Road Trip... The End!

The final stretch home is always the hardest!  I'm not sure why Randy always plans the longest hardest day on the LAST day.  

I told him that the next road trip needed to consist of our hardest longest day on the road to be our FIRST day and then make stops along the way back home.  Makes sense to me, right?

As with our last road trip, I made the girls souvenir books to add park brochures, maps, field notes and photos.  This has worked out well both times and the girls love having a finished project upon arriving home.

Who knows were our next road trip will take us.  I still want to visit the Redwood Forest, Glacier Park, Zion, Canyonlands & Yosemite.   I would also like to take the girls to Washington D.C. in a few years as well.  So many places to see...

If ever you are planning a road trip, send me an email.  I'd be happy to impart my VAST knowledge of planning, packing and travel tips.

Road Trip Day 10

We arrived in Estes Park with Elisan suffering from car sickness, so we grabbed a quick dinner and called it a day.  Poor thing.  She has terrible motion sickness.

Big Horn Sheep... right along the side of the road.

We are total posers here.  We weren't able to visit this National Park, but we can't resist a NP sign!

So, instead of hiking in Estes Park, we opted for a tour of the historic Stanley Hotel.

(I took this picture from our moving vehicle... Isn't it just beautiful?)

"Stephen King got the idea for The Shining after staying in room 217 in the almost empty hotel on the night before it closed for an extended period." Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stanley_Hotel

Clearly... Kyla is NOT impressed.  Perhaps if I let her watch "The Shining" she might change her mind?  Which incidently is a movie that I can watch multiple times and be just as scared as if I were watching if for the FIRST time.  "Heeeeeeeere's Johnny!"

After touring the Stanley Hotel, we hopped in the car for a long day's travel to Amarillo!

Road Trip Day 9

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Our third (and last day) in Yellowstone was spent exploring waterfalls.  However, the biggest and most popular waterfall in Yellowstone is the Upper and Lower Falls.  Yep.  Neat name, right?   Elisan was bummed that the name for the biggest falls in Yellowstone were so boring.  

Our first stop was to hike down Uncle Tom's Trail to view the Lower Falls.  These steps descended 500 feet down into the canyon (or 300 stair steps).  Oh, and I forgot to mention... it was raining and those stairs were treacherous!

  

Unfortunately, this is the best picture (below) I could get because I only had my high-powered camera lens with me.  But, Randy had his iPhone, so we had someone snap a quick picture of us there.  We were so close you could feel the mist of the waterfall.  And loud!  Oh my, it was very loud.  But, awesome to see up close.  Definitely worth the 600 stair steps. 

(By the way... I was so winded from the climb in the high elevation, that I had to take 3-4 breaks just climbing back up. Whew!  I burned my calories for that day!)

Here's the view of the stairs and the 500 ft descent to see the Lower Falls.  This picture was taken for the waterfall drop on the other side in the picture below. 

It was another crazy hike to get to this viewing platform, but what a neat treat.  To see the water rushing over the edge... And again... so close! 

There were several viewing points to see the massive waterfall.  And we stopped at most of them.  After a while, Elisan began asking, "How many times are we going to see thee same waterfall?!"  But, I wanted to see them all.

The Lower Falls deposits into the "Grand Canyon of Yellowstone", shown below.  It's pretty and impressive. 

View of the "Grand Canyon of Yellowstone"

The picture below is perhaps my favorite picture from the entire trip.  This was taken right after a thunderstorm moved through the area.  (Which is pretty common in Yellowstone.  The weather was changing constantly... snow, rain, sun... all in that order.) 

As we were leaving on of the waterfall viewing points, we passed this... Glacial Boulder.  Kinda interesting to see a big ol' rock planted in the middle of a forest.  

Road Trip Day 8

Our second day in Yellowstone was to explore the far reaches of the park, including a trout pond, wandering wildlife and Mammoth Springs.

Because Yellowstone is so vast, the trip to the Lamar Valley  was almost 2 hours long.  The speed limit inside the park is 45 mph and it's winding and scenic.  You definitely want to take your time, since spotting wildlife along the way is part of the fun.

We stopped at Trout Lake and hiked an easy trail to get there.  We hiked the perimeter of the lake and happened upon trout, swimming upstream to spawn their eggs.  I guess that's why they call it trout lake!

As we continued to hike, I noticed two animals running down the hill and splash into the water.  It was these two happy otters playing and with each other.  They put on quite a little show for us and we stayed there watching them for nearly 20 minutes.  (I think I want an otter for a pet!)

Beautiful wildflowers were all along the path.  I took many, many pictures of the different flowers and could bore you with all of them... but I won't.  However, this is my favorite.  It's called "Prairie Smoke".   It looks so delicate and I love the color.

Prairie Smoke (Geum triflorum)

We left Lamar Valley and continued our drive to Mammoth Springs in the northeast corner of Yellowstone in Fort Yellowstone.  (Tally up another hour long drive to get there, but again, the beauty of the surroundings make it worthwhile.)

It's hard to depict the vastness and beauty of this area.  Again, lots of desolated areas due to boiling volcanic magma underneath the surface, but simply amazing to see and words can't hardly do it justice.

On our way back to the lodge, we stopped by the petrified tree.  Yes... singular... tree.  Apparently, at one time, there were three petrified trees, but early explorers and visitors chipped away at the trees for "souvenirs" and only one remains today. 

