Wow.

Yellowstone National Park is a "Wow" kind of place. We have beautiful nature spots in our neck of the woods. You can proclaim frequent "Wows" while hiking through Zion National Park. This place, Yellowstone, is beyond comparison. At least in my estimation.
Nick was on a road trip and was going to be in Yellowstone all by his lonesome--with all those bears! I think not! Mike and I decided to drive all the way up there (9 hours one way) and spend a couple of days. We left after church on Sunday the 8th and got to his campsite near the south end of the park (Lewis Lake) by about midnight or so. It was quiet hours, so we weren't able to blow up our air mattress with the pump (too much noise), so we slept on the hard ground with only the sleeping bag below us. Ugh. Needless, to say, between that hard ground--no rocks, though--and it being so cold, we didn't sleep much. At least, Mike and I did not. And when I heard Nick softly snoring, I was pretty sure it must have been a beast outside the tent, snuffing around. That didn't help me sleep, either. But it was something to look forward to the next night there--an inflated air mattress with sheets and sleeping bags and the comforts of home. Except there were "vault" (?) toilets and only one faucet several hundred feet away. ;-)

Here's my cute fellers in the early morning.

The view just by our campsite was really pretty. There was a meadow. I expected to see deer grazing there in the morning when I got up, but there weren't any. Nor bears, so that was nice.
The lake was glassy and smooth. Lewis Lake, near the South side of the park. Nick actually bathed in that the previous day. Brrrr.
And Nick cooked us ham and eggs for breakfast. He took care of most of the food while we were with him. Packed lunch food, planned dinners, cooked breakfast. It was nice.
As you know, there were many MANY acres of Yellowstone that burned up in the fires of 1988 (?) Not sure on the date. Much as grown back and you can see from this picture the dead trees above and the new growth below. The new growth of lodgepole pines is so thick everywhere! It's amazing. Thick THICK forests, and many of them very new. These trees are only 8 to 12 feet tall along the side of the road.
Not a fire, but a steaming geyser. We spent the first part of day one touring many geyser basins. This one is the first we stopped at in West Thumb.
There are so many colors, so many different types of volcanic activity all around. I hadn't really though of Yellowstone as being a volcano, but that's what it is. And it's very active! Just way different than the typical things we think of with volcanoes. I collect silhouette pictures of me and Mike with water. Someday I'll make a nice collage of them.
Nick consulting his trail guide.
Me at the side of West Thumb of Yellowstone Lake. There's a geyser there.
I thought this moss growing on the dead trees was cool. Another cool thing was how different pots, adjacent to each other, would have such divers levels of activity. One would be bubbling away, and right next to it, just a foot or two, it'd NOT be bubbling.
We stopped at the Continental divide for some photos. The Divide meanders all through the park. We drove past one little pond of a lake that actually had two outlets--one on each side of the divide. So some of it's drainage went to the Atlantic, and some to the Pacific ocean. Mind bottling, as Eric would say.

