Day 12: Yellowstone, Day 1

Yellowstone National Park is large. It covers more territory than I had realized. In fact, if you placed Naperville where West Yellowstone is, the park would extend past Michigan City, Indiana. That's over 50 miles as the raven flies, and there are no raven-straight roads. At the maximum speed limit of 45mph, you don't get anywhere fast, so it's a good thing we're on vacation!

We are just two blocks from the entrance, and it is 14 miles from the West Entrance to the park to our first destination, Madison. Today, we are going to hit Yellowstone's Grand Canyon, and reserve Old Faithful for tomorrow.

Along that 40 mile trek, there are a lot of wildlife. At the time of writing this blog, we've been in the park 3 days (yes, I'm falling behind!), and we have yet to not see at least one elk on the trip to Madison.

And usually Bison as well. Some of the warnings about the Bison are pretty dire (we also call them Buffalo, but I guess that's not technically correct. Whatever :-). They can charge at 30 mph or twice as fast as you can run, but that doesn't seem to stop some people. I haven't seen anyone try to pet the Buffalo yet, but I suspect it's only a matter of time. You can always tell where the Bison are by the line of cars along the side of the road. They are a popular camera shot.

There are wolves, bears, and moose, which we haven't seen, and coyote, prairie dogs, beavers, and of course those Becky-eating Chipmunks, which we have. (On day 4 we are heading up to Mammoth falls, and we've heard there have been sightings up north of bears and wolves). The picture to the left is a top-down view of a beaver. To the right is the best picture we could get of the coyote pups at the Gibbon Meadow.

The park rangers are very protective of the wildlife, and try to keep people away from nesting eagles, and such. (They don't seem to worried about the Bison though :-) They have a bit of a quandry though -- if they put up cones to keep people from stopping, it results in long lines of slow moving cars; if they don't most (but not all) folks drive right past without realizing they are there. And you are constantly reminded not to feed the animals. So I might get in trouble with this picture. The kids were getting tired, so I enticed them with M&Ms. Like little birds...

Along the way, we saw a few hot springs. The first was visible from the road, Terrace Spring. You can see them by the steam over them on all but the warmest days. And today it's in the 60's.

At the Artist's Paint Pot, we say a number of cool hot springs, and mud pots. Mud pots are fun to watch, but they don't translate well to camera. It's like watching something the consistency of pancake batter boiling.

Finally, we reached Canyon, and took a lot of pictures of the upper and lower falls of the Yellowstone river. Here, at the lower falls, the walls of the canyon are multi-colored from hot springs and fumuroles right in the walls. And there are a surprising number of geysers and hot springs along the river itself. (It does in fact raise the temperature of the water, as we'll find on day 3, but more of that later!) Apparently at least some of the steam from the falls is from a geyser.

Well tomorrow is the trip to the Old Faithful geyser and the rest of its brood. This should be fun!

Day 11: Travel to West Yellowstone

On our 9 hour trip from Moab to West Yellowstone, we traveled through Utah and the Great Salt Lake, Idaho, and finally into Montana. The route took us back some of the way that we came in, I-70 but then to US-191 north-west through the mountains.

The first part of the trip was through the high desert of the Colorado plateau, but once we reached the Salt Lake city area, things started looking greener. And of course we had to stop at the Great Salt Lake.

On the way in to the Antelope Island, we took some pictures to the north and south of the long causeway that connects it to the mainland. The smooth water made for some really interesting pictures.

A quick refresher about Salt Lake: incredibly salty, the only life in the lake are brine shrimp, at the margins are incredible clouds of gnats, and on the surface are sea gulls. That's it unless you count the waders. And the smell. Depending on the breeze and how far the water has receded from the shore, it smells like ... well salty dead and decaying things.

The brine shrimp are tiny little red critters also called 'Sea Monkeys'. And none of them were wearing crowns, despite the adverts. Becky had been there 9 years ago at the age of 6. Corey was 2 and doesn't remember a thing. All Becky remembers of the previous trip was that she thought the brine shrimp were biting her. In actuality, it was the salt making all the small cuts and abrasions sting.

What the parents remember was that it was dusk when we left the island last time, and we paid the price. Normally all those billions of gnats fly close to the ground probably because of the steady breezes. And they are apparently good at one thing, concentrating the 'salty dead and decaying things' smell. At dusk, the breezes die and all those gnats create great clouds of evil smelling bugs that coat your windows and exhaust system with bug guts. Guess what, it doesn't smell any better cooked on the hot exhaust system!

