Day 22:
Well, we did it. We made it from Twin Falls to the Bay Area in one piece. All told, the trip took 10.5 hours with two stops for gas, two meals (both drive through) and a Starbucks/Jamba Juice stop. We made it home just as the low fuel lamp turned on. Oh, and gas got cheaper while we were gone.
The start of today's journey reminded me of the early part of our trip across the Hi Line. We did over a hundred miles from Twin Falls, ID to Wells, NV on a two lane undivided road they called State Route 93. It was empty for long stretches broken only occasionally by small towns. The only difference was today's drive had a much more Nevada feel to it: rolling scrubland back-dropped by tall, equally barren mountains all obscured by the haze you only get when temperatures near 100.
After 100 miles of hair-raising passes, I had never been so happy to see a four-lane interstate. I did learn a new trick: at the right zoom level, you can use your GPS to estimate good sight lines for passing. It would have been perfect if the GPS conveyed elevation information, but I was happy with knowing when I'd see the next lazy turn to the left so I could see all the oncoming traffic.
The first city we hit along I-80 in Nevada was Elko. There we were greeted by a giant casino (complete with Starbucks, thank you) and a highway information sign warning us that that I-80 was closed in 35 miles and that we should "plan other routes."
Huh? You can't just close an interstate and not provide a detour! After I got my wits back, I looked at our maps and GPS and decided that there really wasn't much I could tell about alternate routes until I knew exactly where the highway was closed. It was quite likely that there *was* no alternate route. We were just going to have to chance it.
As we neared the area, it became apparent what was going on: more fire. All of the western lands were ablaze. Luckily the sign was slightly behind the times. The fire had burned all the way up to the eastbound side of the freeway and had been controlled by the five rigs lining the empty lanes with their flashers on. The westbound lanes seemed fine - only the other side was closed. As we drove further, we began to see columns of vehicles lead by pilot cars. So both sides were both going to be okay.
We flew past Reno and the NV/CA border in the blink of an eye putting us suddenly back in the Sacramento suburbs. I tried to play newcomer and view California with the perspective gained from my last three weeks across the country. My first impression was that California understands the business of freeways. The *small* ones are three lanes on each side. There are Botts Dots everywhere (no plows to shear them off), K-rails to keep traffic separate and landscaped medians! It's also darn crowded. It's no wonder that you need five lanes. RVs? Rare. Trucks? Sure, but not as many. Lots of cars, and lots more of them "odd." I don't think I saw a Land Rover or a Porsche Cayenne my entire time out of California.
The landscape was also an eye-opener. The hills of unbroken gold (okay, brown) can really be pretty in the same way as the even green of Idaho's rolling farmland. Compared to the Plain States, there are a lot more trees to break up the predominant gold. The trees aren't planted as occasional windbreaks in long picket lines or in protective circles around lone farmsteads. They really seem to be an integral part of the landscape whether it be hill or field.
The cities and towns, with buildings much more crowed together than the rest of the trip, also seemed to have a lot trees. Everything felt "manicured" or planned. The trees happened just so often and there were no open fields sprinkled in between the bits of civilization. You'd have long stretches of wall to wall development followed by shorter stretches of relative wild land.
To round out my state impressions:
South Dakota: Like North Dakota (flat, lots of farms, few trees) only with slight patches of brown hinting that the natural rainfall isn't quite enough to keep everything alive outside the farms. This actually started in southern Minnesota.
Wyoming: Fields of browning grass give way to more uneven land and then mountains covered with conifers
Idaho: The southern regions are what I remember from my childhood: rolling fields of green, fit for use as the WindowsXP background.
Nevada: Desert, pure and simple. More dirt than scraggly plants eeking out a living.
California: Dry, even in the mountains. Even where there are green, healthy trees, they live on a carpet of dead grass. The farmlands between Sacramento and the Bay Area could be in the Dakotas only they aren't as big and there are more trees. The Cities of the Bay Area have a lot of trees. This might be what Minnesota would look like if it had this many buildings and if you could find a vantage point that high.
Highlights:
1. Home. Live cats and a happy dog.
2. Cleaning out the van. No, really.
3. Getting back into the swing of things. While I enjoyed my time off, my time to try on new hats, I really am of this place and things are different here. The stereotypical Californian is the laid-back surfer dude, but there's a pace and and edge to life around the major commerce centers that is unmistakable.
Quirks:
1. While I'm in the act of passing you is not the time to put more weight on your lazy accelerator foot. Really.
2. For as much as I praised the freeways out here, the slow lanes in the mountains (where chains are required in winter) were probably the worst existing roads we traveled. Maybe that's why we were seeing constant roadwork in other states.
