We departed Great Falls, MT this morning after driving back one exit from the RV park to fill up with diesel fuel - at $4.39/gallon. In West Yellowstone, it had been about $4.79/gallon. We had been told to make sure you left the Great Falls area with enough fuel to get us there and back!!!! They were right. When we arrived in St. Mary, MT (east entrance to the park), diesel was $4.99/gallon!
Anyway, the drive was through the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. I'm going to be honest. I really could not tell much difference between the Indian Reservation and the plains of Montana which we had driven through on other days. However, after having listened to the abridged Ambrose book, Undaunted Courage, on CD last week, we did know that Meriwether Lewis had a run in with Blackfeet Indians on his way back to St. Louis from the Pacific.
Getting to St. Mary was non-eventful. Just rolling hills running parallel to the mountains. The real mountains. High, rocky and snowy Rocky Mountains. Again, quite awe inspiring to see the mountains rise up from the plains where you see farmers raising wheat and cattlemen raising cattle - all to ensure we are fed. Some of those dummies in Washington need to come to Montana and South Dakota and see the impact fuel prices are having on these folks. Believe it or not - they do not have mass transit!!! An electric car would not get a child to school - it would run out of juice!!! I commented to Jimmy today that being rural mail delivery person would be a really expensive job in this area of the country.
Anyway, we arrive in St. Mary at the KOA and get settled in. The mountains of Glacier National Park are visible out the front window of the RV. Not as much snow as I expected, but spectacular nonetheless!!! Oh - by the way - it is in the high 80's here - but no humidity.
After getting the RV set up and the cats settled, Jimmy and I head to the park. At the east entrance visitor's center, an osprey has built a nest on top of a telephone pole. The rangers have a scope on the osprey so that you can see them up close and personal. We find that the Going to the Sun Road is not open all the way. From the east side, we can go about 12 miles and then walk about 2 more. So - off we go up the mountain. No snow. Not a lot of cars. Not anything like Yellowstone. What we have read indicates that this park gets about 1/3 the number of visitors each year that Yellowstone gets. I guess I can understand that. It is much further north. It does not have the development around or in it that Yellowstone has. Where Yellowstone has well developed roads within the park for tourists, Glacier has one road across the park (about 50 miles), and it is closed right now.
Anyway, we get to the point where the road is closed and walk about 1 miles up the road. That is where we decided that the air was too thin and the temperature too high for us to go any farther. It is a good thing that we turned around then, because the rangers were coming down from the actual point where the snowplows and heavy equipment were working to open the rest of the road and telling everyone to go back down. We were told that the problem is not snow on the highway right now. It is damage to the road done by avalanches and slides. One ranger told us that there was one point where the road just isn't!!! Personally, I would prefer to wait until the road IS before we go up there. They do hope to have the road open by this Thursday. We will keep our fingers crossed that we get to make the trip across the park before we have to leave to come home.
Anyway, that is about all we did today. There are pictures in the blog page on Glacier National Park pictures. We are considering taking a boat tour of one or two of the lakes. We hope to get up into Canada to see the park further north. Plus, we will make a trip around to the west side of the park and go as far on the Going to the Sun Road as possible just in case they don't get the entire road open while we are here.
More tomorrow.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Days 14 and 15 - Great Falls, MT
Believe it or not, nothing much to report. We arrived in Great Falls, MT, yesterday afternoon after numerous delays on the trip from West Yellowstone (wrecks, slow traffic, etc.). It was almost 90 degrees - this after experiencing about 40 degrees two days before!!!!
Anyway, the grocery store was calling (we were out of paper plates on which to feed Bear and Peaches). So, off to Smith's I got. Smith's is Kroger!!! They had Breyers ice cream and a lot of other stuff that looked too interesting to pass up. So, I checked out and went back to the RV. Guess what I didn't get!!! Paper plates. I didn't get them until Sunday morning when I went back to the store.
We did make two forays in the tourist area. There is a Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center along the Missouri River. We drove out there and toured the center. It was really interesting, particularly after having listened to the abridged version of Undaunted Courage. We wound up buying the unabridged version to listen to on the trip home.
The interesting thing about Great Falls is the actual falls. There were 4 falls which Lewis and Clark encountered on their great expedition to find a northwest passage. They have been dammed up. The interesting thing is how it was done. The dams are placed far enough back from the falls to preserve the beauty of the falls themselves. We drove out of town about 20 miles to the Ryan Dam - which is where the Great Falls are now. It was a really nice park with a suspension bridge over a little branch of the Missouri River.
Garrie - I forgot the camera. I took some pictures at Ryan Dam with my telephone. They at the begining of this update.