The water in the Salt Lake as receded a long way from the shore line, and we had quite a trek getting to it. The kids and Dad braved the shallow warm water, and the kids brought back a specimen of the salt shrimp. The bugs are everywhere, but luckily they stay within the first 3 inches of the ground.

North of Salt Lake, the terrain looks more like Wisconsin with mountains. And we start seeing rivers and ponds. What a difference it makes. Once we hit Idaho Falls we took US 20, the last turn for another hundred miles or so. For a lot of this leg of the trip, we travel along the Snake river. The area is far more lush, a veritable jungle compared to what we've been used to seeing lately.

As we neared our destination, we could see the Grand Tetons in the distance.

Tomorrow, Yellowstone!

Day 9, 10: Arches and Rest

Moab Utah is a very scenic place. The city is bordered on both sides by mountains as you can see by this picture looking north-ish along the main street. The other picture is from within Arches National Park looking back towards the green city of Moab.

It is also about a mile from the Arches National Park, which is convenient as that is where we are going today. As the movie in the visitor center reinforced, Arches is a part of the Colorado plateau, as is Grand Canyon and Bryce, et al. And while interesting in its own right, it isn't as interesting as Bryce.

But nevertheless, it is home to some very unusual geography. Apparently, some millions of years ago, sandstone was laid over a salt dome. The salt dome partially dissolved, and the sandstone and rock above it collapsed, creating faults within it -- places for erosion to occur. Erosion left giant slabs of rock called 'fins' exposed.

Some of the fins have softer rock below, and it erodes from the bottom up, leaving holes in the fins. The results are the arches. In fact, I'm going to jump ahead and show a couple pictures of the 'Delicate Arch' used as the official logo of Utah. The picture to the left, has the arch nearly in the center of the picture. Hopefully, you can see it. The picture to the right is what Kelley and I saw with the zoom lens after we hiked a half mile to the outlook. Yep, minus the kids. This was at the end of the trip, and they were pooped, so I'm giving you the dessert first. We could have taken a 3 mile hike to see it close up. Yeah, right :-) But it was pretty cool, and yes, the picture really is level! This is the single most famous arch. It's still eroding, just not as fast as Bryce geology is.

We had fun going to the 'Windows' section of arches. There are a number of arches (North and South Window, and Turret Window). They are all within easy hiking distance and we took our time. We lucked out, although it was very dry here and in the 90's, the temps soared to the 100's (F) the day we left for Yellowstone. So, even though it was a bit cloudy (thoroughly cursed by Kelley :-) the conditions were tolerable. (Dry heat; just keep saying it to yourself!)

There wasn't a lot of wildlife, unless you count the cryptobiotic ground cover (funny it looked like scaley ground to me) that is a mix of bacteria and other small life that gives the greener ground-cover the wedge it needs to get started. Everywhere they had the equivalent of the 'don't walk on the grass' signs. Once damaged, the cryptobiotic (I like typing that) life can take 250 years to recover completely.

However, we did see this fine specimen of a lizard on the trail. He's just not as large as he appears, here. And of course, the ravens. You could hear them complaining to each other in the distance like grumpy old men.

But, on to the arches. Here, at Arches, we actually get to climb on stuff. That's pretty cool. Here, I believe we have the South Window. It's large, and reminds me of the 'Time Bagel' from Star Trek. Oh, you know the one; from 'City on the Edge of Forever' where Shatner gets to kiss and kill ... oh never mind. It also looks like an eye. To the right, we are relaxing in the 'tear duct' of the eye; the right hand side. Pretty comfy.

Next, we visited the North Window. To the left, we see Corey and Dad waving. Now we pull back and show you where we are. We're somewhere there. We found a trail around the back of the window and scaled some almost too difficult sliprock to get up there. And it was windy when we got to the top. I think Corey believes me now when I say that getting down is harder than getting up! On the way up, he offered to go first since he didn't think he'd be able to catch me if I fell. I appreciated the thought, but told him his job was to get out of the way of me and the rocks with me if I was on my way down :-)

Finally, at Turret Window, we had an 'incident' (just in fun). Take these in order from left-to-right, top-to-bottom.








There are other interesting features that aren't arches. Here's one called the three gossips. And to the right, is balanced rock.

Even with all the dryness, there still was some pretty flowers at this time of year. Kelley took a picture of one of them.

Finally, we were tired. And you know what? We declared that the next day was a day off instead of going to Canyonland. I'm sure it is a really nice place, but we were just tired of being in the car all the time.

