Test

Well, probably I'll delete this post, but I really wanted to get an idea about how Voicethread works.

Manimals

For those of you who enjoyed pictures of our animals (or us, really), we thought we'd provide a recap.

What's next?

Today we fly back to Boston. We will be updating our site with panoramic pictures once we have time to stitch them together (or once Sedwick does since he seems to have software that will do it). Hopefully, we'll get to some of those during the week.

We have someone to come and paint for us starting tomorrow morning at 9am (that's 7am to us, currently, which seems kinda early, but we really really really want to have th house painted).

Nancy will go to Iceland in July. No idea whether she intends to have a small blog for that trip, as I can't ask her since she's currently sleeping away.

We will be going to Canada in late July/early August. We think we'll have a new blog for that trip, as this experience was fun.

Bonus Park!!!!

Today, as you all know from our updated itinerary, we visited our tenth national park of the trip - Great Basin National Park, in Nevada. In the entire state of Nevada, this is the one area that the state saw fit to put forth as a national park. In case you haven't looked at a map of Nevada lately, there's a lot of nothing there -- in other words, a lot of prime space that could have been turned into a national park. Since Great Basin was the only area that made the cut, our expectations were somewhat high. (Well, we'd read the description of the park in our national parks book, so they weren't super high).

We started our visit to the park by trying to get a spot on a 90 minute cave tour. It turns out that the only available slot was on a 90 minute tour at 3 (which was 4 in our eyes, since the time apparently changes between Utah and Nevada) or on a 60 minute tour. So, with a mix of sadness (at having 1/3 less cave to see) and happiness (at seeing a cave) in our hearts, we committed to the 60 minute tour.

This cave - Lehman Cave - was quite different than the cave we saw at Wind Cave. However, the two did have a similarity in origin, in that they were both first publicized by enterprising sorts of folks. The person who publicized Lehman Cave initially apparently charged people for admission, despite the fact that the cave entrance was actually just outside his property lines.

Once we were inside the cave, though, we saw the differences between Lehman Cave and Wind Cave. Lehman Cave was gothic-looking, filled with stalactites and stalagmites (which gave us a chance to test our memory of the saying we'd learned from Ice Cave about which is which). Lehman Cave also has mitey-tites, where stalactites and stalagmites meet up with each other.



After the cave, we drove up to the top of the mountain in Great Basin, had lunch, and drove back down. We stopped at a few spots along the way for scenery, and then went on a short hike, where we were on the hunt for flowering cacti.



Our experience at Great Basin taught us that Nevadians have a sense of humor. On our way into the park, we were greeted by a random statue-sort of person, and another statue sort of thing that we didn't quite get, with legs sticking out of the ground. Also, jarringly, nearby there was a (fake) skull. On our way out of the park, there was a ranch exhibit, that explained that, while on their way out to CA to look for gold, people dismissed Nevada as an uninhabitable wasteland. On their way back from CA after unsuccessfully trying to find gold, they stopped in Nevada to ranch. Until we thought about them having to cross over the Badlands again to get back east, we were a bit puzzled by this. However, even after remembering this, when we looked around Nevada, we were still a little puzzled by this decision.

We also had 8 comments about Bearable Bear, Mischievous Monkey, and Not-Tigger Tiger. The paparazzi took 4 photographs of them, and we had 12 comments about the Red Sox. And only the Animal Gods know how many animal butts we've seen on this journey.

Now, we're at an airport hotel in Salt Lake City, nearly all packed up after our over 3000+ mile trek to see 10 parks, 4 national monuments, 1 national reserve, countless national forests, nine brew pubs, nine states, several random sites, and ready to head home.

Forgotten Roadside Attractions

For whatever reason, we forgot to upload several roadside attractions from Pueblo, CO, where we stopped for lunch at a brew pub that didn't have any brew (really, they were out of everything we even remotely wanted to try). As we were driving to and fro, we encountered these guys.

Admiring the paths of people who climbed cliffs and built dwellings using toeholds

Today we headed to Mesa Verde. While there, before we even saw any cliff dwellings, we learned: (a) we should keep wild life wild, (b) we should both bring water and not bring drinks on our walk to the first cliff dwelling we went to, and (c) there's something called Mormon Tea that grows in the area (we thought 2L might enjoy the sign).

Next, we hiked down to Spruce House, and were able to walk around parts of that cliff dwelling. We were tired having walked down a paved path, so we were really impressed with the Anasazi, who apparently got to their houses (and built them, we guessed) by climbing the cliffs using toe-holds that they carved into the mountain. (You can see these in one of the pictures, which has two cliff dwellings with one sort of on top of the other.) We wondered how many Anasazi might have inadvertently gone BASE jumping without a parachute during the process of either building the dwellings or living in them.

In addition to seeing Spruce House up-close, we were also able to see Cliff Palace (the largest cliff dwelling) from a number of vantage points along a drive through the park. We also got to see several other cliff dwellings from afar, and we were amazed at how many there were.