That is really all we did today. Just kind of chilled. Tomorrow - we head to Glacier National Park.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Day 13 - Yellowstone
Pictures have been updated at the blog page titled Yellowstone pictures. This is the last update to Yellowstone pictures, as we leave tomorrow morning for Great Falls, MT on the way to Glacier National Park.
Today was to have been a leisurely drive around the entire park just looking for animals and stopping for one last eruption at Old Faithful.
We had barely gotten inside the park when we came upon a large group of cars pulled off the road. The male bald eagle (from the eagle nest we saw the very first day) was perched up on the very top of a tree across the little river from the road. Of course, I had to jump out and take his picture - 3 times. They are the first new pictures in Yellowstone animals. He is on the tree right in the middle of the picture - you can clearly see his white head.
Then, on into the park and we head south towards Old Faithful. I had been a little disappointed in the geyser when we saw it on Wednesday. I thought it was a little weak and I wanted to give it one more change. On the way to the site, we came upon a walkway (just past the Midway Geyser Basin) to Fairy Falls. So, off we went. Then we realized that the walkway we were on was the one mile walk to the access trail to Fairy Falls. The total, one way walk was 2.6 miles. We had promised ourselves that we would not take any long walks today since we were driving the entire circumference of the park!!! So, we walked out a little ways and then turned back to the car.
On to Old Faithful. She was scheduled to erupt in about 20 minutes from the time we arrived. So, we decided to walk around the walkway to the back side of the geyser to get a different view. I found a place to take the pictures where the sun would not be directly in my face. Jimmy called our friend Jim Bennett in Corinth to update him on our trip. While they were talking, Old Faithful made a minimal eruption. I, for one, thought it was over since it was not much less than the one we saw the other time. So, down to the cell phone I went to give Jim the web site for this blog. I no sooner hung up than Old Faithful put on a most spectacular show. It went for about 4 minutes and the spray was at least two times higher than we had seen it on our previous visit. I have appended the pictures that I took today to the Yellowstone Geyser set of pictures. I kind of just held the button down on the camera and let it take pictures.
After the show, Jimmy went in to talk to the rangers about where to find bear. They told us to head north towards the Hayden area. But, they also told him that it would be just plain out old fashioned luck if we were to see one. So, up to the cafeteria for lunch and on to the car for the drive.
It was my turn to drive. We had to go back over the mountain passes that we went over yesterday when it was sleeting. Today, it was absolutely glorious. No rain. No snow. No sleet. Almost no motorcycles. As we came out of the pass, Jimmy started looking down into the meadows through the binoculars looking for bear. None to be seen. We saw some buffalo (they are everywhere), but no bear. We had just about given up when we saw lots of cars pulled off the highway - rather helter skelter. Obviously, they had seen something important, and we needed to join them. So, I pulled off the side of the road (actually off the road vs. just kind of off the road) and we traipsed off across a hilly meadow to see what was going on. There was a black bear. Now, we didn't get close enough to determine if it was a black bear or a grizzly bear or an adult or a cub. But, we did get to see our second bear of the trip. One couple that we talked to had two children. The little boy had made a wish to see a bear when he blew on a dandelion. He got his wish, and we got ours.
The rest of the drive was fairly uneventful. Just back to West Yellowstone and to the RV for a night of relaxation before we head out in the morning.
I did forget to include one funny thing that we saw yesterday. As we were heading out of the park, we saw our second wreck of the day. It was an RV which had apparently backed its rear wheels off the roadway. It was just sitting there with its front wheels on the road and its underbody on the curb. Yes, the wrecker was there to pull him out!!! Maybe it was a rental unit!!!
Till tomorrow.
Today was to have been a leisurely drive around the entire park just looking for animals and stopping for one last eruption at Old Faithful.
We had barely gotten inside the park when we came upon a large group of cars pulled off the road. The male bald eagle (from the eagle nest we saw the very first day) was perched up on the very top of a tree across the little river from the road. Of course, I had to jump out and take his picture - 3 times. They are the first new pictures in Yellowstone animals. He is on the tree right in the middle of the picture - you can clearly see his white head.
Then, on into the park and we head south towards Old Faithful. I had been a little disappointed in the geyser when we saw it on Wednesday. I thought it was a little weak and I wanted to give it one more change. On the way to the site, we came upon a walkway (just past the Midway Geyser Basin) to Fairy Falls. So, off we went. Then we realized that the walkway we were on was the one mile walk to the access trail to Fairy Falls. The total, one way walk was 2.6 miles. We had promised ourselves that we would not take any long walks today since we were driving the entire circumference of the park!!! So, we walked out a little ways and then turned back to the car.