Mike and Nick by "Sapphire Pool" which was quite striking. But don't drop your camera or sunglasses into it!
After that little board walk of pools and geysers, I wanted to walk on to Mystic Falls. Nick had a sore foot and Mike wasn't accustomed to hiking quite so much, so I went alone. There were lots of people on the trail, and I hurried along the trail and snapped a few photos. It was a pretty walk along a stream bed. There sure are a lot of fallen trees around everywhere. a LOT.
I turned around a bend and saw that dark thing up ahead of me and thought it was a moose ! Or a BEAR! But it wasn't . It was a stump. It was a good thing, because at that time I was the only one visible on the trail and felt a little creeped out at the prospect of meeting either on my own.
And this is Mystic Falls. 1 mile in and I jogged the one mile out. Not all of the whole mile, of course, but I did hustle and run the down hill parts since the fellows were waiting for me and I wasn't really sure how far it was. I was only gone a half an hour.
In the afternoon, as we headed toward Mammoth, we were stuck in road construction delays and in heavy rain and hail. Big thunder and lightening storm.
After it cleared, and we ate in Mammoth at a restaurant, we were headed back down to the other end of the park to our camp and came across these spectacularly rugged granite boulders just out of the blue. It was smooth mountains, trees, meadows, turned a corner and BAM! There it was as we wound down the side of the mountain.
We stopped at more geysers. We saw a lot of geysers. I believe this is up at Mammoth.
This is also at Mammoth. That was pretty spectacular and we enjoyed this area. It was chilly and rained on us a little here. We were not expecting it to be quite so cold. I think it was only in the 50's and 60's.
We saw lots and lots and lots of Bison. This one posed for us nicely. I think Nick got a lot of pictures on his camera, too.
I believe this is Day two. Tuesday the 10th. We planned to drive from our Lewis Lake campground to Canyon. This is Le Harvey rapids on the way. This would be cool to see in July when the fish are jumping ("running") up the river. The water was plenty pretty.
This is Hayden Meadow or something like that. 'Tis truly where the buffalo roam. We were stuck in traffic coming and going through here because they were on the road and they have the right of way. And they know it! We counted hundreds in the meadows.
This is Mike and me at the lower falls. We walked down the hundreds of stairs on the "Uncle Tom's Trail" down to the bottom. Then we walked back up. And we survived.
If you looked left, you saw that (above). If you looked right, you saw this:
And if you looked down, you saw this:
There are quite a few stairs. They are just attached to the side of the cliff in most of the walk down there.
Nick and Mike at Artist's Viewpoint. We walked along the trail to this place, then Mike walked back to the car in the parking lot. Nick and I went on to do a short Back Country Hike.
Nick read about this Clear Lake hike on a website and it was suggested as a good one because you see such variety on one short back country hike. Nick was anxious to get away from the crowds. Those previous places were really busy with many tourists. So, at the first of the hike (it was about 3 1/2 to 4 miles, maybe less) we skirted along the rim of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. That was a pretty view.
We hiked through some alpine trails, watching for bears and seeing very few people.
Oh, I guess these are a bit out of order. Canyon View, below.
We passed Lily Pad Pond. That was pretty. I do adore lily pads. Unfortunately, so do mosquitos, so we moved right along after I got bit while just stopping to take a picture of this pretty little swampy area.
We also passed by some mud pots and steam vents. Then we passed by "Clear Lake."

Then we went through some lovely alpine meadows. There were actually deer feeding here. I took a picture, but they'd moved back into the trees by the time I got it snapped. (I was busy watching for bears.)
Other than the doe we saw, we also saw this little squirrell that was teasing Nick.
The wildflowers EVERYwhere throughout the park were just amazing. All kinds, everywhere. I just loved them all. This is just a shot of wildflowers.
We noticed so many of trees had the bark scraped off them like this. We speculated as to whether it was done by bison or by elk or deer.
This whole big stand of trees didn't have one tree in it that was unaffected by the bark-scraping activity.
Back to Hayden area and the bison. There was a huge traffic back-up. I was driving. I was so busy watching the bison swim across the Yellowstone River that I almost ran over one right in front of me!! Mike had to keep saying, "Linda! Linda! Look out!" I mean, I was only going 2 mph, but still. One does not run into a bison without some kind of consequence, I'm sure. Nick took the best picture of that fellow giving me the evil eye. It's on Nick's camera, however. Check Facebook on a future date.
Another stop was Sulphur Caldron. We were kind of wearing out and didn't go see the Mud Volcano that was right across the road. But we could sure smell it all! Wow. And the area that I'm standing on while taking the photo of this sign COLLAPSED about 10 years ago and fell into the sulphur pots!!! It's been rebuilt, but still. I'm glad it didn't fall in again while I was there. Another point we stopped at also had been shortened by an earlier earthquake.