We were less impressed (apologies to the Anasazi who created them) by the pit dwellings that we saw throughout the park. Due, in part, to a sense of bitterness at having walked a trail that took about 20 minutes that lead us just to a pit house (rather than another cliff dwelling view, as we'd expected), we haven't posted any pictures of pit houses. To get an idea of what you're missing, picture a relatively round hole in the ground (which was used for ceremonies, it's speculated by those in the know), next to some small square rooms (with no doors between -- apparently the Anasazi were big enough fans of climbing that they did it even when they weren't living in a cliff dwelling).

In addition to these kinds of dwellings, we saw several funky wild flowers. We have no idea of what these were. In particular, there's a long leafed thing with yellow flowers and pods in the middle. (We have a picture of it with the yellow flowers, and another with the pods.) Anyone who knows what these are, please let us know.



Tonight, we're in Delta, UT, which, according to the front desk guy at the motel here, is in the middle of nowhere. Tomorrow we venture to our bonus park of the trip: Great Basin. (This also gives us our ninth, we think, national park of the trip.)

Updated To the Tour

Well. In the event that everyone reading this blog has not yet figured out that we are on a mission to see every national park in the United States (well, everyone that is accessible by road - either flying to said place or nearby to rent a car or just driving from whatever place we happen to call home at the time cause really, some of those parks in Alaska are kinda hard to access), we thought we'd make that clear. As a result of our mission, we decided that we needed to tack on an additional park to this trip, simply because it would be out of the way to get to on another national park trip. So, we changed the order of some of the parks in CO and added Great Basin National Park in Nevada. So, here's our updated map.


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Black Canyon... of the Gunnison

Sadly, our hotel last night had no internet, so we couldn't update things until tonight. Yesterday, we ventured to Black Canyon of the Gunnison. We're not sure where the other Black Canyon is, or why this one is always modified by "of the Gunnison" other than, perhaps "of the Gunnison" is fun to tack on to the end.

In any case, this was an area with amazing scenery that some brave souls (not us) hiked down into -- hence signs such as this one, warning people not to give in to temptation and throw things into the black canyon (of the Gunnison), as those things might fall on said brave souls' heads.



Being cowardly souls, we stuck to paths off the main road (and short ones at that, as it was quite hot!!) to see different views of the black canyon (of the Gunnison), as well as flowers that abounded in the area. We also managed to get one snapshot of one of the fastest-moving birds we've ever seen. The area was filled with what we dubbed fighter-jet birds (or perhaps fighter-pilot birds - we can't quite remember the exact term, but it was clever). According to a park ranger, the birds darted about to chase insects. So apparently the area was also filled with fighter-jet or fighter-pilot bugs. For the sake of the birds, hopefully they were bugs that flew at slightly slower than the speeds of the fighter-jet or fighter-pilot birds.



Our animals enjoyed the scenery too, and even did some rock climbing.



After leaving Black Canyon (of the Gunnison), we headed toward Mesa Verde. On the way, we passed through a town with some fun random statues we happened to catch site of, and stopped to capture on a digital camera. We also passed over what we dubbed a big-ass scary mountain, with switch-backs that had suggested speeds of 10mph (limits which people, in a show of sanity, obeyed, or even went under). Michele was threatening (in her head only) to get out of the car and walk, but even that didn't seem safe. It may remain in infamy as the big-ass scary bad mean mountain (if you could even really call it a mountain - cause that seems very tame).

We thought it was TX where things are bigger

It's been a bit since we've posted (other than that "it's been a bit since we posted but we're still alive"). To catch you all up in a nutshell, we:
-found big things in Denver
-found a yard of statues
-saw two more national parks

The title of the post (not to mention the first bullet point) refers to the huge variety of large things there are in Denver. On Tuesday, we started at the roadside America site, which offers a plethora of interesting, odd, and unusual (and sometimes all three of these together) sites on, well, roadsides across America. This is where we learned of a large blue bear in Denver, a large chair with a not quite as large horse inexplicably standing on it, and some other large objects scattered around Denver. As we drove around more, we seemed to find more and more large objects on every street corner. (Well, it was usually just one object per street corner, but more and more street corners seemed to have large objects.) We also found a bunch of construction workers on a very slanty roof, and, since we were stopped at a red light, we threw in a picture of them as well.



After the tour of large objects in Denver, we headed to Fort Collins. On the way, we stopped by a yard filled with statues of all sorts of dinosaurs, swans, trucks, flowers, and other objects made out of car parts. We were expecting just a few statues, but there was a never-ending field of them. We took a picture of the list of them, which covers the front and back of a sheet of paper, so you can get an idea of the sheer enormity of the place. We weren't the only ones visiting, as we saw kids from a day camp as well as senior citizens. The review we'd read on Roadside America hadn't mentioned that the place was fun for all ages. The video is a little long, since the park amused us so much, so either bear with us, or stop it after you get the general idea.