On to Old Faithful. She was scheduled to erupt in about 20 minutes from the time we arrived. So, we decided to walk around the walkway to the back side of the geyser to get a different view. I found a place to take the pictures where the sun would not be directly in my face. Jimmy called our friend Jim Bennett in Corinth to update him on our trip. While they were talking, Old Faithful made a minimal eruption. I, for one, thought it was over since it was not much less than the one we saw the other time. So, down to the cell phone I went to give Jim the web site for this blog. I no sooner hung up than Old Faithful put on a most spectacular show. It went for about 4 minutes and the spray was at least two times higher than we had seen it on our previous visit. I have appended the pictures that I took today to the Yellowstone Geyser set of pictures. I kind of just held the button down on the camera and let it take pictures.
After the show, Jimmy went in to talk to the rangers about where to find bear. They told us to head north towards the Hayden area. But, they also told him that it would be just plain out old fashioned luck if we were to see one. So, up to the cafeteria for lunch and on to the car for the drive.
It was my turn to drive. We had to go back over the mountain passes that we went over yesterday when it was sleeting. Today, it was absolutely glorious. No rain. No snow. No sleet. Almost no motorcycles. As we came out of the pass, Jimmy started looking down into the meadows through the binoculars looking for bear. None to be seen. We saw some buffalo (they are everywhere), but no bear. We had just about given up when we saw lots of cars pulled off the highway - rather helter skelter. Obviously, they had seen something important, and we needed to join them. So, I pulled off the side of the road (actually off the road vs. just kind of off the road) and we traipsed off across a hilly meadow to see what was going on. There was a black bear. Now, we didn't get close enough to determine if it was a black bear or a grizzly bear or an adult or a cub. But, we did get to see our second bear of the trip. One couple that we talked to had two children. The little boy had made a wish to see a bear when he blew on a dandelion. He got his wish, and we got ours.
The rest of the drive was fairly uneventful. Just back to West Yellowstone and to the RV for a night of relaxation before we head out in the morning.
I did forget to include one funny thing that we saw yesterday. As we were heading out of the park, we saw our second wreck of the day. It was an RV which had apparently backed its rear wheels off the roadway. It was just sitting there with its front wheels on the road and its underbody on the curb. Yes, the wrecker was there to pull him out!!! Maybe it was a rental unit!!!
Till tomorrow.
Yellowstone Pictures
This blog will be uploaded with pictures from today. I have found out that if you double click on the slide show, it will take you to the picasa web album site where you can see the pictures more clearly. But, as of right now, the pictures are uploaded and labeled for our first two days in the park.
Yellowstone Animals
Yellowstone Geysers
Yellowstone Scenery
Yellowstone Animals
Yellowstone Geysers
Yellowstone Scenery
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Day 12 - Yellowstone
Pictures are at url: http://picasaweb.google.com/mcthomas2005
Once all of the pictures are uploaded and labeled - I will create one blog entry with just pictures slideshows. You can double click on a slideshow and it will take you to our pictures web site.
Anyway, today was the north circle in Yellowstone. Of course, that meant repeating everything we had seen from West Yellowstone to Madison and north to Norris. But, even with the fact that we were repeating miles traveled, we did see something new - a wreck. How on earth someone can take out a pine tree with a maximum speed of 45 miles per hour - I don't know. But, someone did. There were emergency vehicles, ambulances, rangers and all of the other emergency services there with traffic stopped on both sides of the road - well, maybe just slowed down. We also stopped to take pictures of the eagle nest since the sun was covered with clouds in the morning.
Our first real stop today was the Norris Geyser Basin. The Steamboat Geyser is in this basin. It goes off on a regular basis, but when it has a major eruption (last one was in May 2005), it shoots water higher than Old Faithful. Now, its really big eruptions are on an 8 to 50 year cycle. That means, you could just walk away from the geyser heading to the parking lot and that sucker could blow and you would miss it!!!! That did not happen to us, but it certainly could have.
From there we headed north to Sheepeaters Cliffs. These cliffs were formed by a lava flow that solidified into basalt cliffs. They actually reminded me of Devil's Tower with the vertical stratifications and the broken off pieces at the base. There were supposed to be marmots nesting in the broken pieces of rock at the base. We did not see any, but I did get a great picture of a chipmunk (it is in the Yellowstone Animals album at the url at the beginning).
Just north of Sheepeaters Cliffs were the Hoodoos. Hoodoos are vertical stones that have eroded away and are just standing there. There was a little drive through the hoodoos. Luckily it was one way - because it felt tight in the jeep!!!
