The Sickest Of Babies

Well, the happy face from yesterday's picture of the day didn't last long because the little booty is pretty sick. She got really clingy and cuddly but that's because she was feeling like crap.  She just sat with me all night not moving not wanting to go and play, just wanting to be on the couch with me.  I think tomorrow I'll just stay home with her because she can't go to my Mom's because she'll give her plague to Wyatt.  I feel bad for her, though at the same time I love that she's cuddly. I hope she gets feeling better soon.

Picture(s) of the Day:
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Sick Sal and Dad

Home Again!

Well, after so many long blogs this is going to be a shorter one.  We made it home last night and of course the dogs were thrilled to have us back.  Well, Ronan was glad to have us back, and by us I mean mostly Jasmine.  Sam basically didn't give a shit because when it comes to us he's a honey badger. Of course after being gone for over a week we had a ton of laundry to do, and grocery shopping, and of course we had to go pick up the booty! She was sleeping when we got there to pick her up so when she was brought down she had her eyes closed and was totally groggy.  However she seemed surprised to see us like "HEY! It's you guys!"  I won't say that she was happy to see us but she wasn't sad to see us.  I, of course, was thrilled to see her.  I had a hard time deciding to plan a trip that would leave her home, so I was pretty anxious to get back to her.  It was a great trip, and a great ending to get to come home to see her.

So, back home to the chores, and work tomorrow.

Picture(s) of the Day:
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Look at this beautiful girl!  I was quite happy to see her, and she had a good time at La Fuente for lunch after we picked her up.

Trip In Review

Today was pretty much just a long drive from Sioux Falls home.  It actually wasn't all that bad, about 12 hours which is about as long as it takes to get out to Rhode Island.  It also didn't really feel all that long because there were so many states that we went through that you could kind of break it up with. When you're driving out east most of the time you're just going through Ohio or Pennsylvania. However, for today's trip we went through South Dakota, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan.  We traded off drivers regularly so that it didn't feel too much for one person, which was pretty nice.  It's pretty crazy how far we drove over the past week and how many places we got to visit, 11 states and two Canadian provinces covering thousands of miles all in about a week.

Thinking back we got of visit a lot of really neat places, four national park sites in the US, and two Canadian national parks.  I think it's clear that all of these parks are places that I need to visit again, especially Canada.  The parks in Canada were probably my favorite, the landscape was beautiful, they weren't that crowded, and there was a lot we didn't get to do.  I also enjoyed Glacier and Grand Tetons (pictured left), but the Canadian Rockies were just completely different.

I did really enjoy Yellowstone too, but it was just so busy.  I would find it interesting to visit it during the spring when the bison are migrating and apparently come right through Yellowstone so there are bison everywhere.  We saw quite a few bison while we were there, and even some pretty large herds, so I can't imagine when there are tons more like the ranger was talking about. I also didn't get to see the Mammoth Springs or the top of the Yellowstone Falls which looked pretty cool so it'd be nice to come again to see those things.

I also enjoyed all the wildlife that we got to see. I think my favorite was the guy that almost got a face full of antlers because he got too close to a Caribou and should have stayed in his car.  But, as they say, if you're going to be dumb you gotta be tough.  I'm disappointed a bit because I really wanted to see a moose and a bear.  Everything said that bears were all over the place, but we didn't see a single bear. Mostly just small animals like marmets (like the one to the left that Jasmine lured close to her like a Disney Princess) and squirrels and such.

There are also a few things that we wanted to do that got skipped over.  I've been really wanting to visit the Minuteman missile silo for quite some time, so I'll certainly need to plan a trip back that way again in the future so I can visit that.  I'm really enjoying visiting national parks though.  I'm also glad we got to see some of the things, like the glacier walk, which was probably the coolest thing we did on the entire trip, in my opinion. I'm also glad that we got to add Devil's Tower, and Little Big Horn because they were pretty cool.

So, in review this was an amazing trip.  I've been wanting to go out West for quite a long time so being able to finally go was great!  It was hard to leave Sal at home, and I miss her tons so I can't wait to see her tomorrow when we get her back from Becky's cousin. I actually can't wait until she's older and I can take her on trips like this and she can have some great fun walking on glaciers, seeing bison and caribou.  So in the end it was a great trip and I was able to take something off my goals list for sure, and definitely hit my new experiences goals for the year.  So, not sure where my next trip will be, I'm thinking the South West national parks like the Grand Canyon and Arches. Hopefully that's what will come next year, but only time will tell.