On Wednesday, we headed to Rocky Mountain national park, where we saw not just huge mountains and great scenery, but also a decent bit of wild life. At two picture stops, we noticed people leaning over an edge of the overlook, intently pointing their cameras down. Being no stooges, we followed their example, and got a picture of a little squirrel sort of animal and also a yellow bellied marmot. We also saw more elk - this time without their butts facing us. These elk had horns. We're starting to notice a pattern where elk with horns show us their face, while elk without horns show us their butts. In addition to great wild life and scenery, we experienced hugely high astoundingly strong winds. The kind of winds you feel when standing in the open door of a plane winds (when said plane is flying, rather than on the ground).



On Thursday, we left Veena and Jerry's, where we'd stayed during our adventures in Denver (thanks for the hospitality, Veena and Jerry) and headed to Great Sand Dunes. We discovered that: (a) it's odd to see piles (well, dunes, really) of sand suddenly spring out of nowhere, and (b) sand + water = lots of bugs.



We'd be remiss if we didn't include two pieces of information in this post: (1) we decided that, of all the many brew pubs and breweries we saw in Denver and the surrounding areas, we liked Breckenridge Brewery the best. They had great beer, great food, baseball on the tv, tie-dye tee shirts, and (more important to some of us than others of us), Grateful Dead on the speakers. (2) two of us have become quite addicted to ping pong. One of these two is the champion of not just the best of 3, but also the best of 5, best of 7, and best of 9. (The best of 3 turned into the best of 5, which turned into the best of 7, which turned into the best of 9.) We'll let you all speculate and guess on who that champion is.

No Update No Cry

Well, we are three days behind on the blog, but we wanted everyone to know that we are still alive, and we got out of Nebraska before the tornadoes arrived. We're working diligently, after two very late nights visiting with Nancy's friends Veena and Jerry and their two very cute little kids, Navin and Asha, to make our videos and write our blogs, but alas, it is unlikely there will be a real update until tomorrow.

For all you technophiles out there

I've posted HD version of the videos that i put up earlier. They're the same videos as before, just spiffier. And for the benefit of all those who commented (mostly stemming from explodingpropaneinthebasement) on my lack of stand-up landings, I DO have picture evidence of at least one of the two stand-up landings that I DID have. I'll post those later just for you doubters. I will also have video evidence at some point for both.

A Henge of Cars and Pubs with Brew

Today was a relatively light day, in terms of sight-seeing (unless you count seeing the farmlands of Nebraska and western Colorado). We started the day with breathless anticipation, looking for Carhenge - that Stonehenge of the west, made out of old cars. Sadly, the cars had been painted gray, which was designed to both stop rust (something the creators of the original Stonehenge didn't need to worry about) and to make the cars look more like, well, stones. However, despite the gray paint, Carhenge did not disappoint. In addition to cars set up in a vague approximation of Stonehenge, there was a car time capsule, a car made to look like an (uncovered) wagon (appropriately, it was a station wagon), and, randomly, dinosaurs (although they were made of car parts).



After finishing our tour of Carhenge (where the animals posed on a car, on the station wagon, and in the belly of one of the beastly dinosaurs), we headed to CO. Our first stop was Breckenridge, a town that I (Nancy) thought that Michele and Sedwick would enjoy walking around in, as it's a cute town, and also has a brewpub. It also just happens to have a Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, which it seemed wrong not to stop at.

We were impressed with that brewpub, and not all that hungry, so we decided to do an appetizer and beer sampler tour of another brewpub. This one had a great name, and great merchandise (Dillon Dam, with lots of "get your own Dam beer" sorts of slogans), but just okay beer and appetizers. We then headed to the Days Inn that we'd earned with our many other hotel stays, thanks to Wyndham Rewards. We were curious about Wyndham's "level 1," "level 2," and so on distinctions between free hotel rooms (with higher levels needing more points). After arriving at our level 1 free place we deduced it might have something to do with how easy it is to open the door of the room, close the window, flush the toilet, and use the remote. Tomorrow we're on to explore Denver, Boulder, and perhaps Fort Collins.

Badlands Redux and Origin of the Buffalo

Today we started out by braving the Badlands again. We learned that, millions of years ago, there was an ocean covering SD. Over time, the Black Hills and Rocky Mountains kept rising, and the ocean was shoved out of the way. This left the Badlands, which used to be under the ocean, uncovered. So, today, we walked on the ocean floor. It's an ocean floor that feels rather muddy at the bottom. In fact, Sedwick was somewhat worried that yesterday's rain would have washed the Badlands away. As you can see from these shots, though, the Badlands survived the rain (although they could be just a bit shorter than they were yesterday, much like Nancy after her accident).


In the more prairie-esque portions of the Badlands, we found some more prairie dogs. Badland prairie dogs seem to be a little more communal than the more individualistic TRNP prairie dogs. As you can see from these pictures, two seem to be almost holding hands, and another group seems to be having a town meeting. Our animals enjoyed the prairie parts of the Badlands as well. (They were nervous in the other parts of the Badlands, and refused to come out of the car, since there are many signs around warning to beware of rattlesnake.) Other wildlife we spotted on our way through the badlands were birds, a rabbit, and some bison (they seem to be all over this part of the country). Check out the collage below to see the cool bird we saw (we will have to determine what kind of bird it is), to see the baby bunny, the prairie dogs, and the bison that roam Badlands National Park. They don't look much different from the bison at Grand Teton or Yellowstone.