Saturday, July 7, 2007
We Didn't Start the Fire
Day 21:
The whole area around Twin Falls, Idaho is ablaze. As we traveled through southern Idaho in the 100-degree heat, we saw a handful of smoke plumes along the way. As we neared our campground in Twin Falls, I spied four small ones and two really large ones with a quick scan of the horizon. The largest one, to our right (north) as we traveled along the freeway, sported a tall thick column that looked half angry thunderhead and half nuclear fallout. My son reminded me that if it were a nuke we would have rolled quietly to a stop as the electro-magnetic pulse fried all our electronics. Lucky for you blog readers it wasn't a nuke.
The other large one was right in front of us. We joked that it might be our KOA Campground and that we would be spending the night in an air-conditioned hotel room. It wasn't the campground, but it was very close. In fact, we were forced off the freeway (luckily on the exit we needed to take) when the Idaho State Police closed it due to the fire.
I've decided that anyone growing up in California has been seriously deprived when it comes to clouds. We just don't get them. Everywhere we've been on this trip, big white fluffy clouds have been part of the sky, providing intermittent shade, the hope of some rain, and some really spectacular formations. The person who first coined the the phrase "not a cloud in the sky" didn't come from California. It's just not an interesting statement out here because it's *always* like that. Chalk one up for the rest of the nation.
We started the day by driving through Grand Tetons. We didn't stop, so all of my shots were from a moving car. I've come to realize that I love mountains the best of all natural features. I just don't think I can get enough of them. That's a good thing, too, because our driving route later took us up and down 10% (I kid you not) grades as we crossed the Teton pass. We even managed to do another pass, whose name I forget, with a measly 7% grade. For the 10% grade, I put the pedal on the floor on the way up and the van only hit 35 mph.
The big news for today is that we're headed home. Not in the "in-the-general-direction" sense, but truly driving home. The trip will be about 10.5 hours on the road and should get us home around 8pm. I can't wait to get back to unconfined spaces and a comfy couch. Hopefully the cats haven't torn up the place too much.
Highlights:
1. Some pretty cool unsettled weather. First, it was just plain hot (100 degrees), then it was hot with a wind so strong that it was pushing me off the freeway. Within a half mile, the wind turned 180 degrees and was now trying to push me off in the opposite direction.
2. The Kabin is pretty nice. Lights, air conditioning, ceiling fan and power.
3. We ate at Chilis last night. Seems like we're almost home.
Quirks
1. The Idaho State Police have mostly black cars with a swoosh of white painted on the side. I think of skunks when I see them.
The whole area around Twin Falls, Idaho is ablaze. As we traveled through southern Idaho in the 100-degree heat, we saw a handful of smoke plumes along the way. As we neared our campground in Twin Falls, I spied four small ones and two really large ones with a quick scan of the horizon. The largest one, to our right (north) as we traveled along the freeway, sported a tall thick column that looked half angry thunderhead and half nuclear fallout. My son reminded me that if it were a nuke we would have rolled quietly to a stop as the electro-magnetic pulse fried all our electronics. Lucky for you blog readers it wasn't a nuke.
The other large one was right in front of us. We joked that it might be our KOA Campground and that we would be spending the night in an air-conditioned hotel room. It wasn't the campground, but it was very close. In fact, we were forced off the freeway (luckily on the exit we needed to take) when the Idaho State Police closed it due to the fire.
I've decided that anyone growing up in California has been seriously deprived when it comes to clouds. We just don't get them. Everywhere we've been on this trip, big white fluffy clouds have been part of the sky, providing intermittent shade, the hope of some rain, and some really spectacular formations. The person who first coined the the phrase "not a cloud in the sky" didn't come from California. It's just not an interesting statement out here because it's *always* like that. Chalk one up for the rest of the nation.
We started the day by driving through Grand Tetons. We didn't stop, so all of my shots were from a moving car. I've come to realize that I love mountains the best of all natural features. I just don't think I can get enough of them. That's a good thing, too, because our driving route later took us up and down 10% (I kid you not) grades as we crossed the Teton pass. We even managed to do another pass, whose name I forget, with a measly 7% grade. For the 10% grade, I put the pedal on the floor on the way up and the van only hit 35 mph.
The big news for today is that we're headed home. Not in the "in-the-general-direction" sense, but truly driving home. The trip will be about 10.5 hours on the road and should get us home around 8pm. I can't wait to get back to unconfined spaces and a comfy couch. Hopefully the cats haven't torn up the place too much.
Highlights:
1. Some pretty cool unsettled weather. First, it was just plain hot (100 degrees), then it was hot with a wind so strong that it was pushing me off the freeway. Within a half mile, the wind turned 180 degrees and was now trying to push me off in the opposite direction.
