Leaving Yellowstone, looking back

My entries are still a few days behind, mostly due to high internet traffic during the times that I am able to use the computer.  The high traffic makes uploading pictures, or even getting onto the blog page, very slow to impossible.  These next days, we’re just traveling through Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, on our way to New York.  So hopefully, without much else going on, I can get caught up. 

June 25:

I was very sad to be leaving Yellowstone, then happily surprised that our route out of the area would take us right back through the park to get to the other side and continue on through Wyoming.


We stopped at Mud Volcano, an area of pools and caves that we didn't get to see on our main Yellowstone visit. 

Taking a break along the steep walkway.

The cave above is called the Dragon's Mouth Spring.  It actually makes a loud, growling noise as the huge puffs of steam come out.  It sounds like a very large dragon is inside the cave, huffing and puffing.  I can only imagine what ancient people must have thought about this particular spot. 

This was a frequently repeated admonition, and became a running joke between Claire and Eric.  Eric even wants a T-shirt with this on it!  Apparently, the ground is prone to crumbling beneath one's feet, opening up new spots for the underground steam to escape.  According to one lady we heard yelling at other sightseers who were walking off trail to get closer to the bison, "Breaking through the ground is the NUMBER ONE cause of DEATH in Yellowstone!  That and the bison."

After the Dragon's Mouth Spring, we were on our way out of Yellowstone.  It was still about an hour's drive to leave the park, and we saw more awesome vistas.

Ray already told you about the stop for Eric to play in the snow.  Eric threw a few snowballs and really had a good time. Claire wanted to go, but she didn't have the right kind of shoes on to cross the creek.  Who knew we would encounter this opportunity?

In this next picture, Eric's arms are up in the air not as a way to balance while crossing the creek, but in a show of triumph and joy about playing in the snow in the summer time!

Later in the day, driving through this area was really pretty, with the green grass and hills, aqua blue water, oranges and browns of the near mountains, purple mountains beyond, and the cobalt blue sky with puffy white clouds.  I don’t know if the photos do justice to the natural beauty we saw.  

Sioux Falls, SD to Davenport, IA

Friday, June 29th, 2012

We had rolling hills in South Dakota and Minnesota and then lush green rolling farmland through Iowa.  There were corn fields as far as we could see!

When we got to Davenport and set up the camper there were very dark skies and it was rumbling toward us.  The first storm skirted by and just gave us a few drops.  There was enough time to light the grill and get our pork chops cooking.

We had dinner inside.  Jen prepared a nice side dish of flavored rice and green beans to go with the pork.  We watched part of Fried Green Tomatoes. We had to stop the movie because the rain got so loud on the roof of the camper that we couldn't hear it!  So, we played Catchphrase instead.

It was nice to crawl into a soft dry bed with the rain on the canvas lulling me to sleep.  I love that.

Onward further east today.  I-80 here we come!

Mount Rushmore (Keystone) to Sioux Falls, SD

Thursday, June 28, 2012

On our way out of the area we stopped for a profile picture of George....

And we went through this cool tunnel for the second time...

Our day took us across South Dakota on Interstate 90 and we stopped at a nice KOA in Sioux Falls.  We had a nice swim, played a game of Apples to Apples. 

While playing the game we had popcorn.  This is something we have never had before while staying in the camper.  We have a new little microwave so that is now possible! 

For dinner we had grill cheese sandwiches (cooked over the grill by Jen) and tomato soup.  We finished up a movie we started a few days ago.

Onward east toward New York...

Mount Rushmore

Wednesday, June 27th, 2011

We had a very busy and fun day.  The weather was beautiful.  We did a lot of activities at the campground and also in the town of Keystone before heading up to Mount Rushmore after dinner.  This is because we wanted to see the daily evening lighting show of the monument.

First we had a round of mini golf at the campground.  That was fun!

Claire and Eric played a GIANT game of checkers!

Jen  and the kids did the water slide again....

Yes, I tried it too.  It was fun - but a bit scary for me.  I thought we were going to launch over the side on the way down.

Eric and I enjoyed a game of catch while Jen made tuna sandwiches for lunch.  We played a round of Rumikube while we had our lunch.

Then we headed into town for some shopping and dinner.  Here are Claire and Eric enjoying Jake the Snake at his gift shop.  We didn't know this, but Jake moved and talked (remotely by a gentleman on the other side of the store).  That led to some funny stuff then :-)

After dinner in the town of Keystone (Pizza!)  we headed up to Mount Rushmore.  We enjoyed the museums, gift shops and a video presentation too. 

The picture below was taken during a hike that Eric and I took that brings you very close to the monument.  We could see the drill holes in the fallen rocks below the monument.

Eric got to tickle George's head...

Claire held the monument up for a picture...