At lunch we learned that, among other requirements of the Badlands (such as being ware of rattlesnakes), there's an intriguing dictum decreeing that one should not live in trashcans. Perhaps it was just the combination of the hot sun and our as yet incompletely digested lunch, but we were a bit amused by the sign (or at least I was), so it got immortalized by the camera.

Once we'd finished with the Badlands, we headed to Wind Cave, another national park in SD. This park, as we learned on our tour that was guided by a *much* more informed, interesting, and multitonal guide than Michele and my tour of Ice Cave was, used to be owned by a mining company. Once the company discovered there was nothing to be mined from it (other than a salamander who lives at the bottom of the first set of stairs, there's nothing living - apart from the tourists - in the cave), the son of the family that was managing the property for the mining company began exploring the cave. He entered through the tiny hole you can see in the cave pictures. He had nothing to light his way but a candle in a tin can. Our knowledgeable guide demonstrated this for us, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to crawl through a cave with a candle. Granted, there's not really anything that could be set on fire, but it'd be incredibly hard to see - especially if a wind happened to come through from inside Wind Cave (which, given the name, seems like it'd be a decent possibilty). While in the cave (which was, happily, lighted with more than a candle), we saw what was called popcorn (little popcorn kernaly looking things) on the walls and ceilings, as well as box work. Box work is a remnant of how easy it is to get rid of limestone. Once upon a time, there were cracks in the limestone that got filled by calcitrate. Over time, the limestone got washed away, and the calcitrate was left - to create eery and spooky designs on the roof of the cave. Just about all (95%) of the box work in the world is in the cave we saw at Wind Cave. Another 1% is in a different cave in the park. Our guide wasn't sure where the other 4% had gotten to.



After leaving the cave (which was much easier than arriving, thanks to an elevator -- that kid who'd explored with a candle must have been happy when he discovered that), we headed to dinner in Hot Springs. Two of the town's many attractions are a blue buffalo and a waterfall, which you can see pictures of here.

Across from Wall Drug

We started the day heading toward the Badlands, wondering just what it was that made them so bad. However, on the way, we were waylaid by intriguing signs for a mythical place called Wall Drug. At this mythical place, according to the signs, you could get free ice cold water, coffee for 5 cents, free donuts and coffee (if you were a honeymooner or veteran - leading us to wonder if honeymooning veterans could get 2 donuts for free), see giant dinosaurs (presumably models), visit a shooting range, shop for home decorations, shop for western wear, and I can't even remember what else. These signs started about 50 miles from Wall Drug, and were scattered with several per mile. We also saw a sign for an enterprising business that advertised itself as being "across from Wall Drug." After seeing all these signs, we felt compelled to stop. I was a little worried we'd see a shack, or something along the lines of the largest souvenir shop in Idaho. However, Wall Drug lived up to its reputation built up from signs. We also weren't the only ones intrigued enough to stop. Apparently plastering the roadway with signs is a great way to drum up business. We saw about the number of tourists at Yellowstone, crammed into the many buildings that make up Wall Drug, and the "Backyard of Wall Drug" that it needed to expand into.



After that side trip, we were ready to continue on our way to the Badlands. Once we got there, we discovered that the Badlands were most likely named the Badlands because they'd be a miserable place to live. They have rattle snakes, don't seem to have good farmable land (although I'm not a farmer, so it's hard to say for sure), and they're hot. Quite very hot. The first time that I thought "holy crap, it's hot out" on the trip. We ended up deciding to leave the rest of the Badlands till tomorrow. Check in again for the actual photos of the park.

Instead, we headed over to Mount Rushmore. We spotted Washington and the rest from the side of the road, and drove on closer to the park, figuring we'd get a better view. Last year on our trip to the Southwest, we'd made what turned out to be an excellent investment in a national parks pass. We figured that, with this pass, we'd be able to get into Mount Rushmore for free (well, for the cost of the park pass divided by the number of parks that we've seen so far with it). However, Mount Rushmorians are a tricky lot. They decreed that entrance to the monument is free, but parking is $10. We promptly decided to tell the person taking money we just wanted to turn around, and head back to the road for some free pictures. Several other people seemed to have the same idea, and we had a group of fellow drive a bit, park on a pull out and take a picture people.

Driving from Rapid City, SD to see Mt. Rushmore and Crazy Horse required us to go through South Dakota's Black Hills National Forest. While a National Forest is no National Park according to Michele, who has it in her head that she must visit all of the national parks in the U.S., we were pleasantly surprised by the Black Hills. Although we still are unsure as to why they are black (ok, well, they might look a little black from a distance with all of the evergreens), we still found them quite pretty and well worth the taking of a few snapshots from Nancy's spiffy camera.