2. The Kabin is pretty nice. Lights, air conditioning, ceiling fan and power.
3. We ate at Chilis last night. Seems like we're almost home.
Quirks
1. The Idaho State Police have mostly black cars with a swoosh of white painted on the side. I think of skunks when I see them.
Thursday, July 5, 2007
Standing on Higher Ground
Day 20:
Well, we found them. All of the wildlife we had heard about but not yet seen were on the roads we traveled today. We saw many bison. First we saw the single one. We'd stop for a picture and pat ourselves on the back for the amazing close encounter with nature that we had just happened into. Then they came in small groups and we kept taking pictures like this was our last chance. Finally, we ran into the herds. That right, herds with an 's'! With babies and all roaming the plains.
We saw an entire herd of elk sitting on the grass between two of the lodges at Mammoth Hotsprings and ran over with the kids to get good pictures. Little did I know how common they were in that area. As we sat down for a picnic in the grass, three elk wandered through the building complex and across the street! Later in the day we were treated to a huge bull elk with full rack wandering through a parking lot. The only thing we didn't see were bears.
Driving was better today. We got lucky and didn't get stuck behind any belligerent rule followers so we made good time. Those times we did slow down, as much as I cursed the perpetrator for forcing us to brake so hard, I secretly thanked them for giving us an excuse to see the bison. It seemed that at every spot on the same small stretch where we saw bison, the lead car would slow to around 5 mph and take a look. Never mind the fact that this was the same car that did the same maneuver for a similar herd of bison a mile up the road. The rest of us in the line did the same, only we felt better about ourselves for not halting traffic.
The kids' Junior Ranger "ceremony" was really nice. The ranger, a young woman from Montana, checked their packets to make sure they had done the work and asked questions on the pages they filled out to make sure that the kids new their stuff. After she was convinced that everything was in order, she gave them one last reminder that this was not the end of their tasks but just that beginning and that they had signed on to continuing to learn about nature. Finally, she called for the attention of everyone in the visitor center and announced their names as new Junior Rangers. I think it really made an impression on all three of them (my two and a cousin).
Mammoth Hotsprings is a very different place from Grant Village where we are staying. Mammoth is outside of the caldera and the terrain tends much more toward open plain. The Hotsprings themselves are a reminder of the huge active volcano that is Yellowstone National Park and "caldera" is just a fancy word for "the part that will be blown to Newfoundland should this volcano get angry."
I told the kids to look around them at the six-foot tall pine trees and fix them in their minds. I had visited Yellowstone before the fire of '88 scorched one third of the two million acres but I don't remember what it was like. Almost twenty years later, the effects of the fire are still obvious. In an entire hillside of small green trees, you'll see occasional reminders of what was before; a lone remnant of a forty-foot Lodgepole Pine still standing amidst the newcomers. In another twenty years when my children visit the park with their children, the park will look very different.
We hit the road again tomorrow. Look for some new pictures on Flickr.
Highlights:
1. A good dinner and fast service
2. Stuffed animals and ice cream: the reward for collecting stickers from four of the five gift stores located at the main villages in the park.
Quirks:
1. The kids' cousin K has seen all but two state license plates. After a quick check, we've also seen all of the Canadian provinces.
2. We saw an entire leg bone (ankle to hip) of what we believed to be an elk just lying by the sidewalk.
Well, we found them. All of the wildlife we had heard about but not yet seen were on the roads we traveled today. We saw many bison. First we saw the single one. We'd stop for a picture and pat ourselves on the back for the amazing close encounter with nature that we had just happened into. Then they came in small groups and we kept taking pictures like this was our last chance. Finally, we ran into the herds. That right, herds with an 's'! With babies and all roaming the plains.
We saw an entire herd of elk sitting on the grass between two of the lodges at Mammoth Hotsprings and ran over with the kids to get good pictures. Little did I know how common they were in that area. As we sat down for a picnic in the grass, three elk wandered through the building complex and across the street! Later in the day we were treated to a huge bull elk with full rack wandering through a parking lot. The only thing we didn't see were bears.
Driving was better today. We got lucky and didn't get stuck behind any belligerent rule followers so we made good time. Those times we did slow down, as much as I cursed the perpetrator for forcing us to brake so hard, I secretly thanked them for giving us an excuse to see the bison. It seemed that at every spot on the same small stretch where we saw bison, the lead car would slow to around 5 mph and take a look. Never mind the fact that this was the same car that did the same maneuver for a similar herd of bison a mile up the road. The rest of us in the line did the same, only we felt better about ourselves for not halting traffic.
The kids' Junior Ranger "ceremony" was really nice. The ranger, a young woman from Montana, checked their packets to make sure they had done the work and asked questions on the pages they filled out to make sure that the kids new their stuff. After she was convinced that everything was in order, she gave them one last reminder that this was not the end of their tasks but just that beginning and that they had signed on to continuing to learn about nature. Finally, she called for the attention of everyone in the visitor center and announced their names as new Junior Rangers. I think it really made an impression on all three of them (my two and a cousin).