We stayed for the evening lighting ceremony too.  At the end of the ceremony it was time to lower the American flag.  The ranger in charge invited all of the veterans in the audience to come onto the stage.  This was both active duty and prior service.  I headed to the stage.  It was an emotional event for me when the audience applauded (tears in my eyes now while I type).  There were a lot of us up there.

It was a beautiful day and one I will not forget.

Buffalo, WY to Hill City, SD

June 26 Tuesday

We had a short trip today.  So, on the way here we stopped at a grocery store to re-stock.

A grocery store visit takes about an hour even though we don't need much to carry us through a few days.  An unfamiliar store means a lot of backtracking.  Plus, it is hard at times to make decisions as to what to buy from the various choices.  And, we have camper storage space to consider.

On the way to our campground for the night we drove right past the Mount Rushmore monument!  It was so exciting to glance at the real thing.  When I say "glance" I mean it.  That is one heck of a twisty uphill climb around that section.  The speed limit there is 35 miles per hour.  I didn't have any problem with that because with the camper behind us I could only get up to 30!

Our two night stay in the Mount Rushmore area is at a beautiful KOA right near the monument.  They have just about every amenity you could imagine, including 4 wheeler rental and horse back riding.  Yes, they have their own stable.  When we got here Jen took the kids to the water slide.  Jen watched the kids having fun on the slide.  Jen's youthful side must have kicked in too - she had a blast coming down that slide twice herself!

We had chili cheese dogs for dinner and watched the rest of National Treasure part 2.  Appropriate choice for a movie because  Mount Rushmore is featured in the movie.

Thar's snow in them thar mountains!

6/25/2012 Monday

Our journey took us from Yellowstone to Buffalo, Wyoming today.  The route took us right back through Yellowstone.  Awesome!

On the eastern part of Yellowstone the road twists and turns and heads up into the mountains.  Soon we were very close to the mountains that still have some snow on them.  Eric asked if we could stop if we saw any snow.  I said that would be okay (actually thinking in my mind "I really hope he gets to see it!")




I grew up with snow so it isn't quite as special to me.  I wanted it more for Eric than for me.  Well, that's what I thought anyway.  So when we stopped near a patch of snow I told Eric to head over to it and I planned on staying in the van.  Eric headed toward the snow patch.  There was a small creek between him and the snow.  I watched him for a few seconds while he tried to find a dry spot to cross.

Then something happened.  A part of my brain that was still 13 years old kicked in. I'm sure everyone is familiar with that deeply buried part of the brain, right?!  I sprang from the van and headed toward Eric.  We waded across the creek (cold!) in our crocs and slides and made it for the snow.  Yep, I was 13 again and enjoyed it sooooooo much!  I even made a couple of snowballs myself!  It was a special little adventure.

When I got back in the van Claire said "Daddy, how did it feel to be in the snow with your shorts on?!"  I hadn't even thought about that part and a BIG smile crossed my face.

I hope to always retain that part of me that is 13.

Yellowstone!

June 24th, Sunday

What a wonderful blog by Jenny last evening.  Great job sweetheart.

This was such a wonderful area.  When we first entered the park we got 20 minutes along the road and there was a traffic back up.  I felt a tinge of frustration but then I thought "Hey, relax, this is a beautiful area to look at even in a traffic line."  Then all of the sudden we looked ahead and saw the reason for the back up of traffic.......a bison was in the middle of the road!!  This was one of our introductions to Yellowstone and it just got better and better as the day went on.

I just have a couple more photos and two videos to add (from my camera).  Jen's photos taken with our new camcorder were amazing.

 We had a really nice picnic lunch after seeing Old Faithful

 Wow!  We are almost touching the sky!

 Nice shot of an elk as we slowly moved by with the van.

Yep, come back later and pick me up - this is where you will find me :-)

Old Faithful doing it's thing

A magnificent water fall

Yellowstone National Park

Sunday, June 24, 2012

We got off to an early start to the park, and stopped at the visitor center for maps and info.  Going in through the West Entrance, we left Montana and entered Wyoming.  Yellowstone is a lot bigger than I ever knew.  I could definitely spend a week in this park. 

It's a long drive to Old Faithful, and along the way, we saw several other gysers, hot springs, and pools.
Absolutely beautiful.  The colors around the pools are amazing, as the minerals and microorganisms create some truly awesome combinations of colors, especially against the various backgrounds of white, sulfur-covered expanses, beautiful cobalt blue lakes, and green, grassy hills.

 

Some, like the last one above, are even underwater.  This one is in West Thumb Lake, the deepest part of Lake Yellowstone.  It's believed that West Thumb Lake is a crater that was created by very large explosion. 

We got pretty close to some of these areas, and the heat and sulfur smell can be overpowering.   (But oh, so worth it!) 