In terms of the pictures, the two at the top are from Grand Tetons, the next are bison in Yellowstone, followed by a marmet in Grand Tetons, and Prarie Dogs at Devil's Tower.  The last one is one section of the stairs that go down to the bottom of Yellowstone Canyon.


Picture(s) of the Day:
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Welcome back to Michigan!  After eight days and 11 states it was nice to see this sign.

Natives, Devil's and Presidents

Today was the last day of the real vacation-ey part of our vacation.  Tomorrow we will just be driving home, so it won't be anything fun.  Since we had to cut the trip short in Canada it gave us a bunch of extra time to add stuff on that I hadn't originally intended to add. So, since we had time we ended up staying in Montana last night so that this morning we could get on the road heading toward Mount Rushmore.  However on the way we were able to stop at the Little Big Horn battle field.  For those who know their US Western history you know that this is the site of one of the last major battles of the US Government and the Native Americans.  You'll also know this is where General George Custer was killed.  In fact until the 1990s this was known as Custer battle field and memorial, however wanting to actually be a little more accurate and respectful to Native experiences it was renamed.

So, for those not familiar with the story, basically the issue was that the Natives were forced onto reservations.  In the plains the way of life was to follow the herds and hunt, however they agreed to settle on the reservations.  Well, fast forward not too long and suddenly some trespassing white men wander onto a reservation and discover gold.  The government tries to purchase the land however the native tribes are not interested in selling.  Settlers then start streaming in to look for gold.

The natives aren't too pleased with all of these people suddenly showing up on their land and petition the government to tell them to get all. The government does tell the settlers that they shouldn't do it, however it's in that Willy Wonka way where they aren't really being all that forceful about it.  Basically they're like, "yeah, you really shouldn't, but I'm really not going to do much to stop you, so whatevs."  Well, this rightly makes the tribes very unhappy because they agreed to the treaty and were following the rules but the treaty isn't being respected by the settlers.  So, since nothing was being done they basically say, "Fuck it, this is bullshit!" and decided that if the US Government isn't going to uphold the treaty then there is no reason they should stay on the reservation and return to their traditional way of life, which of course leads to conflict and fighting with the military.

The site was very interesting for a few reasons,  first until the 1990s there was little in the way of acknowledgement of the Native Americans. In fact the picture to the left is the memorial built down the hill from the original memorial to the soldiers.  Basically before the 90s you didn't get a very accurate story.  You still don't get a very accurate story, but at least it's a little better.  The metal sculpture pictured is Native American art, and is in the middle of a giant circle with Native accounts and thoughts about the battles.  The problem is that a lot of the visitors are still very focused on the more legendary and mythical story, and one guy was saying a little prayer for the General but didn't bother touring the native section. In fact it didn't seem like many people did except us.  Also, you are supposed to stay on the trail because of rattle snakes.  Becky was super impressed by that.

After touring the battle field we drove further east and stopped off at Devil's Tower.  For those who have seen Close Encounters of the Third Kind, you will recognize the mountain.  It's a perfect example of weathering as wind and water have worn away the other layer of soft dirt and rock leaving this going basically straight up into the air.  There were lots of people out climbing it, and apparently the fastest climb ever was less than 20 minutes and the kid (he was 17) did it without ropes.  That's crazy!  We didn't spend a lot of time here.  We listened to the ranger tell about stuff that happened here, and then took some pictures and resumed our trip.  We also got to see a ton of Prairie Dogs hanging out around the mountain, which was kind of interesting.  It was a pretty fun stop even though we didn't stay very long.

After that we continued our journey East through Wyoming toward Mount Rushmore.  This was also a relatively shorter stop since there's not a ton that you really do here.  We arrived and it's really nice because the park is free... they only charge you like $12 to park.  Ok, I don't remember how much parking was, but it was more than it should have been.  I will say at the least the parking lot was pretty nice, so I guess you get what you pay for.  The parking booth lady was pretty nice too and chatted about where we were fun because she keeps track of how many states she gets per day.

When we arrived we walked up the long path toward the mountain, and got a nice view from the viewing platform thing that they have.  They have a bunch of bleachers there because every night they do a lighting ceremony, though we were there a little too early to see that.  I also saw that there was a path that goes around to the very base of the mountain and then through the trees and back around to the main platform area.  Though, I did check to see which way had fewer steps since everyone was still not happy about the stairs down to the canyon in Yellowstone.  This time it worked out fine because there weren't that many steps except right at the end, and I think it wasn't quite as bad if we'd gone the other way around. After we took our walk we hit the gift shop to see what was there and then got on the road.