Mammoth Hotsprings is a very different place from Grant Village where we are staying. Mammoth is outside of the caldera and the terrain tends much more toward open plain. The Hotsprings themselves are a reminder of the huge active volcano that is Yellowstone National Park and "caldera" is just a fancy word for "the part that will be blown to Newfoundland should this volcano get angry."
I told the kids to look around them at the six-foot tall pine trees and fix them in their minds. I had visited Yellowstone before the fire of '88 scorched one third of the two million acres but I don't remember what it was like. Almost twenty years later, the effects of the fire are still obvious. In an entire hillside of small green trees, you'll see occasional reminders of what was before; a lone remnant of a forty-foot Lodgepole Pine still standing amidst the newcomers. In another twenty years when my children visit the park with their children, the park will look very different.
We hit the road again tomorrow. Look for some new pictures on Flickr.
Highlights:
1. A good dinner and fast service
2. Stuffed animals and ice cream: the reward for collecting stickers from four of the five gift stores located at the main villages in the park.
Quirks:
1. The kids' cousin K has seen all but two state license plates. After a quick check, we've also seen all of the Canadian provinces.
2. We saw an entire leg bone (ankle to hip) of what we believed to be an elk just lying by the sidewalk.
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
United in Our Hearts and Hopes
Day 19:
Happy 4th of July! A gold star for anyone who can name the title song without looking it up.
We spent much of the day around Old Faithful and the Upper Geyser area. Did you know that Yellowstone has more geysers than all of the rest of the world combined? For those of you who have never been here, I'm truly sorry. There is no way I can hope to capture the experience in words. There is so much to the beyond the visuals you get in pictures: the heat from the spray, the smell of sulfur dioxide, the delicate white patterns in the spray and the sheer power of nature that blasts water up to 300 feet in the air. If you have a list of things to do, you should put the geysers on it.
We of course spent time waiting at Old Faithful until it erupted. Sadly for us, we saw the spray over the tree tops as we pulled into the parking lot implying a 60-90 minute wait. We killed some time by taking in a short movie at the Visitor Center and walking through the very crowded gift shop. Once we made it outside to find ourselves a viewing spot, a lone bison decided to wander into the area and give himself a dirt bath. It was fascinating to hear the varied comments as the crowd approached the creature to take pictures. Park rules require that we maintain a 75 foot distance for safety and we were darn close to the minimum. There was an great exchange between a husband and wife where he wanted a better picture and she just wanted the heck out.
Once Old Faithful went off, it was up the 3-mile trail for a self-guided tour of the geysers, pools and vents in the area. After seeing many small geysers of various heights, we finally came upon a large group of fellow tourists waiting on benches in front of something called the Grand Geyser. Unlike Old Faithful which had an eruption window of plus or minus ten minutes, most other geysers sported windows of upwards of an hour. You have to be pretty dedicated in order to see most other geysers in action. We lucked onto the Grand Geyser at the end of its two-hour window and were treated to a 10-minute long display that we all agreed was better than that of Old Faithful.
The rest of the walk was more of the same smelly, beautiful phenomena. There were a lot of colored pools that came about because the varying water temperatures foster different bacteria that cause the colors and many patterns created by the minerals in the water. We also stopped to identify tracks as part of the kids' Junior Ranger requirements.
The farthest point in our hike was a place called the Morning Glory Pool. So called because it used to carry the deep blue color of it's namesake flower, it has been permanently damaged by people throwing coins and rocks into it thereby decreasing the temperature of the water beyond the inlet. It's just human nature and the law of large numbers, I guess.
Soon after deciding that we were all tired and that it was time to turn back, it started to rain. At first it was a welcome, cooling rain after the long walk in the blazing sunshine. It soon turned to big fat drops that really made an impression followed by small hail! This went on for about five minutes and we hid out in the shelter of some trees before heading back.
The way back was far less pretty. Instead of the serpentine boardwalk that ran between the geysers we only had a wade asphalt path that sometimes ran next to a river and would present a path to an occasional geyser. The only good part, other than it being a direct route home, was a wandering elk that stopped for a drink. And we had just been complaining about how little wildlife we had seen so far!
Highlights:
1. The geyser area
2. Both the kids finished their Junior Ranger tasks in one day.
3. A tall chocolate ice cream cone after the long hike
Quirks:
1. The sun is really intense here at 7800 feet. Temperatures in the shade are really nice, but it's very uncomfortable when the sun hits you directly. Luckily, we had a lot of cloud cover.
