On the Road Again...

When I last posted, we were leaving Dubois, WY, enroute to Grand Teton National Park.  Well, we made it and had a glorious time.  The scenery was even better than expected.

We then spent three nights in Yellowstone and saw all kinds of wonderful things there, including many animals (bison, bears, bighorn sheep, elk, marmots, etc. etc.), all kinds of geothermal features (geysers, fumaroles, hot springs, mudpots) , and great scenery.  

I will post about those things with more detail later.

This morning we came across the Beartooth Highway, a scenic highway out of the northeast corner of the park through Wyoming and Montana.  Here I am at the west summit of the pass, just over 11,000 feet.  Yes, that is snow at the same elevation.  It was 48 degrees and windy when we were there mid-morning.  The surface is rock covered by moss-like plants and lots of flowers.,

Gwen, we thought of you.  There were many bicyclists on this road this morning.  It was organized with support vehicles, but did not seem to be a race.  No amount of support would be sufficient to enable me to ride a bike up that mountain!

We then spent part of the afternoon exploring the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, the location of Custer's Last Stand.  Being there helped make the entire battle make more sense.  We would have stayed longer if it had not been 99 degrees!

Tonight we are in Sheridan, Wyoming.

Westward Ho

Tonight we are in Dubois, Wyoming, about an hour east of Grand Teton National Park.  Most of today was spent exploring the vast emptiness of Wyoming.  I had no idea it was so empty...clearly rivaling west or south Texas.  However, the scenery was breathtaking.

Part of our travels paralleled the original path of the massive westward migration along the Oregon Trail (which here was also the California Trail, Mormon Trail, and the Pony Express).  The sign to the left shows that we are approaching the crossing for all four trails.  We also visited Independence Rock, an important marker on the Oregon Trail, and Martin's Cove.  Martin's Cove is the site where a large contingent of pioneers pulling handcarts were trapped by cold weather and died.  The handcarts were used by those that could not afford a covered wagon or other means of moving household belongings.  I can't possibly imagine trying to walk several thousand miles across the country  pulling my belongings on a handcart.  Let me restate that without qualifiers, I can't imagine walking several thousand miles period.  Yet, over a roughly 40 year period, nearly 400,000 people marched across Wyoming.  Most of them made it.

Tomorrow we move on to Grand Teton National Park.

trains, rains, and nuclear bombs

We pulled out of the driveway at 1 pm straight up. We pulled into the motel in Amarillo a few minutes after 6. It was an uneventful but enjoyable drive up US 287. I suppose many people would find it boring, but I have always liked that road. It is a nice divided highway with relatively little traffic. It parallels the rail line most of the way. It is an extraordinarily busy line with mostly coal cars pouring in from the north...maybe from Wyoming?? Wherever it is from, I presume it is on its way to be converted to electrical energy to power the state's air-conditioning needs.

We also saw our fair share of oil wells, cattle, and cotton fields...quintessential Texas. Speaking of Texicana, we are a mile from the Big Texan, the restaurant where you can have a free 72 ounce steak...as long as you eat it within the prescribed time limit (1 hour, I think). There is even a white limousine from our hotel (with longhorns on the front!) that will take us to and from the restaurant. We passed on the limousine. We decided to pass also on the restaurant when we saw the long line out the door. I ate there 10 years ago when my Leadership Texas class was in Amarillo. It is ok, but once is enough.

We had stopped for gas in Wichita Falls on the drive up and it felt wonderfulwhen I got out of the car! It was 100 deg, but dry...what a relief from the unbearable humidity at home. However, the humidity caught up with us and we had rain as we approached Amarillo. It is now pleasant and in the 70's. I will take it!

I am now sitting in the room looking out the window. I can see plumes of steam rising in the distance. I was wondering if that might be the Pantex plant, the United States' only nuclear weapons assembly and disassembly facility. We stay in all the posh places!! Actually it is far in the distance across the flat expanse of the "staked plains", so I really don't know what it is.

Lots of flatness today. We will move to a 3D world tomorrow!

The Adventure Begins...

The adventure begins, or should I say continues? It has been a series of misadventures already in preparation for leaving.