We stopped at the Lake area. There was a really pretty beach by the little wildlife museum there. Me and Mike. Late afternoon.
We stopped by the Lake Lodge and sat on the front porch rockers for a minute.
This was the view we had over the lake. Pretty.
And the inside of the lodge wasn't too bad, either. Two fireplaces. On Monday, we did go to Old Faithful Lodge and looked around there, got ice cream, walked around the geysers in that area, too. I don't know why I don't have any pictures of that.
On our way back to Lewis Lake, we stopped to take a photo of a large buck feeding in the meadow. I didn't get a great shot, but there had actually been two of them there.
Roasting marshmallows after dinner on Tuesday night. Or maybe they're just playing in the fire. We had tin foil dinners this night. They were yummy.
Near our campground was a river area below Lewis Falls, and it was supposed to be a Moose habitat. Nick and I drove down there in the evening before dinner, before dark, but didn't see any. Darn. I wanted to see a moose. But he stopped to go find some willow branches for our marshmallows and while he was gone, I waited in the car. What I didn't know was that the headlights were on. So when he returned, the motor wouldn't even turn over! Dead as a doornail. Ugh. So he tried flagging down a car our two, then decided to hike back to camp (only 1 to 2 miles at most) and get his car to give mine a jump. Well, a nice Amish family stopped just about then, and he had jumper cables, so they got us going. Whew. Amish people driving through Yellowstone? What is wrong with this picture? maybe they were Mennonites. I don't know, but they were a nice young couple with two little kids and they were from Pennsylvania and had been visiting the man's family in Washington for 10 days and were heading home. A month long trip for them, and Yellowstone was one of their stops. I'm glad they stopped by!
Mike and I got up early Wednesday morning, braved the cold and went back to the same area, moose hunting. No luck. But I did get this nice photo of the sunrise reflection on the river.
Nick made us a lovely breakfast on Wednesday morning, then we headed out, driving through the Tetons on our way home. Those were loverly, too. We were home by about 9:30 p.m. or so. Yes, Yellowstone is full of WoW factor, that's for sure. We saw Elk, a wolf, lots of Bison, bald eagle and red-tailed hawk, mice, squirrels, chipmonks, rabbits, geese. But no bear and no moose. I'm so glad we got to go!

Orange Creamsicles and Spider bites

Wednesday, July 28, 2010, we finally got some serious rain. I can't remember the last time our lawn was thoroughly watered by something other than the sprinkler and hose I drag around. It overflowed some gutters and was complete with thunder and lightening. Mike and I sat on the front porch and enjoyed it. Until we wondered how badly the gutters were overflowing at his mom's house. When that happens, it comes DOWN the driveway and into her carport and even the house! So we rushed over there. No damage, and no over flowing gutters over there, thankfully.
Thursday morning when we went walking, we went past the irrigation gutter at the top of our street. It was running orange. Orange, like the color of orange creamsicles. People say we have red hills, but they are wrong. The hills and the dirt that runs off them into the gutters with a hard rain are orange. It was kind of pretty, in a "dirt"y sort of way. But not pretty enough to scoop some up and freeze it into a popsicle. ha. (Gail hates the flavor of orange creamsicles.)

And around the first of July, I noticed a red area on the top of my left shoulder. It was bright red, oval, about 2 inches in diameter. It didn't hurt, wasn't swollen, or itch terribly, but it did feel a little warm to the touch. Of course, after touching it, it DID itch a little more, so I put on hydrocortizone cream for about a week, and it stayed the same. Gail thought it might be getting larger, so we drew a circle around the edge of it one day with a permanent marker so we could track the size. It was STILL very red and just sort of itchy. That just managed to get marker all over my clothes. But the size didn't change significantly. After another week, I got some good ol' home remedy sticky pine gum salve and tried that for a few days and by then it'd been three weeks and it was fading quickly. There was a small-ish bump in the middle where there might have been a bite. So it faded over the next week. It was almost all gone, but I was looking just the other day at the coloring. It was still slightly darker than the surrounding skin, but only very VERY slightly. THEN--it got little bumpies all over it, kind of like heat rash or pimples. And in a BIGGER area--about 5 inches in diameter all over my shoulder! How weird. It's not really itchy, it is not red, it's not hot, it's not dying tissue that Nick keeps trying to scare me with (Really, it's not. it's just his weird sense of humor and love of big words). So, I guess whatever it was that bit me must have had some kind of toxin that my body is struggling to expel. I'm very glad it's not been systemic. Although, perhaps I can blame anything on it...hot flashes? laziness? not wanting to do the dishes? Maybe I CAN milk this for whatever it's worth. In any case, it's been about a month since I first noticed the red spot. Maybe it wasn't a spider. Or maybe....it was... and I'll soon have super powers!