2. Some people adamantly drive the 35 mph speed limit. These are the people at the head of 15-car columns. They are also the ones that don't use turnouts.
3. The guy who packed out Ritz crackers, cheese whiz and summer sausage to the Grand Geyser. Seemed like a perfect place for some brie (even though I don't care for it much).
4. An old fashioned flip-number gasoline pump that I thought might run into mechanical problems because of how fast the price portion was spinning.
Happy 4th of July! A gold star for anyone who can name the title song without looking it up.
We spent much of the day around Old Faithful and the Upper Geyser area. Did you know that Yellowstone has more geysers than all of the rest of the world combined? For those of you who have never been here, I'm truly sorry. There is no way I can hope to capture the experience in words. There is so much to the beyond the visuals you get in pictures: the heat from the spray, the smell of sulfur dioxide, the delicate white patterns in the spray and the sheer power of nature that blasts water up to 300 feet in the air. If you have a list of things to do, you should put the geysers on it.
We of course spent time waiting at Old Faithful until it erupted. Sadly for us, we saw the spray over the tree tops as we pulled into the parking lot implying a 60-90 minute wait. We killed some time by taking in a short movie at the Visitor Center and walking through the very crowded gift shop. Once we made it outside to find ourselves a viewing spot, a lone bison decided to wander into the area and give himself a dirt bath. It was fascinating to hear the varied comments as the crowd approached the creature to take pictures. Park rules require that we maintain a 75 foot distance for safety and we were darn close to the minimum. There was an great exchange between a husband and wife where he wanted a better picture and she just wanted the heck out.
Once Old Faithful went off, it was up the 3-mile trail for a self-guided tour of the geysers, pools and vents in the area. After seeing many small geysers of various heights, we finally came upon a large group of fellow tourists waiting on benches in front of something called the Grand Geyser. Unlike Old Faithful which had an eruption window of plus or minus ten minutes, most other geysers sported windows of upwards of an hour. You have to be pretty dedicated in order to see most other geysers in action. We lucked onto the Grand Geyser at the end of its two-hour window and were treated to a 10-minute long display that we all agreed was better than that of Old Faithful.
The rest of the walk was more of the same smelly, beautiful phenomena. There were a lot of colored pools that came about because the varying water temperatures foster different bacteria that cause the colors and many patterns created by the minerals in the water. We also stopped to identify tracks as part of the kids' Junior Ranger requirements.
The farthest point in our hike was a place called the Morning Glory Pool. So called because it used to carry the deep blue color of it's namesake flower, it has been permanently damaged by people throwing coins and rocks into it thereby decreasing the temperature of the water beyond the inlet. It's just human nature and the law of large numbers, I guess.
Soon after deciding that we were all tired and that it was time to turn back, it started to rain. At first it was a welcome, cooling rain after the long walk in the blazing sunshine. It soon turned to big fat drops that really made an impression followed by small hail! This went on for about five minutes and we hid out in the shelter of some trees before heading back.
The way back was far less pretty. Instead of the serpentine boardwalk that ran between the geysers we only had a wade asphalt path that sometimes ran next to a river and would present a path to an occasional geyser. The only good part, other than it being a direct route home, was a wandering elk that stopped for a drink. And we had just been complaining about how little wildlife we had seen so far!
Highlights:
1. The geyser area
2. Both the kids finished their Junior Ranger tasks in one day.
3. A tall chocolate ice cream cone after the long hike
Quirks:
1. The sun is really intense here at 7800 feet. Temperatures in the shade are really nice, but it's very uncomfortable when the sun hits you directly. Luckily, we had a lot of cloud cover.
2. Some people adamantly drive the 35 mph speed limit. These are the people at the head of 15-car columns. They are also the ones that don't use turnouts.
3. The guy who packed out Ritz crackers, cheese whiz and summer sausage to the Grand Geyser. Seemed like a perfect place for some brie (even though I don't care for it much).
4. An old fashioned flip-number gasoline pump that I thought might run into mechanical problems because of how fast the price portion was spinning.
Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?
Day 18:
Today we drove through the Bighorn Mountain area and then into Yellowstone. It was our most picturesque driving day yet. We started by heading into the Bighorn Mountain area, that tantalizing close range where we could see snow from our six-thousand degree purgatory. The drive gave us beautiful views of the plains we had just left and hints of things to come. An added bonus to this drive was the fact that it was likely to be a windy one. My wife drives when we hit such conditions to stay in control of her motion sickness, so I get to do a lot of sightseeing and picture taking hanging out of car windows.
Half way through the mountains we stopped at Shell Falls. In addition to a some nice shots of the falls, I got a chance to talk to bicyclists wearing the same jerseys we saw making the arduous climb. It turns out they were from the Winnipeg area and they were had just started into their 1000-mile, twelve-day journey from Yellowstone to Winnipeg to benefit Habitat for Humanity. I've always wished I was able to do a ride like this, and I have nothing but respect for them. And they were really nice, like your stereotypical Canadians.