North of the Hoodoos was Mammoth Park Headquarters. We stopped there and had lunch. There were signs everywhere that you were not to feed the elk. We couldn't feed the elk. There weren't any!!! But, there were a lot of people milling about and taking a break from driving.
Rather than climb the Mammoth Terraces right after lunch, we decided to drive to the north entrance to Yellowstone. That is where the Roosevelt Arch is. The arch was erected in 1903 and reads "For the Benefit and Enjoyment of the People" which was from the 1872 Congressional Act which actually created the park. It felt like it took us forever to reach the arch from Mammoth, because the park service was striping the road!!!! What was really interesting is that we actually left the park, did a u-turn, took our pictures and then had to show our pass to get right back into the park!!!
There were supposed to be mountain sheep in the area north of Mammoth and south of the north entrance. There was a wonderful area where the sheep should have been. We saw some pigeons - but no sheep in that wonderful area.
We then proceeded to the Mammoth Terraces. This was really an interesting area. It was a thermal area, but it didn't seem to be alive. The minerals from the thermal areas had created very artistic 'terraces' created by the deposits. Of course, you could not walk out onto the terraces, but it certainly did look like you ought to be able to. Jimmy and I agreed that we would go up one level. I do not know if either of us could have climbed all the way to the top. Plus, by now we have started to tire of thermal areas as well as bison!!!! There are so many you really become immune to their beauty!!! Kind of a shame, but it is the truth.
From Mammoth, we head south towards the Tower area. The first sight mentioned in our book was Gardner Canyon. As we approach the bridge, we saw lots of cars pulled over to the side. This is a clear indication in Yellowstone of animal life!!! So, as we drove across the bridge, I strained to see the animal everyone was taking pictures of. There he was. A brown bear down by the river. So, off the road we pull and out come the binoculars and camera. We get right down on the side of the hill and watch that bear waddle up the side of the hill (on the other side of the river!!!). I did take a picture of it. I can clearly see the bear. You will see kind of a brown blob in the middle of the picture!!! But, it counts as a bear sighting. It is our only bear sighting in the wild of the trip.
A short time after we left the bear and, later, Undine Falls, we came upon another traffic jam. It was another Elk Jam. There were two bull elks who needed to get across the highway. So, amble across the highway they did. No hurry - even with people jumping out of cars, slamming doors, and aiming cameras at them. They needed to get across the street to the meadow on the other side. I jumped out of the car and another lady and I ran up the highway with Jimmy keeping us safe by blocking traffic with the jeep. I got some really great pictures and then jumped back in the car and we drove across a little bridge and into a parking area. From there, I felt like we were right on top of the elk. Just look at the pictures. You can see the fur on their antlers!!!
Our next major experience was as we approached and went over Dunraven Pass. It had started to rain a little as we climbed up the mountain. By the time we were approaching the top, it started sleeting. We were high enough that a lot of the snow from the winter was still there. We had ice accumulating on the windshield. Lots of motorcycles were pulled off in little pull off areas getting under the shelter of the restrooms to wait for the rain and sleet to stop. Now, we were on a mountain road with a turnback called the Mae West Curve - so you can imagine that it was steep and curvy. Jimmy handled it like a pro and my armrest has a permanent hand print on it.
You can see the pictures that we took today at the url at the beginning of this day's blog. Please enjoy.
Once all of the pictures are uploaded and labeled - I will create one blog entry with just pictures slideshows. You can double click on a slideshow and it will take you to our pictures web site.
Anyway, today was the north circle in Yellowstone. Of course, that meant repeating everything we had seen from West Yellowstone to Madison and north to Norris. But, even with the fact that we were repeating miles traveled, we did see something new - a wreck. How on earth someone can take out a pine tree with a maximum speed of 45 miles per hour - I don't know. But, someone did. There were emergency vehicles, ambulances, rangers and all of the other emergency services there with traffic stopped on both sides of the road - well, maybe just slowed down. We also stopped to take pictures of the eagle nest since the sun was covered with clouds in the morning.
Our first real stop today was the Norris Geyser Basin. The Steamboat Geyser is in this basin. It goes off on a regular basis, but when it has a major eruption (last one was in May 2005), it shoots water higher than Old Faithful. Now, its really big eruptions are on an 8 to 50 year cycle. That means, you could just walk away from the geyser heading to the parking lot and that sucker could blow and you would miss it!!!! That did not happen to us, but it certainly could have.
From there we headed north to Sheepeaters Cliffs. These cliffs were formed by a lava flow that solidified into basalt cliffs. They actually reminded me of Devil's Tower with the vertical stratifications and the broken off pieces at the base. There were supposed to be marmots nesting in the broken pieces of rock at the base. We did not see any, but I did get a great picture of a chipmunk (it is in the Yellowstone Animals album at the url at the beginning).