Las Vegas in the Summer time

What were we THINKING? It was only 116 degrees. Fahrenheit. Yeah, hot. And I was dumb and didn't change into cooler pants and ended up walking around in jeans. June 19-21, 2010.

Mike and I went to Las Vegas Monday afternoon. We had an appointment for a Vacation Ownership presentation. Time shares. Yeah, well, we like a little get-away once in while. Together. Seems all our little and big trips of late have not been with each other, so that was the goal. Not to buy a timeshare, but to spend some time together. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. I think I worked all of 12 hours all week long in the library. That's 1 and one half days. Woo hoo! fun times.

Other than being incredibly hot outside, the resort we stayed in was quite nice. Nothing fancy or over-the-top like the model room they showed us. The model show room definitely had the "vegas" look about it. Red and black color scheme, etc. Too much. Ours was cool greens, browns and very nicely equipped with all we needed. And The pool was indoors! I was kind of bummed about that , but their reasoning was so they could offer a year-round pool for all their peeps. That makes sense. It was small, but very refreshing. I did some nice little water aerobics. We swam on Monday evening, went out onto the patio to dry off and watch the planes land at the airport. We like planes and airports, so that was kind of fun. And--bonus only in Las Vegas--you don't even get cold standing out in the wind because it's still hot at night and you just dry right off.

On our drive to Las Vegas, we took a detour to see the fire results at Warm Springs outside of Glendale, NV. This is where Mike had gone camping with Scouts earlier in the year and had such a fun time. Then, they heard there was a fire and it was burned up. Boy, was it! I actually snapped a few pictures of it. But who wants to look at burned up palm trees in the desert? I'll not be posting those, I think. However, you should know, those were the only pictures I took the whole three days! ha. Just didn't think about it.

On Monday afternoon and evening after checking in at our hotel, we drove to the Strip and walked around to see if we could find half-price show tickets for "The Phantom of the Opera." And we did! They are pricey no matter what, but we really thought it would be nice to see a show while down there. The other thing we'd hoped to spend time doing was that we wanted to spend at least part of one afternoon and attend the temple. Well, I checked the church website later that evening in the hotel. Guess what the maintenance closure dates are for the Las Vegas Temple? Yep, July 19 through August somethingth. Figures. We always seem to run into that or Stake Conferences where ever we go on vacations. ha.

Monday night we ate at a buffet on Fremont Street. The Paradise Buffet maybe? I don't know. They all look the same. But we ate WAAAYY too much yummy food. Including prime rib, and some of the best coconut macaroons I think I've ever had for dessert. It's the little things. We were going to wait for the Fremont Street experience, but decided to do it after our Phantom show. We had tickets for a 7 pm show and would be out by 8:30 or 9 pm. Plenty of time to do more stuff another night.

Tuesday morning we had to listen to their time share presentation. We took three hours to tell them, "Thanks, but no thanks." Although, I think Mike was ready to buy. No, I KNOW he was! Even after "The Talk." ['we are not buying a timeshare!' talk] I have to keep reminding him I just saved him $32, 000, so please can we go out to dinner now? ha. It was a good company, so if you are shopping (and Mike HAS been shopping and studying and researching for YEARS, literally, and knows what's out there) let me know and I'll give you a very good recommendation.