We also had a short chat with a woman with whom we were inadvertently traveling. It turns out that she and her husband were at Horse Thief and Dayton on the nights we spent there. They are on a three-month (!) ride from Florida that would take them to a motorcycle rally in Wyoming then through Sedona, California, up the West Coast to see her daughters in British Columbia and then back down through Wyoming to Texas and across the deep south back to Florida. I get tired just typing all that.
I just had some really bad espresso. It came from one of those drive-up kiosks so it should be no surprise. But desperate times call for desperate measures so I thought I'd give it a try. My first clue should have been when the gal at the windows asked me if "that's all, nothing in it?" followed by the fact that there were two plastic stirrers sticking out of the to-go cup looking suspiciously like straws. She drew it long so it was going to be weak, but I wasn't expecting them to use bad coffee. Lesson learned.
Yellowstone is big. Big like that Geo Metro -sized stuffed animal you win for getting that plastic ring on the red coke bottle. The ranger hosting the forest fire talk told us that it is over two MILLION acres. It took us over an hour to get from the east entrance to our hotel room on the south side of Lake Yellowstone. We have already mapped out two-hour drives (one way) to some of the more remote locations. It's a good thing we have two full days here.
The forest fire talk was fascinating. I didn't know that the forest service has a policy of allowing any naturally occurring fire to burn itself out unless there is danger to life or property. They instituted this policy in the late seventies after realizing that the previous hundred year's policy of aggressively putting out every fire was interfering natural renewal. He spoke of types of plants that only grew in the wake of a fire either because of the additional nutrients fires provide or because the heat of the fire enabled a certain process.
This will be the first of three nights in the park away from any broadband access. If I post to the blog it will be over dial-up (gasp) and I certainly won't be uploading any pictures.
p.s. I just connected at 21K. It's so slow. I think I'm going to die before anything happens
Highlights:
1. The wild flowers in bloom in the Bighorn National Forest.
2. Finally getting to a place where the ambient temperature won't melt gold. Our way out of Dayton on Highway 14 took us over a pass at 8300 feet.
3. The views of the mountains nestled in clouds those of clouds painting patterns on the scenery below
Quirks:
1. Painted cattle crossings. So who's dumber? The cattle or the people who are still using real cattle crossings?
2. A ski area in the Bighorn Forest. Sure, why not?
3. Cyclists on the windy, steep, narrow roads in the Bighorn Forest. They seem to be doing a fundraiser for Habitat for Humanity.
Today we drove through the Bighorn Mountain area and then into Yellowstone. It was our most picturesque driving day yet. We started by heading into the Bighorn Mountain area, that tantalizing close range where we could see snow from our six-thousand degree purgatory. The drive gave us beautiful views of the plains we had just left and hints of things to come. An added bonus to this drive was the fact that it was likely to be a windy one. My wife drives when we hit such conditions to stay in control of her motion sickness, so I get to do a lot of sightseeing and picture taking hanging out of car windows.
Half way through the mountains we stopped at Shell Falls. In addition to a some nice shots of the falls, I got a chance to talk to bicyclists wearing the same jerseys we saw making the arduous climb. It turns out they were from the Winnipeg area and they were had just started into their 1000-mile, twelve-day journey from Yellowstone to Winnipeg to benefit Habitat for Humanity. I've always wished I was able to do a ride like this, and I have nothing but respect for them. And they were really nice, like your stereotypical Canadians.
We also had a short chat with a woman with whom we were inadvertently traveling. It turns out that she and her husband were at Horse Thief and Dayton on the nights we spent there. They are on a three-month (!) ride from Florida that would take them to a motorcycle rally in Wyoming then through Sedona, California, up the West Coast to see her daughters in British Columbia and then back down through Wyoming to Texas and across the deep south back to Florida. I get tired just typing all that.
I just had some really bad espresso. It came from one of those drive-up kiosks so it should be no surprise. But desperate times call for desperate measures so I thought I'd give it a try. My first clue should have been when the gal at the windows asked me if "that's all, nothing in it?" followed by the fact that there were two plastic stirrers sticking out of the to-go cup looking suspiciously like straws. She drew it long so it was going to be weak, but I wasn't expecting them to use bad coffee. Lesson learned.
Yellowstone is big. Big like that Geo Metro -sized stuffed animal you win for getting that plastic ring on the red coke bottle. The ranger hosting the forest fire talk told us that it is over two MILLION acres. It took us over an hour to get from the east entrance to our hotel room on the south side of Lake Yellowstone. We have already mapped out two-hour drives (one way) to some of the more remote locations. It's a good thing we have two full days here.