Old Faithful is not the biggest nor most predictable geyser in the park, but it is the most frequent.  We got to that area with perfect timing, and had to wait only about 15 minutes to see the magnificent spout.  It lasted for about 3 minutes. 

And the bison.  What a sight to see.  They warned us that people actually get gored because they get too close to the bison, so we kept a respectful distance.   They're losing their winter coats to be ready for summer!

There was just more beautiful scenery that I can possibly try to tell you about, or that could be captured by camera.  I love Yellowstone!  

Ray, Claire and Eric even played "Pooh Sticks!"

P.S.  I was able to work on uploading photos and writing this entry, because Claire isn't able to Skype with Noah tonight.  He left for his Scout trip to Philmont Scout Camp in New Mexico yesterday, and will be gone for 12 days.  Poor Claire.  :(   But, that means the adults have access to the computer. 

Day 1 Yellowstone

Saturday, June 23rd, 2012

I was a very nice drive up to the Yellowstone area.  The speed limit is 65-75 almost the whole way with very good roads.

I have always wanted to visit an area where there was a flatland with short sleeve weather and snow capped mountains in a distance......SCORE!

We are at the Yellowstone KOA for two nights.  The KOA is very nice and located about 6 miles west of the town of West Yellowstone.

Our arrival time was at about 2pm.  MUCH earlier than our regular arrival times of about 5:00-6:00pm.

So, now we had some time on our hands!  We're not used to that.  We had a discussion about whether to travel over to the west entrance to Yellowstone Park and get some information there.  Actually it was my idea and I was voted down three to one - LOL!  The kids really wanted to chill out.  And I was OK with that :-)

They have a heated pool here.  Claire and Eric took advantage of that first.

Then Eric and I tried a round of mini golf together.  It was a fun course but they used cement for the greens!  THAT was a fast running green for sure - and not too level in a lot of spots.  But, it was fun....

Notice our camper off to the right.  Jen and Claire are relaxing at the picnic table.  In this picture it is about 80 degrees outside.  We even had the A/C on in the camper for a while in the afternoon.  Right now as I am writing this (at 6am the following morning) it is about 39 degrees outside and we have both little space heaters running in the camper.  40 degree change - wild!

Before dinnertime Eric rented a sweet ride and cruised around the campground for a bit....

We had cheese and crackers for an appetizer before dinner.  We had purchased the cheese at the Lolita Cheese Factory back in California.  It was delicious. For dinner we had chicken on the grill with flavored rice and salads on the side.  The mosquitoes were out in force so we had dinner inside the camper. We enjoyed the rest of a movie played on Claire's laptop.

Reno, NV to Eden, ID

On the way to Idaho we got to go through our first mountain tunnel ever.  It was short, but cool!

Our campsite in Eden, Idaho is pretty neat.  From Eric's perspective it was the coolest yet...because there was a water slide!

Weeeeee!

In the campsite next to ours they had a covered wagon set up.  The campground owners rent it out nightly....

Jenny's perspective on the Grand Canyon

June 17, 2012, Eric’s 13th birthday and Father’s Day

(OK, again, this post is a little late.  I wrote this the day after going to the Grand Canyon, but couldn’t get the pictures inserted and blog uploaded until today.  I know Ray already wrote about the Canyon trip, but this is a different perspective.)

Grand Canyon day!  Before we left to see the Grand Canyon, Eric and Ray opened their gifts and cards.  I also brought with us all the cards that friends and family had given to Eric previously, just so he could look back and remember all the love and good wishes everyone had given him before we left.  

The 1:40 drive turned into 2+ hours.  Along the way, we saw cattle guards, which are a neat invention designed to prevent cattle from crossing the road, by having tight grates where the ranch boundaries intersect the highway.  Cars can cross it just fine, but the cows can’t walk across it because they know their hooves will get stuck, and apparently, cows can’t jump.  Who knew?

We also saw Joshua trees, which I had never seen before, not even in pictures.  They look like something from a Dr. Seuss book, with their up-reaching arms and furry-looking round tufts at the end of each arm. 

We went to Grand Canyon West, which is part of the Hualapai Nation, a Native American reservation.  

After the 2 hour drive, 30 minutes of which are on a really bad unpaved road, we had to buy bus tickets up to the Canyon. The tickets also give visitors the right to be on the reservation, and jump back on the bus whenever you want, to go to the next viewing area.  

We disembarked the bus and saw that there is no guardrail, no fence, no boundary, no NOTHING, at the edge of the Grand Canyon.  People were walking RIGHT UP TO THE EDGE, taking pictures, jumping around, sitting on the edge, letting their children walk out onto the rocks at the edge….  It was just too much for me.  