After the mountain of presidents, we headed for the soon to be mountain of an indian - Crazy Horse. Soon to be, here, though, is probably a bit of a stretch. The mountain has been a work in progress since somewhere in the 1940s. Again, we went the cheap route (although at least the Crazy Horse people didn't do the "the fee is for parking" scam), and took a shot by the side of the road (accompanied by some other frugal travelers).

Deciding that was enough for the day, we headed for the big city of Rapid City. Along the way, we serendipitiously encountered a couple of muffler men, who you can see in the pictures.

What if all of your friends were jumping from a bridge?

Well, I finally got around to copying the video to my computer. After sacrificing some "staring out the window/windshield" time in the car, I managed to cut out all of the non-me jumps from the video. Thanks to the wifi that ubiquitously comes with Super 8 (and to the neighbor that I ended up connecting to when the Super 8 wifi wasn't as ubiquitous as I thought), the video of me jumping off of a bridge and landing safely and gently on the ground (which I understand to be a requirement) is available for your viewing pleasure. Actually this video includes jumps 1, 4, and 5. Thanks goes to Michele for operating the video camera, especially for jump 4 which required her to wake up at 5:30 AM. While not taking away from the niceness of the deed, it had more to do with her inability to sleep that morning than it did her desire to record the historic event.

Home on the Range

Soon into our journey yesterday, we realized that Home on the Range is not just a line from a song. Indeed, it's also a stop on the journey from the wilds of MT to Theodore Roosevelt National Park (at exit 7).

After passing wistfully by Home on the Range, we entered Theodore Roosevelt National Park (TRNP; the sole national park in the entire state of ND). Soon after we entered, we realized that the park has more prairie dogs than you can shake a stick at. Luckily, we like prairie dogs and didn't have a stick handy to spend the day trying to shake at them.

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In addition to prairie dogs, TRNP also has wild horses. The first we saw came as a bit of a shock, as it ran by relatively close to us. After a bit, we got used to them, and saw them almost as buffalo at Yellowstone. (As we overheard one visitor say, "After a while you start thinking 'another buffalo? ho, hum'")



We also encountered a non-touted bit of wild life at the park as we were walking up a path filled with bluebells (which made me - Nancy - smile, since there are a lot of blue bells in MN). We saw two dung beetles pushing their ball of burden along. Tragically, on our way back down the path, we saw one dung beetle, valiantly trying to push his ball of burden, and, a little way away from him, a squished dung beetle.



After seeing the fun that the prairie dogs and horses (although perhaps not the dung beetles) were having, our animals (Mischievous Monkey, Bearable Bear, and Not Tigger Tiger) got out to stretch their legs and have some pictures taken. Since TRNP is somewhat less popular than Yellowstone and Grand Tetons (to put it mildly), they didn't get anyone besides us taking their pictures. (At the other parks, several people took their pictures, and they felt rather famous). In one of the pictures, they decided to pretend to be elk.



After TRNP, we decided (apparently not learning all that well from MT) to drive for "just a bit" till we got to a hotel room. However, we had learned at least a bit of a lesson from our MT experience since we used Cap'n Mick Mick (the GPS) to look ahead to see whether the bit we'd be driving would be in the 50 mile range or the 200 mile range (it turned out to be about 170 miles) before we found a hotel for the night. During the journey to a hotel, we got a reminder of just how close we are to Canada (or of just how much of a difference all those ehs make in people's speach) from a sign assuring our neighbors to the north that they could be understood at a local restaurant. We also learned that the town we would be staying in is the "center of the nation."

Hot Springs, Mud Pots, and Water Falls, OH MY!

This was the second day we explored Yellowstone, because just one day, as the guide books all tell you, is simply not enough (especially if your first day is in rain). The day began with the animals having a ride on a buffalo - a painted buffalo, that is.

We also admired the license plate, and accompanying sky, of Montana.

As we made our way into the park, we were in search of an eagle’s nest that the hotel clerk had assured us would be 3 miles after the park’s entrance. Approximately 6 miles in, there was an eagle management area and a nest (see video below for a picture of the eagle's nest).

Next, we decided to head to the impressive-sounding Roaring Mountain. While the mountain did not roar, and was a little bit of a let-down (even though we understand it was millions of years in the making, most likely), we did spot a sign that intrigued us on the way to the mountain that did not roar. It was an all-purpose “danger ahead.” We weren’t sure what type of danger to be on the look-out for, or how far ahead it was, but we stayed on our toes (well, on our bums, sitting in the car, but on high alert). Ironically, the most dangerous part of that stretch of road was getting the picture of the “danger ahead” sign.