On Tuesday afternoon, we went to the Venetian to find the theater for the evening performance, ate some lunch at the food court, wandered through the shops, enjoyed the living statues, then took a hike to the Bellagio. We watched one water show, then went inside to the Botanical Garden, I showed Mike the Chocolate fountain, then we went out and watched another water show. We walked through Bellagio's shops, wandered through Caesar's Palace to stay out of the heat as much as we could, then made it back in time to rest a bit by a slot machine before lining up for the show. Slot machines don't take coins most places. Not that I would have put any in and spoiled my nearly perfect record. No, it is a perfect record. I've never put money in a machine. But Mike would have played a penny machine for a quarter's worth. But, no coins, so no business from us.

The show was really wonderful. In spite of having the "cheap" tickets, they were great seats for US because we could see what the ticket holders on the floor could NOT see, and that was the chandelier, as it was hanging, swinging, dropping, etc. Pretty impressive from where we were. We really enjoyed it, and I as read through the playbill, those are some pretty impressive actors and singers in those roles.

We watched the Mirage Volcano eruption from the balcony at the Venetian after the show, we ALMOST went out for ice cream, but there was not an ice cream shop to be found in the downtown Fremont street area. They would have made a killing, as hot as it was. We hung out there, people watching for a while, enjoyed the Freemont Street Experience light show, drank water to try and keep cool. By the time we got back to our room, it was late, we didn't get our ice cream, but that's OK. We'd eaten plenty that day.

Wednesday, no set things to do. We went to the Factory Outlet stores on the south of the strip. As much as I don't like shopping, every few years I enjoy a trip there to get some things I like at the Burlington Brands store. So I did. I got some shirts. I shopped. And I even enjoyed it for the most part. They didn't have EVERYthing I wanted to get, but I did OK. Now I can replace a couple of my more ratty shirts. Mike and I also shopped at the Bass Pro Shop because that was what our free gift was for spending the time to tell the VACATION OWNERSHIP people (they never call it time shares anymore ). $75 in gift cards at Bass PRo. So we found a nice cooler and bought it. Coolers are nice to have and ours were broken and worn out.

We drove home, eating one more over-filling buffet before arriving at home around 7 p.m. Cedar City felt SOOOOO nice and cool after that hot spot on the planet. Even 90 degrees plus today was almost enjoyable. Really, who can stand to live in heat like that? Yechh! But, we did have a nice time together and are glad we went.

I think I hit all the high points, Mom!

BOSTON!!

June 23 was our travel date. Mom and I had practically no difficulty difficulty getting to Boston. Seth drove us to the shuttle stop in St. George. We made it in the nick of time. The ride was fine to Las Vegas Airport. We breezed right through security and got to the gate in no time. We had plenty of time to wait, as the shuttle choices were either to get us there with only 30 minutes to spare, or 2 1/2 hour. We opted for the longer one.
The picture about is the only picture I took while we rode our trolley around Boston on Thursday the 24th of June. "Old Town Trolley" Sound familiar? I think I've ridden one of those in Savannah, Georgia. I was just so busy looking around, listening to the narration that I didn't even think about taking pictures. Except the one above of the Boston Public Library. Of course. ;-)

We also had lunch on the wharf that day. I believe we ate at "Legal Sea Foods" or something. It was air conditioned, and that was a MUST at this point. The trolley was not air-conditioned and we were melting. I asked the people across to take a nice tacky touristy picture of us eating together.


Following our meal, we went on a harbor cruise around Boston Harbor. It was also narrated. I took quite a few pictures here (I'd remembered the purpose of a camera by this time), but because my new computer uploads photos ridiculously S L O W L Y, I'm only putting in a couple of the whole trip. Talk about frustrating. That's why I seldom blog. I was just getting the hang of it, then they go and change my computer. Grrr.
Back to Boston. Here's the lovely sky line. It was a lovely day. About 94 degrees. I thought the Harbor Cruise would be cool and breezy, but it was not. It was hot and breezy. I enjoyed the narration, though.
Above: this is as close as we got to the USS Constitution. "Old Ironsides" Bunker Hill monument is the obelisk you can see in the background.