After some low-level complaining about what we were doing I decided to cut some of the stuff short and instead of staying near Mount Rushmore we drove all the way across South Dakota so that we would make it home tomorrow night instead of the following morning.  It sucks because I wanted to see Minuteman Historic Site, and drive through the Badlands National Park, but people seemed like they wanted to get home, so I cut it out.  So, we got some dinner and then started driving and made it all the way across to the other edge of the state and made it into our hotel.  The guy I don't think expected anyone else to check in because he was handing out in the breakfast area watching some movie when we walked in.  We were all really tired because it was a long drive and a long day, but we made it.  Tomorrow we finish the drive and arrive home!
 
Picture(s) of the Day:
Picture 239
Picture of the day is us at Devil's Tower.  Below are a few more photos we snapped while we were out and about but I didn't have enough space for.

A Grand Day

This morning we started the day off early and headed to Grand Tetons national park. It was a nice sunny day and we had to take a bit of a curvy road up the mountains because we were on the West side of the mountains and the park and all that is mostly on the East side.  As we got to the top and started heading down we saw a bunch of smoke which was totally disappointing.  So we rolled up all the windows and set the AC to recycle the air so we didn't have a smokey smelling care.

Turns out that the smoke was actually clouds.  We were driving through clouds, which I found out after I cracked the window a moment and realized it was cool and not smokey smelling.  The down side to this good news was that it meant the entire East side of the mountains was covered in thick clouds.  It was a super cloudy day.  This is problematic since the whole beautiful view is the craggy lovely mountains in the background of your lovely hike. So level 10 disappointment on that one.

Looking up the best things to do said that we had to do the hike around Lake Jenny.  Looking at the map it seemed like a pretty good hike around the lake, and the hike looked pretty level and not that long.  Turns out that information was not correct.  There was a fair share of hilliness, and it took a lot longer than expected. It was a nice hike, but had we known how long it was going to take we would have brought food and water.  The upside was we saw this deer and her babies, and Jasmine tried playing a Disney princess and almost got a small woodland creature to come to her. Actually it was a Marmet and a Chipmunk. I think the Marmet would have done it, had the people coming down the path not been there.  But Mr. Marmet got jumpy and also realized she didn't really have any food.

In terms of geography the Grand Tetons are a line of mountains and Lake Jenny is right at the foot of the largest of these mountains.  So as we hiked around the lake from the parking lot on the far side of the lake toward the foot of the mountains right along the edge of the lake I started to get pretty excited because the clouds started to break up and we were able to see some of the mountains peaking out from the clouds. The downside was that we left pretty early and didn't get a good breakfast and by the time we made it to the other side of the lake we were all freaking starving.

On the other side of the lake we hiked a little further so we could see hidden falls, which was pretty, but may or may not have been worth the extra time.  I mean, had we not been starving then it totally would have been worth the time, however since we were starving it was a little bit unimpressive.  It was nice to do a little resting though after a long hike.  We also had to do a little climbing in order to get to the falls because they were doing some construction on the path and the only way to really see it was to climb over a bunch of really big boulders in order to get to the kind of seating area near the falls.  A lot of people just kind of stopped without doing the climbing because you could sort of see the fall through the trees, however I figured if we came all that way we might as well do it proper and see it full without the block of trees.

After taking some time to view the falls we decided to start our trek back to the car so we could get some lunch and move on toward our next stop.  On our way we also had to pass a cascade area.  This wasn't quite a waterfall but the water was flowing downward toward Lake Jenny over a bunch of rocks so it was kind of fast moving.  There was a bridge that went over the cascade and there were these very tall rocks off to one side of the cascade that you could sit on and overlook the water as it flows by.  We took a few minutes to stand and/or sit on the rocks and enjoy the view, and to snap a few photos.

After how long it took us to get to the other side of the lake we decided to just go ahead and take the boat that takes you back to the main visitor center near the parking lot.  It was only a couple of bucks and instead of taking us another hour and a half to make it back to the car we made it there in just a couple of minutes.  The nice thing too was that as we headed across the lake away form the mountains we could see that the clouds had cleared and we finally could see the mountains.

After that we finally got some food and took some time to eat and enjoy the view. We then drove around a few other places in the park to see if we could see some interesting animals or other sites.  It was a little disappointing because on the boat back across the lake the guy running it asked if anyone saw wild life and what they saw. Apparently there were a couple of guys that saw a bear!  A FREAKING BEAR!  I was told that bears would be all over the place in Canada, Glacier, Tetons, and Yellowstone, and I still haven't seen any freaking bears!