So we bummed around Moab and found some neat stores and restaurants. One of my favorites is a place called Eclectica -- a coffee, breakfast, and lunch sorta place that you have to practically fight through the Honeysuckle to get to. We also found a 'secret' park about 5 miles out of town along the Colorado River called 'Moonflower' with exceptionally fine red sand.

Unfortunately, we seem to have had the first problem with photographs -- we used the kids camera to take a bunch of pictures of Moab, Eclectica, and the Moonflower place but they seem to be gone. Sigh. Hopefully they'll turn up, and I've just misplaced them.

Day 8: Travel to Moab

On the 8th day, we travel from Cedar City, UT to Moab, Utah. Where Cedar City has a more utilitarian feel like most cities that get a small amount of revenue from tourism, Moab is a different animal altogether. In fact, it seems to be a refuge for hippies from the 60's and 70's. It's unique and worth visiting again.

I don't think I've seen a larger very fit aging population of folks. It has a collection of typical 'active' tourist shops for hiking and biking and climbing, but also un-typical collection of new-age shops stocked with crystals, health food stores, eclectic restaurants and I'm sure there's a head shop around here someplace :-). It's seems very inviting. However, I'm getting ahead of myself. We're not there yet!

Heading north out of Cedar City, Utah on US Route 15 we see the obligatory desert-like terrain, although nothing to compare to the Navajo reservation and Kaibab National Park area north-east of the Grand Canyon. Now however, we also see mountains with snow for the first time. I had Kelley take this picture because of their name -- the Wah Wah Mountains. Hey, I can't make this stuff up.

Now, on the way, we also picked up a couple of new mysteries. For example, why has the state symbol for their highways become these? These have gotta be beehives, right? As George Carlin might say, "It's a mystery".

And while we're on the subject of roads, the second mystery. These guys have got to come up with a better naming system -- I swear this is the 6th 'Ranch Exit' we've passed in this area. on the other hand, it could be one mighty big ranch. We passed the first one about 10 miles south of Cedar City, and this is someplace about 1 hour north of there (about 70 miles). Hate the mend the fences on that ranch!

We headed east on US Route 70.

In a little town called Salina, UT, we hit a Mom-and-Pop, well only Mom, cafe called 'Mom's Cafe'. It really is a small-town cafe, but I can heartily recommend it. It had the best French Dip I've ever had, and the 'house salad' was excellent with fresh peas and little pretzels and ... ok, you get the picture. It was good stuff, so sue me :-) It's even appeared in National Geographic.

After this, the ground started rising, and we ran into a very strange set of geology. I'll have to the let sign explain it (though the text is rather high-schoolish). The region depicted on the sign is huge -- it took us about an hour to get through it. And even though the expressway speeds here are 75, it was tortuous enough that Kelley and I have had our first disagreement over how fast to go. She won. Sorry dear, I won't argue again. (-:

I'm not sure what kind of salt the 'Salt Wash' is made of, but it's very white, and it dissolves in water (yep, that's what salt does). Finally, after going up for what seemed forever, we crested the big, flat, tilted terrain and headed precipitously down -- but there was a nice tournout first. Take a look.

I'm somewhere to the right on that ridge. Apparently the clothes I'm wearing blend in quite well. I'll include the sign here so it can describe the geography, if you care.



This area is called a 'reef' and I can kinda see the resemblance. In fact, when we finally reached the bottom, we saw what looked for all intents and purposes, three ships gliding through the desert.

Well, this was one of our shortest trips, just 4 hours (what a relief). The next day we'll see the Arches. The day after that, we were to see Canyonlands, but Dad declared a day of relaxation, because Wednesday (that's tomorrow for me -- ed) we go on a 9 hour trip to Yellowstone.

I'll try to get to the description of the Arches in a reasonable time -- with the day off, I'm only 1 day behind on the blog. (Hooray!) Of the two, Bryce Canyon is better, though....

Have fun folks, I hear that the cicadas have finally reached our part of Naperville, and I can tell you I'm not missing them! There are very few bugs out here, and the relative humidity today was twice that of yesterday at 22%. Gotta love it. (Kelley hated the fact that we have clouds for the first day in weeks -- it's screwing up her pictures. Can't have everything :-) And Moab is right on the Colorado river, so we've finally broken our dry spell of seeing no liquid water except for what comes out of a tap (ok, apart from the Virgin river in Zion).

Cheers to all and thanks for the comments! Keep them coming, we enjoy reading them. And we'll try to send some postcards....we'll see how that works out.