A little background:  My whole life, I was never, ever afraid of heights.  Loved to fly.  Loved the highest roller coasters.  When I was little, we would climb out onto the roof of our 3-story home, and watch the Gasparilla parade from there.  In my 20s, I used to go up to the roof of the bank building where I worked, and sit on the edge of the roof, with my legs dangling off the edge of the building.  I loved it.  Then I had Claire.  Suddenly, I was concerned, then worried, then anxious, about things falling off the edge of anything high.  Things like our camera, or my wedding ring if I dangled my hand over a railing.  Then, when we started taking Claire places, I became scared about Claire falling.  I found that I couldn’t climb lighthouses anymore.  It didn’t matter how far from the edge we were.  It scared me.  A lot. 

It has now apparently progressed to the point that I will have a full-blown panic attack.  The Grand Canyon was the second time on this trip that I cried, but this time it was pure panic, not awe at the beauty.   It’s hard for me to even write about this experience, a full day later.  Last night, I couldn’t sleep, as every time I started to drift off, my mind conjured up one of those insane, careless people on the edge, getting too close to Eric…  Suddenly I would awaken with a jerk, sweating, heart racing.  I swear, I don’t understand these people. 

Everybody just wanted to go right out there, but I was trying to get used to the idea.

Ray went out toward the edge a little, and he actually slipped a tiny bit.  That’s when I really lost it. 

I slowly walked out by myself, before I would let the kids get anywhere near those rocks.  Then, we all stayed back and got still shots. 

  

Anyway.  We had the choice of going out onto the Skywalk or not.  I actually felt as though I would have been better out there on the Skywalk, with the railings and all, than I was watching those insane tourists getting so close to the edge of the rocks.  However, I decided I would stay back and videotape Ray, Claire, and Eric, as they went out onto the Skywalk, since they were not allowed to take a camera.  They had a great time, and I was freaked out the entire time they were gone. 

I truly hope I never, ever have to experience anything like that again.  If they had only had railings…. 

Over-the-road "camping" vs. Real Camping

One of the interesting things about things about this trip is the diversity of the campgrounds.  When we go on our usual camping trips, be it a two-week vacation or just a long weekend, we try to find a place that is as close to “real camping” as possible. 

I grew up going to our island property, an old fish camp that had no electricity or regular plumbing, then eventually, as a young adult, to the same island after the building had burned down.  It was primitive camping, and if it didn’t fit in the canoe, we didn’t have it.  As a teenager, Ray used to throw a few things into the back of his International Scout and have a night or two in the woods with his buddies.  Ray and Eric have gone on a few hike-in camping trips.  That’s “real camping.”

Our family vacations are not quite that primitive, but they are at least in the woods, with trees, bushes, and dirt.  Hiking and biking trails.  Lakes, rivers, alligators.

On this trip, we’re finding places to set up our camper, mostly along the interstates.  KOAs and other privately owned campgrounds, or more properly, RV parks.  In Oklahoma, we were in a gravel lot with no trees and lots of wind.  The RVs were not too terribly close together, but a lot closer than we’re used to.  And no buffer between sites, which is usually very important to us.  At least we were up in the mountains, and, well, that’s the terrain in that area.  In California, it was like a resort.  Very pretty, but still not like the camping we’re used to.  We were the only pop-up among a sea of huge, million-dollar RVs. 

Tonight (Thursday, 06/21), the place where we’re camping is basically a parking lot.  The whole place is paved, and there is a cute little tree between each parking spot, um, I mean campsite.  There is apparently an airport very nearby, as every few minutes an airplane, jet, or helicopter flies by, VERY low and VERY close.  (Please see ray's blog post from today!) It was advertised in Woodall’s as riverside camping in beautiful shady sites.  I guess it is, comparatively for this area. This is definitely NOT “real camping,” but you know what?  It’s really OK.  We’re only here (Reno, NV) for one night on our way to Yellowstone.  And it IS all an adventure. 

These places are easy in-and-out, and that’s great for one-night-stands.  Most do have swimming pools like a hotel or motel would have, but they’re better than hotels because we can grill our own food, and we still have our own little piece of home, right here with us.  We get to meet interesting neighbors and trade traveling stories.  And, most importantly, we’re all on this trip together.   

We’re enjoying these new sights, experiences, inside jokes, highs and lows, all together as a family.  We’re loving it, and I wouldn't have it any other way.  

Eureka (Fortuna) CA to Reno NV

California Rt 36 is a wild ride for sure.  It makes you dizzy just going up and down and around those mountains!  Jen and I were concentrating on the road so much that I don't have a picture to post :-)

We are in Reno now.  It is a nice RV park but we didn't know that we were right on the flight path for the airport.  Well, at least there aren't as many flights into Reno as Tampa.  However, the first flight did land at 4:34am.  Perhaps FedEx?  LOL

Eric enjoyed a swim in the heated pool after we set up.

The kids and I enjoyed a walk along a river that is adjacent to the RV park

.Flight 1368 from Las Vegas!