw several of the smaller Geysers going off. My favorite, I think was the smaller Fountain Geyser: it seemed playful.

We eventually made our way to the Old Faithful area. Boy is it ever commercialized with huge souvenir emporiums. The visitor center is under construction and the make-do one is in a portable trailer, and it was not worth stopping at, other to get the prediction times for Old Faithful. I thought we had 10 minutes to go, but then discovered my Cell phone cum watch was still on Central time. Oops. So we walked around the back side of Old Faithful and hiked up half a mile and 200 feet to a viewing platform and watched it from there. That was very cool, and well timed. We had about a 15 minute rest before the Geyser went off, and it was a particularly nice eruption. We have some nice photos from there. We then hiked to the Solitary Geyser. That was funky. It was a little hot springs, that every 5 minutes had a burst of water that went up about 5 feet or so. It was worth the hike. We then hiked around Geyser Hill, and down to Beehive where we sat down and waited for Old Faithful to go off again. Beehive spluttered teasingly every couple of minutes but didn’t really erupt. It’s supposed to be pretty fun to watch. We then hiked down towards Castle Geyser and environs, and by then we were beat.

Side note: There were little geysers going off all the time, all over the place. I do not understand why so many people trek all the way to Yellowstone and then leave quickly after the eruption is half over and go back to the shops and the concession stands. Amazing. You can witness people doing this on the Old Faithful webcam. They don’t even wait for the eruption to conclude. It’s like leaving during the 8th inning or something. If you walk around Geyser hill and beyond, you leave the crowds behind and really have a good time.

We ate at the Cafeteria that overlooks Old Faithful and saw it go off a third time! We were all very hungry and very tired by then and it was a nice end to the day. Amy had Sushi and I had Buffalo meatloaf. It was a bit pricey, but perhaps about what you’d pay for a similar meal at Disney.

On the drive home the rain, that threatened all day, finally arrived and we had a spectacular rainbow! Great end to the day!

Day Three

Driving

We had a great day today! Our drive for the first 3 hours or so consisted of high plains full of sage and antelope (one even ran in front of us!). The road was just about deserted, which made for stress-free driving. Closer to the Grand Tetons, we had amazing rock formations at every turn. Some looked like giants had stacked them up, some were bright red, other solid rock formations jutted straight up out of the ground. This was a day of saying “wow” again and again. As the mountains drew nearer, we could see snow capped peaks, often cloaked in clouds.

Grand Teton National Park

Finally we entered Grand Tetons National Park and enjoyed Jenny Lake and the visitor center there. Most likely this was our only day for the Tetons, so we tried to see as much as we could. What a gorgeous park! Snow covered the mountains and even along the road snow patches were still there. The crowds weren’t bad at all. The only challenge was stopping ourselves from taking pictures every 20 feet. And the pictures don’t really even do justice to the mountains or the lake. We only saw the teeniest bit of the Grand Tetons . . . but may not be able to go back this trip since there was considerable road work to get through between Grand Tetons and Yellowstone. We were fortunate that today was Sunday so even though there was a delay, it wasn’t as bad as it would be on a work day. There’s a great hike near Jenny lake we’d like to do, though . . . .

Yellowstone National Park

I read a blog last night of a family’s trip to Yellowstone, and they said that the reason it takes so long to get anywhere in Yellowstone is all the distractions. We agree! By the time we hit Yellowstone we really needed to just power through and get to our hotel in West Yellowstone, a good hour’s drive away. But that meant driving past waterfalls, bison, geysers, old faithful, etc! We managed to keep going most of the time but we did stop to look at the Black Sand geysers – wow (again). We kept rolling past the people trying to get closer to a two ton buffalo for that perfect shot (we’ve seen the videos on the www.nps/yell that show visitors getting gored), skipped Old Faithful for today and focused on getting to our hotel.