The forest fire talk was fascinating. I didn't know that the forest service has a policy of allowing any naturally occurring fire to burn itself out unless there is danger to life or property. They instituted this policy in the late seventies after realizing that the previous hundred year's policy of aggressively putting out every fire was interfering natural renewal. He spoke of types of plants that only grew in the wake of a fire either because of the additional nutrients fires provide or because the heat of the fire enabled a certain process.
This will be the first of three nights in the park away from any broadband access. If I post to the blog it will be over dial-up (gasp) and I certainly won't be uploading any pictures.
p.s. I just connected at 21K. It's so slow. I think I'm going to die before anything happens
Highlights:
1. The wild flowers in bloom in the Bighorn National Forest.
2. Finally getting to a place where the ambient temperature won't melt gold. Our way out of Dayton on Highway 14 took us over a pass at 8300 feet.
3. The views of the mountains nestled in clouds those of clouds painting patterns on the scenery below
Quirks:
1. Painted cattle crossings. So who's dumber? The cattle or the people who are still using real cattle crossings?
2. A ski area in the Bighorn Forest. Sure, why not?
3. Cyclists on the windy, steep, narrow roads in the Bighorn Forest. They seem to be doing a fundraiser for Habitat for Humanity.
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
I Wish It Would Rain Down
Day 17:
Not a lot to report today. We basically drove all the way from our Horse Thief Campground to one in the tiny town of Dayton, WY in 100 degree heat. This time, however, we didn't have the prarie gale-force winds cooling us down. It was just brutual. One of the party had the fine suggestion of coming back into town to see the new Pixar movie, Ratatouile. It was a great idea in the heat, but it required us to get the tent set up really quickly and eat dinner really quickly. By the time we got ready to drive back to town, we were all drenched in sweat.
It was a nice older complex that had two huge theaters. I didn't recogize the sound system they advertised, it was so old. Since it was a Monday night the theater seemed pretty empty, though I'm sure there could have been a pretty decent sized crowd given the size of the place. For those who care, I enjoyed the movie.
Our one stop along the way was at Jewel Cave National Monument. Although I am always impressed by caves, I tend to forget about them when I think of the beauty of nature. This is a very extensive network of caves near (in?) the Black Hills area of South Dakota. They continue to explore and find more. It carried the added bonus of being 49 degrees during our cave tour which was very welcome given the heat we had been suffering.
Highlights:
1. Another good roadside diner: The Highway 16 Diner. Don't confuse this with the Route 16 Diner where we ate last night.
Quirks:
1. Every twenty miles or so you'll see gates and dire warnings about what will happen if you cross them when they are down. I can just imagine drifts of blowing snow ten feet deep during the winter.
2. Ashtrays on the table at the Highway 16 Diner! I can't remember the last time I saw smoking in an eating establishment.
Not a lot to report today. We basically drove all the way from our Horse Thief Campground to one in the tiny town of Dayton, WY in 100 degree heat. This time, however, we didn't have the prarie gale-force winds cooling us down. It was just brutual. One of the party had the fine suggestion of coming back into town to see the new Pixar movie, Ratatouile. It was a great idea in the heat, but it required us to get the tent set up really quickly and eat dinner really quickly. By the time we got ready to drive back to town, we were all drenched in sweat.
It was a nice older complex that had two huge theaters. I didn't recogize the sound system they advertised, it was so old. Since it was a Monday night the theater seemed pretty empty, though I'm sure there could have been a pretty decent sized crowd given the size of the place. For those who care, I enjoyed the movie.
Our one stop along the way was at Jewel Cave National Monument. Although I am always impressed by caves, I tend to forget about them when I think of the beauty of nature. This is a very extensive network of caves near (in?) the Black Hills area of South Dakota. They continue to explore and find more. It carried the added bonus of being 49 degrees during our cave tour which was very welcome given the heat we had been suffering.
Highlights:
1. Another good roadside diner: The Highway 16 Diner. Don't confuse this with the Route 16 Diner where we ate last night.
Quirks:
1. Every twenty miles or so you'll see gates and dire warnings about what will happen if you cross them when they are down. I can just imagine drifts of blowing snow ten feet deep during the winter.
2. Ashtrays on the table at the Highway 16 Diner! I can't remember the last time I saw smoking in an eating establishment.
As We Lie in Fields of Gold
Day 16:
Man the roads in the Black Hills are steep. I have a decently powered minivan. Now that you've stopped snickering, I can tell you that I've rarely had the thing kick into passing gears even when I'm actually passing. Not so here.
It was Sahara-hot again today. The bank thermometer in Hill City at the end of the day read 100 degrees. The good news is that the constant and strong wind makes it feel cooler. I guess the wind chill factor helps sometimes.
