Our Travels through America Oct. 2010 Part 1

Well we are now back "in Country" and decided to head out right away on vacation. Hey for us, every day is Sunday but vacation is still vacation. This year we headed to the Northwest area of the US. We spent a week in the Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks and a week driving down the Oregon and California coasts on Highway 1. I have separated the vacation into two blogs. Part 1 deals with our trip to Yellowstone and the Grand Teton parks. Obviously part 2 is our trip down the coast. We hope you enjoy our pictures of both. As we seem to always have, we had fantastic weather throughout our trip. It was a bit chilly in the mornings but would average out around 65 degrees in the day. Traveling around Yellowstone and the Tetons at this time of year was wonderful. No crowds, the leaves were turning and everything was calm and relaxed. OK, so enjoy Part 1 - Yellowstone and the Grand Teton National Parks.

We headed out on the Saturday after Wolfgang got here in October. My brother let us use his Jeep Grand Cherokee. He seemed to think that my 1994 Mercury Villager with 200,000+ miles just wasn't the best car to use. We loved using his because it had every gadget we needed including seat warmers and a sun roof.

We drove through 6 states on this part of the trip. Wolfgang had never been to Idaho or Montana.

Excalibur Hotel. This is where we were married in Vegas. I think it should have been an indicator to him that he was married to a Princess. I mean it is a castle right!

We only touched on a corner of Arizona going through the Virgin River Gorge but it is a really beautiful place to drive through on our way to St. George, Utah.




Here I am hanging out with Brigham Young, the leader of the Mormons. I think he wanted me as one of his wives.
Utah is one of the most beautiful states in the U.S. Here is a picture of the morning sun on the mountains as we headed out to Idaho Falls, Idaho.
Aren't these guys cute. Wolfgang snapped this picture as we were waiting for a traffic signal somewhere in Utah.
These are the mountains just outside of Salt Lake City, Utah. There always seems to be snow on them, no matter what time of year.
Idaho, land of spuds (potatoes). We were glad to have been driving an American made car around this area of the country.

"What a view" starts to be repetitious when you drive around the US. We really do have a beautiful country.
Idaho Falls. Now I had only heard about this city but hey, when you say "falls", I want FALLS! Large cascades is probably a better turn for the Falls.

We loved this. All these canadian geese sit all over the edge of the natural falls as well as the manmade area of the river. We watched and it seems that each goose had a specific place because this would swim to their spot and park.

I just loved these.

The great Idaho Falls.

We finally made it to Montana and West Yellowstone. Do you think that there is a DUI problem in this state that they attach this sign to their main Welcome to Montana sign?

West Yellowstone is just outside the entrance to Yellowstone. There are four entrances to Yellowstone. The famous rock framed entrance is actually the Northern entrance. I did not know this and we found it out after we had left the park. We spent 2 1/2 days in Yellowstone. We pretty much visited all the big locations and traveled all the roads without ever feeling hurried. It is a fabulous park but I would never want to be there in the summer with 3.2 million other visitors. So go after the kids are back in school.

We are Best Westerners. We use to be Choice Hotelers but now we do the Best Western tour. We collect points along the way and they never expire so we figure that we will use them somewhere really great in about 5 years. How wonderfully middle class don't you think?

Our drive from Idaho Falls to West Yellowstone was the only time we had rain on our entire trip but it stopped in the afternoon so it was never a problem.
The next few pictures deal with the actual landscape of Yellowstone and it's beautiful waterfalls and canyons.





This is a petrified tree. I did not hike up to it so you get no more information except to say that this a petrified tree.

This is the main lodge at Yellowstone. We spent the first night here in a cabin. It is right next to Old Faithful. It is the ultimate Log Cabin! We had dinner here and then had to walk back to the cabin. Wolfgang thought I was kidding when I said that we had to watch for bears. We had to use flashlights to find our way. Thanks for packing one for us Tim.

Everywhere you go in the park, there is a "Wow" view. These are the cascades.

This is a beautiful lake at the side of the road. I mean Yellowstone is the ultimate Kodak Moment.