Yellowstone has several "auto trails". We took the auto trail to Mount Washburn, elevation 10, 243 ft.  Felt like we were on top of the world!

Our second day of Yellowstone was a great day for spotting wildlife.  Here are just a few of the wildlife we saw.  

Road Trip Day 7

The drive from the Tetons to Yellowstone was only about 45 mins.  But, Yellowstone is such a massive national park, that it might take you 1-2 hours to get to your desired location.  

Randy had our itinerary planned out and our first day in Yellowstone was to be spent exploring geysers and hot springs!  We decided to see the famous geyser "Old Faithful" first!  If you didn't know, Old Faithful spews "faithfully" approximately every 91 minutes.

I'm not sure what we were expecting, but first and foremost... it was "on time".  Second, the geyser was eerily quiet as it burst forth with boiling water.  Third, it was very impressive and worth seeing.  (In fact, we were able to see Old Faithful erupt 3 times while we were in Yellowstone.)

After watching Old Faithful, we took a raised pedestrian trail to the surrounding hot springs and geysers near Old Faithful.  Careful to remain on the raised pedestrian trail... because you could be stepping onto a "hot spot" on the ground.

Notice how everything surround the hot springs and geysers is dead.  I was amazed at how desolate those areas were.  And look at the geyser behind the girls... This geyser, named Giant Geyser, just boiled and splashed water continuously just waiting for the next huge eruption.  However, it hasn't erupted since 2010.  When it does erupt, it can erupt water up to 250 feet and for as long as 1 hour! 

Another view of the amazing hot springs. Notice the raised pedestrian walkways and the desolate area around the hots springs?  I guess a whole lot of nothing can grow when the only water source is full of sulphur and boiling hot!

A park ranger let the girls hold elk horns and big horn sheep horns.  An elk sheds their horns each season (and the composition is like bone.)  The big horn sheep keep their horns their entire life (and the composition is like fingernails/toenails.)  Pretty neat stuff!

We had a great first day at Yellowstone!

Road Trip 2013 - Day 5/6

We arrived in Vernal, Utah late that night and crashed, but woke up the next morning ready to see some dinosaurs!

(Side note:  Ironically, several weeks back, Elisan and I were working on her scrapbook and I showed her the book that my mom put together for me.  In it, I found this... a picture of my brother, mother and me in front of the Dinosaur National Monument entrance.  So, of course, I had to recreate the picture with my two girls.  I believe I was 4 in this picture.)

I've never been one to be interested in dinosaurs.  The whole mystery behind the extinction of dinosaurs has been more than I ever wanted to wrap my brain around.  So, the Dinosaur National Monument in Utah was not my idea... BUT, I'm glad we visited.

We decided to take a 1 mile hike to the quarry site, rather than take the shuttle.  It was good to stretch our legs after the long ride from Silverton.  Along the way, there were markers indicating where fossils were in the rocks. 

The quarry building is built around basically the side of a rock where a huge pile of dinosaur bones lay waste.  According the scientists, this area was flooded (um...Noah?) and the many, many dinosaur bodies were deposited along a river bed after the water receded.  Thus, the area makes for a huge quarry of dino fossils.  

After Dinosaur National Monument, we hit the road again for Grand Teton National Park in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.  Just beautiful.

We arrived at our lodge, unloaded the truck and headed out for a hike to one of the most scenic views on the Tetons.   Unfortunately, it was slightly overcast so my pictures do not do the view justice.

No bears were spotted on our hike!  Whew!

The next day, the sky was clear and the air was cold!  And we were able to get one final picture of the beautiful Tetons before we headed out to Yellowstone.

Road Trip 2013 - Day 3 & 4

Leaving Taos, we happened upon this...

A HUGE Gorge.  In fact, it is the Rio Grande Gorge State Park in Taos.  Our schedule didn't allow us to explore it more, but we did stop to take a few scenic pictures.  (Check out the hot air balloon in the distance...)

Our trip through New Mexico was a bit uneventful... until we happened upon Roswell.  Roswell, NM as in... ALIENS, ALIENS and MORE ALIENS.  As we were approaching Roswell, alien statues and signs could be seen everywhere.  Alien everything... even down to the lamp posts!

We arrived in Colorado and stopped in Durango for a quick lunch.  We had pizza at Fired Up Pizza in the historic district and Oh. My. Word.  It was hand's down THE best pizza we've ever had.  Soooo good.

No trip to Durango is complete without at least stopping by the historic train that runs from Durango to Silverton.

Our final stop for this day was in fact, Silverton.  The drive to Silverton is on a stretch of road called the San Juan Skyway a.k.a. the scariest road on Earth... with twisty roads, crazy switchbacks all on the side of mountains... with NO guardrails. YIKES!

Randy's uncle and aunt live in Silverton (population less than 600) year round.  They built a beautiful home there and truly love their small tight knit community.  Randy's uncle is a summertime mountain tour guide and he brought us to some of the most beautiful places in all of Silverton.

The family near Red Mountain.

Uncle Steve, Aunt Karla, Randy & Kyla

Mountain snow!

Fragile tundra above the timber line!

We had a great 1.5 days in Silverton.  Wish we could have stayed longer... but alas... Yellowstone is still a long ways away! 

Next stop... Vernal Utah.