After our time in Tetons we headed back to Yellowstone on account it was on our way home, and it gave us some time to see a few of the things that we didn't get a chance to.  The main goal was to make it to the Mammoth Hot Springs and Yellowstone Falls.  Turns out we only made it to the Yellowstone Falls.  We, and by we I mean I, decided that we should take the hike down to the bottom of the falls, which is mostly stairs.  However, there are over 300 steps, which really doesn't sound that bad until you get to the bottom and have to come back up.

By the time we made back to the top no one really wanted to do the walk on the other side of the falls that takes you right to the edge of the falls, which was a little bit disappointing.  Thought, I was also freaking exhausted and I don't know that I could have made it if it had been too long.  We also had a long way to drive and not a lot of time to get there, so we ended up missing the top of the falls and the Mammoth Springs, so I guess we have something to do someday when we take Sal back (assuming that she wants to do those kinds of things, which she better or she's disowned.

The weird weather continued on our way out of the park.  As we were driving the temperature dropped from like the low 70s to the low 30s, then as we headed over a hill suddenly there was snow over everything.  It was crazy!  Then we went a bit further and it was all gone. With that we headed out and ended up staying in Montana again on our way to our sites for tomorrow.  The down side we ended up having to eat at a McDonalds (which we got to a mere 30 minutes before it closed), I long for good food.

Picture(s) of the Day:
Picture 238
Another set of picture that I couldn't fit in. Basically just some signs for entering the park as well as crossing the continental divide. Also a Bison in the snow, and a Bison walking down the street.

The Park That Smells Like Egg Farts

Today we started the day a few hours away from Yellowstone, so we got up relatively early and headed down to the park.  We got there pretty early in the day and it was a bit cloudy but the sun came out eventually.  Of the national parks we've visited to far on this trip this one was the busiest and felt the most like a tourist attraction.  There were huge busses everywhere filled with a bunch of really old people touring the park.  I suppose given that it's (I believe but don't care enough to fact check) the oldest national park, and certainly the most week known it's logical that it's so busy.

I have to say that it's a really strange kind of park, probably due to the volcanic history.  There are tons of trees and hills, but then there are all these geysers all over the place. Of course it also smelled like suffer or a bunch of eggs farting. Or of course it could be all those old people walking around farting their old people fart gas out of their wrinkled southern regions.  Hard to say, but either way there was a terrible smell in many areas. It would be interesting to visit more toward the spring when there's more mud (which was bubbling).

Some of the ponds were absolutely magnificent.  The colors were so lovely, though the ponds were quite dangerous and there were signs up saying that people needed to stay on the marked paths because often the ground was really just a crust and if you walk on it you could break through into a boiling pond of death.  A few days before we actually heard about a guy that jumped into a pool like this in a different park and was severely injured.  Needless to say we stayed on the bath behind the farting old biddies

After looking at all the pools and geysers we headed to Old Faithful to see the big event at Yellowstone.  It wasn't anything like I pictured, because I wasn't aware of how much was built up around the site.  I knew there were bleachers and such to see the eruption, but behind all those are these old buildings that are apparently a hotel, gift shop, lodge, etc.  It's actually quite built up around that area, which again feeds into that feeling of being a total tourist trap.  So, we got there and found out we had about an hour until the eruption so we looked around and visited the gift shops.  I almost got some ice cream but then I saw that it was like $8 per cone, and that's just crazy, so instead we got a cookie and a soda and found a seat to watch from.  It was pretty full so we ended up sitting way out toward the edge.

We also ended up sitting next to some real door knobs, the eruption came about 5-10 minutes before the "scheduled time" though all the signs say that this is just an estimate.  However, this Debbie Doubty Pants decided the giant eruption of hot boiling water may not have been the actual and just was a preview and thought they should wait because it wasn't time yet, and they should wait for the time.  Apparently she hadn't ever learned the word "estimate." I was actually surprised with how long the whole thing lasted, and with how high the water shot into the air.

At the end of the day we started out for our hotel in Idaho Falls.  It was really neat driving down because as we were going I looked out and realized that in the distance you could see the Grand Tetons, which made me geek out a little bit.  We'll be visiting the park tomorrow and getting a chance to see them.  It's really smoke free around here which is nice, and the first time since we got to Canada that we haven't had a bunch of smoke mucking about.  Tomorrow is going to be a long day, we've got an early rise, and then a TON of driving.