The Continental Divide from the North to the South of the US. It represents which way water runs. The rivers to the west of this sign run to the Pacific Ocean and the rivers to the east run to the Atlantic or Gulf. It is not a straight line but a really interesting piece of our country.

Lake Yellowstone with the Grand Teton Mountains in the back.

Lake Yellowstone with a geyser crater behind us always reminding you that you are inside a volcano.

Although this is a beautiful picture, it just doesn't capture the real thing. Now the big waterfall at the end is the Lower Falls of the canyon. The following pictures show our trip down the side of the canyon where we stood about 200 feet from this waterfall.

OK, so this is Uncle Tom's trail. It is actually a set of metal steps hanging off the side of the canyon that we climbed down (and yes back up) 328 steps. I would have never done this alone (Wolfgang reminded me of this while we were hiking back up). Not only was it scary from the height thing but at 8,000+ feet, there just wasn't any air for the hike back up.

It was a long hike down and back but it was all worth the view.

This is an Osprey nest out on one of the stone pillars in the canyon. Those babies had better get it right the first time because there is no way to this nest without being able to fly.

OK, so now we get into our animal pictures of the Yellowstone trip. We say everything but a moose or wolf. The buffalo are everywhere and man, are they big guys but just never seem to be in a hurry. The love to walk on the roads and hold up the cars. I think that all the animals in the park are in some kind of Union. You know, you have to be seen and do stuff for the tourists at least once a week.

The Elk are everywhere but they are spectacular. I am sure every hunter looking at this picture thinks, hmmmm, look at those beautiful antlers and I bet he tastes great.

How many points on those Antlers?

This was our first bear. A black bear taking a nap on the side of mountain across from us. He was very hard to see.

We must have at least one bird picture. What he is, I don't know but he's pretty.

Mountain Goat baby.

Mountain Goat parent.

Trumpeter swans. Notice the black face.

Chip

And Dale

This is our Grizzly Bear that we must have watched for about 45 minutes as he walked through a meadow along a little river. It was wonderful. Yes, we were close but stupid. He was fabulous to watch.

All right, if you have ever wanted ornamental animals on your front lawn, these are the ultimate.

I guess you really have to work out the mowing schedule.

A coyote wandering the fields.

This says it all in the picture.

OK, onto the Geyers. Here we are at the new Education center by Old Faithful. It just opened this last August.

Not Old Faithful but one of the fabulous geysers around the park. Old Faithful is the most famous because it erupts on a regular schedule but there are others around the park that are just as fantastic to see.

These are the alkaline hills outside of Mammoth Springs. They are interesting but depending on the year, how spectacular. There isn't a lot of water coming out of them this year so they are not really very active but still interesting.

Here he is, I mean, it is, Old Faithful!

Our Signature picture.

Geyser fields by Old Faithful.

This is the Morning Glory Pool around the Old Faithful geyser field. It is worth the walk to see it. The picture doesn't do it justice.



This is our last picture in Yellowstone. We were hoping for a moose because of the name of the Waterfall. It was still really pretty.

No matter where you are in the Grand Teton Park, there is no such thing as a bad picture.

Pronghorn Antelope.

This is Jenny Lake. It was absolutely one of the pretties places I have ever seen.

This is an American Bald Eagle. As we were walking around Jenny Lake, Wolfgang told me to look up just in time to see this bird fly up and land on this tree directly above our heads. What a truly magical moment it was to see this bird in the wild. We have them in California and I have seen them from a distance but never anything so personal as this. Of course, I was with the birdman and they always seem to know this and show up for him.
This little squirrel was going crazy because of the Eagle. We think that he was cute but the eagle thought he looked pretty tasty!

Just another shot of Lake Jenny with the Tetons in the background.

OK, now look closely at this picture and what do you see, yes a bear in a tree. We found this guy in a little berry tree eating all the berries. We don't know how he balanced himself or why the tree didn't break. He was a pretty good sized black bear.

So that's our trip to Yellowstone and the Grand Teton National Parks. As always, if you haven't driven around this beautiful land of ours, just get in the car and go. OK, so I'll get onto Part 2 so keep checking in to see our trip to the Oregon and California coasts.