West Yellowstone

We are staying in West Yellowstone because all of the in-park locations were full by the time we decided to plan this trip. We are in a cozy little place called “Alpine Motel” which is listed as the #1 recommended motel on tripadvisor.com. It deserves the accolades. It’s run by a family who take extreme care to provide a clean, pleasant stay at a reasonable price. It’s a really little, old fashioned motel that is somewhat updated and extremely clean. Did I say clean? I meant spotless. The only downside at this point is a slow wifi - seriously cramping my style in uploading photos. So far I only have the slideshow of a few. So here’s to a good night’s sleep and lots of hiking and geysers tomorrow.

Nostalgia

The last time Mark and I were here, we were kids on family vacations. There were no cell phones, no laptops, no WiFi, and no digital cameras. We travelled in the back seat of the family sedans and our blogging consisted of paper journals or notebooks. Our cameras were probably the 110 film variety.

As we began to leave the endless cornfields of the plains states and see hints of the wild land to come, I began to get an itch for a true vacation souvenir shop. When I was a kid it was Stuckeys. Cheese logs, imprinted shot glasses, and cedar wood boxes with a buffalo printed on top. And moccasins! Lacking a Stucky’s, we chose a promising looking gaudy gift shop called the Stagecoach shop. The billboards had promised authentic gift items, and hinted at all the wonders vacations past. Turqoise! Copper bracelets that turn your wrist green! And moccasins!

We pulled into the parking lot, noting that even though the Stagecoach shop was next to a donut shop and a dry cleaners, its parking lot was full of other middle agers looking for that nostalgic vacation fix. They did have turquoise jewelry, coonskin caps, wooden toy rifles, and imprinted shot glasses . . . but you had to search for them among the oriental trading company flotsam and worse . . . the extremely tacky adult joke shop items. There were indeed moccasins in the back . . . but they were the same brand as the sandals I bought at a shoe shop back home.

I’m sure that if we asked our parents, Stucky’s wasn’t all that we remember it to be. It was probably tacky, but more innocent. Our childhood visits took place near the end of the 60’s or the very early 70’s . . . realistically, the innocence was probably almost over even then.

As we drove back onto the highway after that stop, we began to see Antelope along the sides of the road. Rocky outcroppings began to appear and the mesas gave way to the rolling foothills with views of the snowy mountains. Not everything changes.

Day Two

June 13th, From Rawlins Wy.

We are two days into our great Yellowstone Adventure. We’ve traveled over 1200 miles, and we’ve had very nice traveling weather. The drive has been uneventful. We found that: Iowa has the best rest stops and Nebraska the worst. Wyoming’s don’t count because they are all so remote!

We’ve had fun just being together in the car. We’ve been listening to a Harry Potter audio book which really makes the time go fast. That’s kind of important because there is not much to look at going across the plains states. It’s been beautiful, but it was also all pretty much the same.

We’ve had little traffic, and the truckers have all been polite. Illinois had the most construction projects, all proudly proclaiming they were funded by the American Recovery Act. I 80 is in pretty good shape though. Nebraska and Wyoming were the best for driving as both have maximum speed limits of 75. We made really good time today. It was chilly, so we didn’t really stop anywhere for our typical rest stop lunch, but just munched grapes and snacks in the car. We did stop fairly often to stretch our legs.

We are now nestled into our second hotel of the trip: the Oak Tree Inn. It is in Rawlins Wyoming; a small city of 8,000 right along I 80 and a gateway town to Yellowstone and points north. The town is a rail road and natural gas town. The motel we are staying in contracts with the rail road, and caters to engineers and conductors. The room is odd, by very comfortable and very clean. I had a nice workout on the treadmill and weight equipment which felt great after two straight days of driving.

The scenery in Wyoming is stunning. Our eyes are starved for the mountains after living in the flat lands of Indiana for so long. It was really amazing how quickly the terrain changed from flat prairie to foot hills and mountains! We are right on the edge of the Rockies , a bit north of Colorado.

Tomorrow, we start our day of with a hot breakfast in the diner attached to our hotel and then it’s up to the mountains!