This week has been a series of two steps forward and one step back in preparation for leaving. The gps is loaded with multiple geocaches and terracaches along our route, a new map book is in hand (thank you UNT Bookstore!), and the rental lenses for the Frog's camera have arrived, although he is missing the right size circular polarizer. Maybe a stop at a camera store along the way will be in order. (I will talk more about the rental lenses as they are put to use. One is a wide angle lens and one is a zoom lens.)

I identified several possible stops between home and Yellowstone that might be interesting but would require the payment of an entrance fee unless we already have the National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Pass , but I had not planned to purchase that until we arrived at Grand Teton National Park. Unfortunately it was too late to buy the annual pass online and still get it before we leave. No problem... an online search indicates that the LBJ Grasslands office in Decatur sells them and we will go right by it on our trip. A phone call indicates that they have them, but they will not be open on Saturday when we plan to pass through Decatur. Ok, Plan B...long lunch break. A quick run over there at lunch and I have one in my hot little hand. I triumphantly show the Frog that night that we now have an annual pass. Oh, wait, they did not stamp it correctly and it is LAST year's card. Back I go again to Decatur the next day. I am now a recognizable, frequent customer in the LBJ Grasslands office! (In apologizing for the mistake, the receptionist told me they only sell about two of the annual passes at that location a year. Having now bought two, does that double their count?)

The Frog came home early yesterday to mow the grass before we leave, but the weather gods had other plans. We have not one, but two rain showers before he can get it mowed. What was it, a 10% chance of rain and we get TWO rain showers? What luck! We should have bought a lottery ticket when we can beat those kind of odds! We are hoping it will be dry enough later this morning to accomplish that chore before leaving.

While trying to be quiet this morning I did a quick check of news items related to the national parks. A woman was attacked by a bison in Yellowstone this week when she got too close trying to get a better picture (mental note to self: do not throw items at bison in hopes they will look at the camera). It has been a tough week at Grand Teton National Park, with the death of a college student and a multiple injury from lightning strike event. Hopefully we can avoid those types of problems. Fortuantely there is not much more about the forest fire in Yellowstone, so hopefully that will soon be resolved. We did luck out in one area. I had an initial panic when I saw Vice President Biden was to visit Yellowstone. Fortunately he will be long gone before we arrive.

In case enquiring minds want to know (or watch) here is the page of webcams for Yellowstone: http://www.nps.gov/yell/photosmultimedia/webcams.htm I did watch Old Faithful go off on one of those webcams last weekend. Someone indicated you could see smoke from the forest fires on the Mt. Washburn webcam, but I forgot to look when it was light.

So, what is left to do? Pack. Load the car. Provision the cat. Head out. No problem. The adventure begins...

Weather

Happy Independence Day!!  Foremost on my mind right now is weather....the unusual weather we are experiencing now and the type of weather we might encounter on our trip to Yellowstone later this month.  We are still suffering through Houston-like weather here.  We had heavy rains yesterday and the chance of thundershowers are in the forecast every day for the extended forecast.  Even when it is not raining, it is unbearably humid.  I am not sure whether this is the remnants of Hurricane Alex or some other phenomenon, but it is certainly not our typical Fourth of July weather.

Despite the local yucky weather, I have been thinking about what type of weather to expect on our vacation. It is COLD in Yellowstone!!  That did not really hit home to me until this morning when I saw that it is below freezing at the official Yellowstone National Park weather station!! Obviously our typical Texas summer wear will not be sufficient. 

Here is a link to weather at Yellowstone. I think it is actually to conditions to the West Yellowstone Airport, so it may be colder there than many points in the park. After going to the link, scan down through the page for lots of info, including a list of weather conditions at multiple Yellowstone sites:



Here is info about weather at Gardiner, MT, the north entrance to the park where we will be staying for much of our time in Yellowstone:



Finally, here is a link to an interactive weather map with weather stations in Yellowstone and vicinity: http://www.wunderground.com/wundermap/?lat=44.83483887&lon=-110.44590759&zoom=10

As I am writing this, the temperature at the weather station in Yellowstone is 28 degrees. It may be summer in Yellowstone, but that counts as winter in Texas, so it looks like I am off to dig out winter clothes from the back of the closet.