After braving the danger of the sign, we headed to some falls. There are several in Yellowstone, and we started with the Lower Falls, since we got to them first (all photos of falls can be seen in the landscape video found below). While there, we encountered a man who mistook his keys for a q-tip, and mistook the parking lot for the bathroom or some other appropriate place to clean his ears. He noticed that we were wearing Red Sox hats, and predicted that, not only would the Red Sox make it to the Superbowl (yes Superbowl) this year, they would lose to the Dodgers, 4 to 3. Alas and alack, we have no picture of this. However, he was quite emphatic in his prediction, and you’ll just have to take our word for his existence.

Between Lower and Upper Falls, the animals made a new friend. His name is Cooter, and he gets to ride around on the back of a motorcycle. Cooter’s driver commented that she’d seen the animals at Grand Teton. When her husband offered to take a picture of us with the animals, Cooter’s driver explained (a bit disappointedly that he didn’t get it) to her husband that just our animals are supposed to be in the picture.

After the falls, we ran into (well, encountered) a traffic jam. We asked a ranger, who told us it was a bear trying to cross the road. We searched in the trees for the bear, and pondered why a bear might want to cross the road. With her eagle eyes, Michele confidently spotted the bear. I (Nancy) handed her my spiffy new camera. However, I’d just discovered a feature on it, which let me lock the lens in place. Michele, not knowing about the lock, took a far-off shot of the bear, wondering why she couldn’t zoom in. This gave us a “find the bear” picture. Alas and alack, when I went through the pictures this morning, I did not find the bear, and deleted the picture, figuring nothing much exciting was in it. So, you’ll just have to take Michele’s word for it that there’s a bear somewhere in Yellowstone, possibly named Yogi or Booboo.

After the bear were more animals – we saw some kind of sheep (probably bighorn), mule deer butt (and a face-forward shot – which is how we knew it wasn’t an elk we were spotting), and a dog (safely behind the door of a car). After these animals, we were very excited to spot a horned animal really close to the road. We think it was a velvet-horned elk (or so sayeth our memory of the book we looked at in the bookstore). We think it must have been young, or a rebel, since it wasn’t obeying the moon the tourist rule of the elk.

Next, we went to an area of the park described in our guidebook as being full of elk who harass the tourists. This concerned us a bit, but, since we’d braved the danger ahead earlier in the day with no problems, we ventured forth. We came to an area teeming with lounging elk. Happily, they did not harass the tourists. However, one did stalk off across the road, showing me its butt, once I had a chance to get my camera out. This was our last picture of elk butt in Yellowstone.

Before we left the park, we went on a quest for the subject of the picture on the free brochure we got at Yellowstone. It has colored rock and looked quite impressive. According to the caption, it’s Minerva Terraces. We braved the sulfur smell (which made me think of Lubbock, which has areas where the water smells like sulfur), and finally found our way to Minerva Terraces – where we found white, colorless rock, with no color at all. This both irked us and made us think that perhaps the park service should update their brochures. It felt a bit like a bait and switch. See the photos below for some of our favorite photos of landscapes from this trip.

On our way out of the park, we stopped by a sheep management area. We managed to see sheep in the sheep management area – much like we managed to see an eagle’s nest in the eagle management area. The slide show below exhibits the animals we saw in the park.


After having some dinner at a brewpub in Billings (along the way to which we happened upon a muffler man), we decided to drive a bit outside of town, to get started on our travels for the next day. Apparently, driving a bit to a hotel in Montana requires a bigger bit than we had in mind. After passing several exits with “no services” signs, we finally found an exit that had a picture of a bed. The picture of the bed appeared to refer to a long-closed hotel. At that point, both Sedwick and I needed to use the bathroom. Unfortunately, the lone gas station in the 50 or so mile radius was closed, so we had to settle for a scary-ass bar next door. Despite the fact that there were just 3 people in the bar (including the bartender), it might have been the fasted bathroom stop of the trip.

Finally, have a look at the several pictures of our animals from this trip.

Mooned by Elk (Yellowstone, Day 1)

Our day started with a parting of ways with the strangest Motel 6 we’ve ever stayed in. To begin with, it had no carpeting; instead, it had bambooish floors. It also was a room about the size of a closet under the stairs, but with a non-slopping roof. However, the bathroom was about the size of Yellowstone Park. Oddly, the shower was about the size of a cupboard. In fact, while showering, it was necessary to choose between getting very friendly with the wall or very friendly with the shower curtain. Oh – and it seemed to be furnished with things from Ikea, complete with platform beds.

After checking out, we headed back to Grand Teton, scoffing at the tourists who excitedly stopped to take pictures of the mountains, since we’d been there and done that, and, once you’ve seen one mountain, you’ve seen them all. (Although, Sedwick just reminded me of one exception to this – we saw a cool looking break in the clouds that was stop and picture worthy).

Then, we came to Yellowstone, which is a park of a different kind than the Grand Tetons. To begin with, it’s apparently built over hot steam. We also saw the most timely geyser of all – Old Faithful (who is becoming less faithful over time, at least so sayeth a park ranger). Because of the wind, the spout of water went more out than up, but here’s a slideshow of the pictures we took of it. Even more exciting than Old Faithful was White Dome … White Dome Something. We were driving along, looking for geysers and steam and spouts and such, and pondering how similar Yellowstone smells to Lubbock (at least in the sulfery parts), and White Dome started geysering. Since we weren’t expecting it (unlike Old Faithful who we were sitting and waiting for), and since we were in a warm dry car, it was quite fun to see.