The main focus of today was a trip to the Reptile Gardens. I think their big draws had once been the komodo dragons, alligators and gallapagos turtles, but they've since expanded to local birds of prey and other locals. We spent a lot of time at the prarie dog penitentiary because of the nice shade trees.
The alligator show was very well done in a funny-yet-dangerous sort of way. It was run by a young man in jeans and a T-shirt wearing a wireless headset. He told the typical bad Disneyland Jungle Safari puns at first but then his jokes moved on to his boss and started to get quite good. All the while, we were learning about crocodiles, caymans, aligators and gariols.
The highlight of the show was the gator wrestling. He started by declaring that the louder we cheer, the stupider his tricks would get. This really got the young kids going. The croc that the audience chose was so big he couldn't get it on shore. This was where the older parts of the audience started to realize that this was serious business. He talked us through how to approach gators, where to put your hands and knees and then proceeded to demonstrate on his victim who seemed to want nothing more than to lay in the sun in peace. We learned that someone with a relatively strong grip could easily keep the jaws shut. They had about 35lbs of opening force, compared to 2000 of closing force.
It was great to have the kids see Mount Rushmore. It's one of those things that everyone should do, though there's really not much to it. Drive up, park at the massive parking structure, walk through the avenue of state flags, then take your pictures. The exposition hall and brochures did an excellent job answering all my questions. How did they do it? How long did it take? Who funded it? Apparently they've been asked everything over the years.
For dinner, we ate at the Route 16 Diner, an authentic place complete with pictures of Elvis and Marilyn and classic cars. Another diner success! This would be a pretty good way to travel arond America if you didn't die of a heart attack. Given the current state of health in the nation, maybe that's what people do.
Highlights
1. There was an ice cream shoppe on Main Street t at was closed last night and this was a crime. I dropped in today and grabbed a root beer float. The float itself was bland, but it the proprietress told me to come back if I needed more root beer and that really sold it for me. The number one issue among male root beer float drinkers ages 35-50 is the icecream/root beer balance.
Quirks:
1. Heard on the radio: You can't buy liquor in a grocery store in Montana but we did manage to find a drive up window at a bar.
Man the roads in the Black Hills are steep. I have a decently powered minivan. Now that you've stopped snickering, I can tell you that I've rarely had the thing kick into passing gears even when I'm actually passing. Not so here.
It was Sahara-hot again today. The bank thermometer in Hill City at the end of the day read 100 degrees. The good news is that the constant and strong wind makes it feel cooler. I guess the wind chill factor helps sometimes.
The main focus of today was a trip to the Reptile Gardens. I think their big draws had once been the komodo dragons, alligators and gallapagos turtles, but they've since expanded to local birds of prey and other locals. We spent a lot of time at the prarie dog penitentiary because of the nice shade trees.
The alligator show was very well done in a funny-yet-dangerous sort of way. It was run by a young man in jeans and a T-shirt wearing a wireless headset. He told the typical bad Disneyland Jungle Safari puns at first but then his jokes moved on to his boss and started to get quite good. All the while, we were learning about crocodiles, caymans, aligators and gariols.
The highlight of the show was the gator wrestling. He started by declaring that the louder we cheer, the stupider his tricks would get. This really got the young kids going. The croc that the audience chose was so big he couldn't get it on shore. This was where the older parts of the audience started to realize that this was serious business. He talked us through how to approach gators, where to put your hands and knees and then proceeded to demonstrate on his victim who seemed to want nothing more than to lay in the sun in peace. We learned that someone with a relatively strong grip could easily keep the jaws shut. They had about 35lbs of opening force, compared to 2000 of closing force.
It was great to have the kids see Mount Rushmore. It's one of those things that everyone should do, though there's really not much to it. Drive up, park at the massive parking structure, walk through the avenue of state flags, then take your pictures. The exposition hall and brochures did an excellent job answering all my questions. How did they do it? How long did it take? Who funded it? Apparently they've been asked everything over the years.
For dinner, we ate at the Route 16 Diner, an authentic place complete with pictures of Elvis and Marilyn and classic cars. Another diner success! This would be a pretty good way to travel arond America if you didn't die of a heart attack. Given the current state of health in the nation, maybe that's what people do.
Highlights
1. There was an ice cream shoppe on Main Street t at was closed last night and this was a crime. I dropped in today and grabbed a root beer float. The float itself was bland, but it the proprietress told me to come back if I needed more root beer and that really sold it for me. The number one issue among male root beer float drinkers ages 35-50 is the icecream/root beer balance.
Quirks:
1. Heard on the radio: You can't buy liquor in a grocery store in Montana but we did manage to find a drive up window at a bar.
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