Picture(s) of the Day:
Picture 238
Just a variety of pictures from our day that couldn't make it into the blog because I didn't have enough to write about.  The first two are pictures of some of the pools in Yellowstone, then there's a picture of the girls near the water, and then a big fuckoff Bison.

Change Of Plans

Well, I guess things are not turning out in our favor in terms of the smoke.  We woke up this morning and I open the curtains and saw this view.  To give you a comparison the top picture is how things looked the night we arrived.  Basically, we can't see across the street and the forecast is that things are going to get worse from here.  The Canadian health department says that we should avoid going outside if we can, and to especially avoid strenuous activities.  Well that just really takes out everything that we planned to do today so we're kind of stuck.  So this morning I spent my time trying to figure out what we should do.  It's really stressful to try and rearrange an entire trip that you've spent weeks planning all in a morning because it changes everything we're doing because of where the smoke was forecast to be.

So, this morning was a series of frantic searches online to see what alternatives we could come up with since this was basically cutting two days out of our trip in Canada and needing to find other things to do instead.  The first option I thought of was if we could make it further West, which could have worked but really would have been too tight for relaxing, so instead I took what we were going to do and moved it up and found some other things to hit on the way home that I really didn't know about when I was doing the original planning. So instead of our last two days in Canada we headed back to the US and visited Glacier National Park.

It's also a lovely park, but the mountains are quite a big different. The mountains in Canada are really tall and pointy looking, much like the kind of a kid would draw.  These mountains were tall but less pointy.  There was a forest fire here back about two months ago, and since we enter on the East side we actually drove right through the area that was burned.  It was interesting because I've never seen anything like it before, and because even thought it was only a few weeks back there was already a lot of green returning to the area.

One of the major things to do is the Going-to-the-Sun road. It's the road that runs from the East entrance to the West and is a series of hairpin turns with little to no railing.  It's a beautiful view, thought a little nerve wracking as it's right along the side of a mountain, and is very narrow.  Going from East to West means that we generally were on the mountain said of the road so it was a little less scary.  I wish we had visited at a time where there was less smoke obscuring the beautiful views.

Our first stop on the road was at Logan Pass, which is also where the Continental Divide is located.  Over the trip we ended up crossing the divide probably half a dozen times.  Despite being so high up there was this beautiful huge field of wild flowers.  It was a pretty busy spot, and after we left I saw that there was this crazy path that starts here and goes across the street and along the side of a mountain with a huge valley below it.  Having visited once it's clear there were a few great things we need to come back and do especially since we really were only there for a couple hours.

We didn't end up going too far past the visitor center, but there was a lot of small wild life like this apparently Marmet.  There were actually a few of these guys scampering around eating flowers.  At first I was a little concerned because I saw rustling grass and thought it was possibly a snake, which I'm sure would not have impressed Becky in the least.  There was this kid there too that was kind of being a dingbat and annoying the Marmets.  You hope that people visiting national parks will have a bit m ore appreciation for nature and respect for the animals and plants, but then again this is America, and it doesn't seem like that's really a thing we do here.

Our next top was a leisurely hike call Cedar Trail.  It's basically a really easy, flat trail through a tone of really old Cedar and Hemlock trees. This was one of the things that I read up on before we went and we almost didn't make it due to the light disappearing because of the mountains were really high on each side of the valley.  However, it also was really beautiful because the light was coming through the trees so it turns out that we really came at right about the perfect time to enjoy the light and the beauty.

After our our hike we headed to our hotel which was a few hours away.  Our time in Glacier was very short because the following day the smoke forecast was supposed to be as bad as Canada.  I think that means eventually we are going to have to plan another trip this way. Thought, given that we missed a lot of stuff in Canada, it seems to make sense.  I suppose I designed the trip to be kind of a quick taste of the area so that we'd know where we'd like to come back and visit again.  Well, I suppose, mission accomplished.  I definitely need to spend more time in Glacier, because there are a few hikes that I wanted to take and we just really didn't have time for, or maybe some time on a boat or in a canoe or something along those lines.  While perhaps not as cool as Canada, still very fun.

Since we exited the West side of the park we got to pass Lake McDonald just as the sun was starting to set.  Then we drove a couple of hours down to Missoula for our hotel so that we could get to Yellowstone National Park early in the morning and then later on in the day to Yellowstone.  It wasn't too far of a drive and we were able to get some real food for the first time in probably two days.  It was delicious probably mostly because of how terribly hungry we were.

Picture(s) of the Day:
Picture 237
Picture of the day is us in front of the roots of a fallen tree on the cedar trail.