We also discovered the existence of something called mud pots, which are sometimes also called paint pots, since they look like dried paint sometimes. In a paint pot/mud pot area, we saw the most geysering geyser that has ever geysered. This isn’t in the sense of how high it geysered, but in the sense of how frequently it geysered. There was a geyser next to it that was named something like spasm geyser, which I thought was a much more appropriate name for this geyser, since the so-named spasm geyser never geysered while we were there. So, I took a picture of the gysering geyser with the spasm geyser sign.

So, in Yellowstone, in the ground we saw: fountain geysers, dome geysers, hot springs, mud pots, fumaroles, and bubbling Lubbocky smelling stuff. Some of those pictures are here (as well as others).



We also saw many more animals than we saw in the Grand Tetons. In fact, we saw more elk butts than you can shake a stick at. Apparently, elk are taught from a young age to always show their butts to tourists, and constantly keep their heads down, pretending to eat. In fact, if you get out of the car and walk around trying to get a better vantage point (as Sedwick did), the elk will turn with you, making sure you just have a nice view of being mooned. This quest for an elk face also let Sedwick meet another Red Sox fan. As he was walking toward the elk, Michele noticed someone getting out of the car in front of us, and quickly spotted that she was a Red Sox fan, since she had a Red Sox tee-shirt on. The woman talked with Sedwick a bit, after seeing his Red Sox hat. Her husband asked if she’d met a Red Sox fan, and she replied “Well, I’m not talking to a Yankee fan, John.”



To show the elk how picture posing should be done, we had the animals pose in a few different spots, showing their faces rather than their butts. They continued the trend of having paparazzi follow them.



In addition to elk butts, we saw lots and lots of bison. Unlike the elk, they don’t taunt the tourists. In fact, they don’t seem to care whether they’re being photographed. (However, at one spot, where this baby bison was hanging out with its mom, some tourists were getting close enough to the bison that we prepared to get a picture of a bison goring a tourist. Alas and alack, this did not happen. Therefore, we have no action shots of bison. We apologize for this)

After leaving the park, we escaped Wyoming and headed to the refuge of Montana. We stayed in West Yellowstone, which is enamored with painted buffalo. In fact, they had a buffalo painted with a buffalo on it. West Yellowstone is also very modest. They had businesses such as the Ho Hum Motel and the It’ll Do cabin. This was in addition to names that reminded us that we were out west, such as the Brandin’ Iron Hotel (which didn’t have its own check in area, and directed guests to check in at the Dude Hotel). We then made it to our first stop, which was a brewpub named Wolf Pack Brewing Company. Even though it hadn’t gotten great reviews, we decided to give it a shot. However, first we noticed the closed sign on the door. Then, we noticed the people eating inside. We decided the closed sign was a mistake, so we went in. Sedwick, being helpful, turned around the closed sign. However, a waitress soon came up to us, and informed us that they were, in fact, closed. We asked about all the people sitting there eating. She told us that they were having problems, and suggested we try a pizza place down the street. Puzzled at these odd Montana customs, we left, and, happily, ended up at Bullwinkle’s. First, there were very nice people there. There was a Red Sox game on, and the hostess seated us at a table for twice as many of us as there were (we hadn’t brought the animals in, so there were just 3 of us), so we could have a good view of the game. This place also had quite good food, and Moose Drool, which is quite very good Montana beer. So, all in all, it was a good thing that the Wolf Pack was having “problems.” I bet they didn’t even have Moose Drool.

We also discovered that Montana hotels have their own oddities. Here are some pictures of the oddities of ours.

Elusive Mountain, Elusive Moose (Grand Teton National Park)

Who knew how elusive Grand Teton (itself, not the park) was? For hours, we kept our eyes on Grand Teton, waiting for the cloud cover to finally lift. Happily, it did so, but not for long! We did, however, get at least several photos when the clouds finally lifted.

When someone is very intent on seeing a moose (an animal, by the way, which is very very elusive), many dead trees look like antlers. It takes a while to begin to recognize the difference between animate and inanimate objects - though most things seem to be dead trees, since we have not yet seen a moose (and likely will not, sadly).

As with much of our trip, a picture is worth 1000 words. If we presented all of the pictures we've taken on this trip (with Nancy's spiffy new camera), the number of words we'd provide would be beyond believable. So, Nancy spends much time weeding through the pictures to decide what might be best.



By the way, one can easily find Red Sox fans everywhere, as this trip has clearly pointed out. Even in Wyoming, when you are trying to circumnavigate the state, Red Sox fans will find you. We found them in the grocery store, in convenience stores in the park, and in brew pubs.