Just north of Sheepeaters Cliffs were the Hoodoos. Hoodoos are vertical stones that have eroded away and are just standing there. There was a little drive through the hoodoos. Luckily it was one way - because it felt tight in the jeep!!!
North of the Hoodoos was Mammoth Park Headquarters. We stopped there and had lunch. There were signs everywhere that you were not to feed the elk. We couldn't feed the elk. There weren't any!!! But, there were a lot of people milling about and taking a break from driving.
Rather than climb the Mammoth Terraces right after lunch, we decided to drive to the north entrance to Yellowstone. That is where the Roosevelt Arch is. The arch was erected in 1903 and reads "For the Benefit and Enjoyment of the People" which was from the 1872 Congressional Act which actually created the park. It felt like it took us forever to reach the arch from Mammoth, because the park service was striping the road!!!! What was really interesting is that we actually left the park, did a u-turn, took our pictures and then had to show our pass to get right back into the park!!!
There were supposed to be mountain sheep in the area north of Mammoth and south of the north entrance. There was a wonderful area where the sheep should have been. We saw some pigeons - but no sheep in that wonderful area.
We then proceeded to the Mammoth Terraces. This was really an interesting area. It was a thermal area, but it didn't seem to be alive. The minerals from the thermal areas had created very artistic 'terraces' created by the deposits. Of course, you could not walk out onto the terraces, but it certainly did look like you ought to be able to. Jimmy and I agreed that we would go up one level. I do not know if either of us could have climbed all the way to the top. Plus, by now we have started to tire of thermal areas as well as bison!!!! There are so many you really become immune to their beauty!!! Kind of a shame, but it is the truth.
From Mammoth, we head south towards the Tower area. The first sight mentioned in our book was Gardner Canyon. As we approach the bridge, we saw lots of cars pulled over to the side. This is a clear indication in Yellowstone of animal life!!! So, as we drove across the bridge, I strained to see the animal everyone was taking pictures of. There he was. A brown bear down by the river. So, off the road we pull and out come the binoculars and camera. We get right down on the side of the hill and watch that bear waddle up the side of the hill (on the other side of the river!!!). I did take a picture of it. I can clearly see the bear. You will see kind of a brown blob in the middle of the picture!!! But, it counts as a bear sighting. It is our only bear sighting in the wild of the trip.
A short time after we left the bear and, later, Undine Falls, we came upon another traffic jam. It was another Elk Jam. There were two bull elks who needed to get across the highway. So, amble across the highway they did. No hurry - even with people jumping out of cars, slamming doors, and aiming cameras at them. They needed to get across the street to the meadow on the other side. I jumped out of the car and another lady and I ran up the highway with Jimmy keeping us safe by blocking traffic with the jeep. I got some really great pictures and then jumped back in the car and we drove across a little bridge and into a parking area. From there, I felt like we were right on top of the elk. Just look at the pictures. You can see the fur on their antlers!!!
Our next major experience was as we approached and went over Dunraven Pass. It had started to rain a little as we climbed up the mountain. By the time we were approaching the top, it started sleeting. We were high enough that a lot of the snow from the winter was still there. We had ice accumulating on the windshield. Lots of motorcycles were pulled off in little pull off areas getting under the shelter of the restrooms to wait for the rain and sleet to stop. Now, we were on a mountain road with a turnback called the Mae West Curve - so you can imagine that it was steep and curvy. Jimmy handled it like a pro and my armrest has a permanent hand print on it.
You can see the pictures that we took today at the url at the beginning of this day's blog. Please enjoy.
PushAmerica.org
I am including this in the blog as a separate entry. When we arrived in Yellowstone, we passed young men who were biking into the park. There seemed to be a whole lot of them. They were outfitted in really good biking attire and riding really nice bikes.
Yesterday, when we were in the park, we stopped to look at some animals (or scenery) at the same time a group of the young men were stopped. So, of course, I had to ask them if they were training for the Olympics or something!!! They laughed good heartedly and told me that they were part of a fund raising effort called Push America (web site is pushamerica.org). They are members of Pi Kappa Phi fraternity across the US and their mission is: Push America programs were created to educate and provide a quality hands-on service experience for members of Pi Kappa Phi while enhancing the lives of people with disabilities.
Of course, after seeing these young men riding their bikes through the mountains of Yellowstone National Park (there is a picture of them at the continental divide taking a break), I encourage everyone who reads the blog to go to their web site and make a decision regarding a contribution.
Martha
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