Our Adventure in Boston was complete in a lot of ways because we Drove to the Alewife "T" station, rode the subway into town, changed lines, found the trolley stop, rode the trolley around for about 2 hours, ate out on the Wharf, took the Harbor Cruise, then took a different "T" back to the station and found our car (it'd rained there), drove it to our hotel--and we were tired! It was enough. The trolley ride showed us lots of sites we'd never have been able to walk around in to see, so that was a good thing. It was very hot, however. Even the subway underground stations were stifling hot. Most of the elevators worked, though, so that was another good thing.

The next day, Friday, we went to the temple. It's in Belmont and we actually drove past it on our way to the subway station the previous day. Our hotel was clear out in Burlington. We enjoyed staying there (well, I did) because I could find the grocery store, it was close to the freeway AND it was an extended stay so we cooked our instant oatmeal breakfast each day that I'd brought and we had fruit and juice. I'm sure Mike was glad he didn't have to be there to share in the instant oatmeal breakfasts. ha.

The temple was lovely. The session was small. The people were nice. One lady had just been to Cedar City Utah to attend her niece's graduation from SUU. Nice photo, huh?
After we went back to the hotel room to change and grab a snack to go, we drove to Lexington and found an American Heritate museum or something like that, where we caught another trolly! Yay for Trollies! This one was air conditioned and our guide was a sweet lady who was costumed. We drove past the sites in Lexington and Concord, and when we got to Concord, we got out (except Mom, who waited on the bus) and walked over the old North Bridge over the Concord River (?), saw some monuments, took many more pictures, walked past the "Old Manse" and read plaques and listened to more narration about the Revolutionary War. The tour was nice. Again, it was incredibly hot while we were waiting for it outside the museum, so the air conditioning felt sooooo very nice. I stopped and parked next to the green in Lexington AFTER the tour to take some more photos. It was kind of different because the tour included tickets to go into a few of the places she pointed out, but they didn't stop. We would have had to gone back on our own to go on those building tours. I decided those two activities were plenty. We ate at Chili's in Burlington and retired fairly early. I spent the evenings studying my maps and game plan for the next day's drive.

The Old North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts.

A Minute Man monument by the bridge.
This is out of order It's Athena's driveway in New Hampshire. Pretty, huh?
Saturday the 26th of June was the purpose of this little jaunt to the North East. This is the church in Andover, Massachusetts. It's very ornate, from the 1700's, and not very typical of most of the little New England chapels we saw everywhere. I took more photos. You can ask me for my York Photo password if you want to see the rest. Or go look at my scrap bag. ha.

Berenice is standing by a "Holt" grave stone.
We traveled to Wolfeboro, New Hampshire on Sunday Morning. It was rainy and cool. We drove past Lake Winnepesaukee and it is the first vacation destination spot in America. At least, that's what the sign outside town said. I missed a turn and we were a tad late for church, but we got in and sat down during the opening song. So, technically, we were not late, according to my granddaughter's definition of being late for church! ha.

Church was small, nice, and we left before Relief Society to drive on up to Athena's. We had lunch with her and her husband at a little local (teeny tiny) general store. We went to their cute home and visited, Athena and I went for a short bike ride up their lane, a little walk through the woods. Gee, I really do need to post those pictures...I'll try to insert them later. Eh, maybe not. They'd probably delete the ones I already have posted. Don't think it hasn't happened because it has. Can you see why I am a challenged blogger?

We spent the night at a bed and breakfast called "Riverbend Inn" in Chochorua, left the next morning for Vermont. It rained the whole night long, so things were quite wet. Especially in Sharon Vermont. Below is a photo of me and Berenice standing by the monument. We had a great tour of the place in a little golf-cart car. It was pleasant and breezy, helping us to feel more comfortable in all that heat and humidity. It is a beautiful area and the visitor's center and grounds are just gorgeous and immaculate.


Yeah, well. There WAS a picture here of me and Berenice, but it deleted when I backspaced. And now it's gone and I'm not going out to find it. Have you noticed there's no "undo" in these templates? Grrr.

So, we went to Plymouth. Here's some pictures. I'm going to bed. G'nite from the bloggerly challenged! Anybody want to write my blog for me? I give up.