Note from NTT, BB, and MM: We had a lot of pictures taken of us today. Since we might have been ever so slightly offended by the "Be Bear Aware" and "Wildlife on Road" and "Don't Feed the Wildlife" signs, we especially felt it necessary to have our photos taken with these signs. Not only did we take pictures of "us" today, but several passers-by were so taken with "us" that they also took pictures of us. It was kind of fun. If they didn't take our pictures, they made comments about how we were having our pictures taken. Our portraits are presented in the movie below:



Side Note: Because we spent so much time today searching for the elusive wildlife in Grand Teton, we thought a story of the "wildlife" Nancy and I saw on the road from the Interment Camp the other day might amuse you. Okay, so it might not have been wildlife, but it was an escape from a local ranch. A cow, intent, I think, on making its way to California where "happy cows" live, was walking on our side of the ranch fence, walking very purposefully toward his goal.

Not Bikini Clad, Not a UniRoyal Gal

So, a theme of this trip is that things are not always what they are described as being. Today was a long day of driving, after the two base jumps were over. On the way to Jackson, WY (yeah, this is where we actually go into Wyoming, hence the almost-but-not-quite circumnavigating Wyoming post at the beginning of this blog), we were expecting to see the giant grasshopper described on Roadside America's website. But, it either is gone, or even Eagle Eyes was blind enough not to see it. So, we traveled on, going into Blackfoot, ID to see the supposed bikini-clad uniroyal gal. We found what we assumed to be her, but she was not bikini-clad and she was not a uniroyal gal. Rather, she was a waitress. But, happily, the potato that we wanted to see was still in front of the potato museum. Not Tigger-Tiger (NTT), Mischievous Monkey (MM), and Bearable Bear (BB) (Nancy finally named her bear) decided to get in the picture of the potato.

Before we left Idaho Falls, we asked about the site of Evel Knievel's launch to try (and fail) to clear the gorge. Here's what's left of the launch site.

We stopped at a brew pub on the way to Jackson, had a sampler, and then left. We finally arrived in Jackson at about 7:30pm, not in time to do anything. Today, however, we shall make our way to Grand Teton National Park.

Unsuccessful Day

Minidoka Internment National Monument

As you may have read (or will possibly read), Sedwick was unable to make any jumps today. Although it may not seem so to him, I am truly sad for him. Hopefully, tomorrow will be better (although hopefully he'll be done by 2pm cause we have some unbelievable number of miles to cover over the next 14 days).

Nancy and I had a somewhat unsuccessful day as well. We started out by trying to find the Minidoka Internment Camp National Historical Site. While we finally successfully found it, there wasn't much to see. In addition to the pictures here, we found some other things that COULD have been part of the internment camp, but they were unmarked, and we didn't take pictures. In hindsight, it's too bad, because it would have been fun to make up some of our own descriptions of those places. They did, however, provide a map of the camp when it actually existed. Why this is a national monument, we are not sure. Since we did not have much to see, we thought we would share the view from the guard station (not quite still standing), so that you could see the view the Japanese Internees (is that a word?) had of their new home. Below you can see a sign of the map of the "relocation" center.


Hagerman Fossil Beds

Well, after driving about 30 miles to see the Hagerman Fossil Beds, we found the very small building. We were asked whether we'd like to see a short video, to which question we answered, "sure." Neither of us thought the video was well done, but we did learn a few things. First, we learned that when the climate changes, animals have to either migrate, adapt, or die. Who knew? We learned that when people were on the Oregon trail, they sometimes didn't have many clothes. For example, men sometimes went without boots, women sometimes went without bonnets and sometimes even wore their best dresses all of the time because that's all they had left.

Regardless, while the building was small, it had some very interesting fossils, most notably the Hagerman Horse, which apparently is the earliest known horse assigned the genus Equus. It is also apparently believed to be more closely related to Grevy's Zebra that now lives in Africa rather than to modern horse species.

We spent like a half hour at Hagerman Fossil Beds. We then made our way to the Muffler Man in Wendell, ID, because, hey, it was on our way back to Twin Falls. As we drove by on the highway, Eagle Eyes (that's me, by the way) noticed the big-ass Muffler Man on the side of the highway. It was not hard to miss (although the driver - Nancy - did miss it, but she doesn't have those eagle eyes). Cap'n Mick Mick (that's Nancy's GPS for those of you who are not aware of this) took us to a great viewing area where we could get a decent picture. But, as Nancy got out of the car to get her camera from the back, two wild dogs came charging at her (she wanted me to say they were wild; I'm quite sure they were not - but we should not tell her so).

Shoshone Falls

Known as the "Niagara Falls of the West," Shoshone Falls pamphlets claim that it is "higher than Niagara Falls." By that, however, I think they mean elevation-wise. Shoshone Falls is best presented in pictures. So, here's another video that I very very quickly made tonight.



Twin Falls

We are not sure that Twin Falls still exist. According to Jimmy the base-jumping instructor, they may no longer be there because they dammed up the river. But, regardless, Cap'n Mick Mick thought he knew where they were, but after five failed attempts we finally gave up.

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