Since mostly I blog when I’m overwhelmed and tired (apparently!) right now I’m trying to blog while I’m spending about an hour purposefully relaxing. Why yes, writing my blog IS relaxing!
This weekend has been full of activity, but mostly fun activity. I’ve had a few students and a family issue (nothing to worry you about!) but otherwise Louie and I have had fun together. Friday night we went to the symphony concert…it was a little stressful coming right after what had happened in Paris, which I almost hesitate to even mention, since we ignore mass killings in non-European countries so often, but David Robertson did mention it at the concert…it seems fitting that I acknowledge it, and acknowledge how horrible things can be, and that all we can do is to continue to try to bring joy and music to the world.
So, the symphony. We are subscribers but this was a trade from next week which didn’t work for my schedule. It’s super easy to trade concerts if you buy a subscription, by the way. It took about 3 minutes on the phone. My one complaint about the symphony concert was that they had a little screen up with some words and moving animation in the back for various parts, and I found it very distracting and awful. I find supertitles to be helpful when there are singers, but other than that I don’t want quotes or pictures to “enhance” the performance. The music should speak for itself, and usually does, and definitely would have in this case. I know I can be a fuddy-duddy with classical music (using that world probably makes me one for sure!) but in this case I really think I’m right…
Saturday Louie and I walked around Forest Park enjoying the unseasonably warm weather. It was seriously around 70 degrees and sunny! And then for dinner I’d made reservations to take Louie out for a belated birthday dinner at Elaia. Wow. We had an amazing meal—it was not cheap, but I’d been planning on it for awhile, and it was a great experience. We both got a 4 course prix fixe dinner and shared each course. My favorites were a mushroom dish called “Hen of the Woods” and the Beet and Salmon Salad (totally strange combo, but it worked magnificently). It was a great evening—good food, drinks and conversation. I would say I’ll be back, but not for a long time due to the price. Right next to Elaia is Olio, which is also great and a bit more affordable, depending on how much you eat.
This morning we went to Laumeier Sculpture Park with friends. I had originally thought I’d sleep in a bit, since I’ve been complaining of being tired, but decided it was worth it to do something new with people. It was a lovely morning to walk around in the woods, the grass, and see some interesting art.
This was made by an artist using a chainsaw, if I recall. One tree trunk.
A tree covered in aluminum. It reminds me of that tree from Lord of the Rings. Gondor?
I liked this one with the lady playing the piano. It was a piece of art in memory of somebody, and I thought it was really nice. I hope somebody makes some art for me when I’m gone. Or maybe before that?!
A chair made from a tree trunk. There wasn’t a sign not to sit on it.
A cat mosaic sculpture. It was gorgeous to look at with all the different kinds of materials. Very shiny.
I’m glad I got to do some exploring this weekend and enjoy some new activities. It definitely helped my mindset. It’s easy to feel like life is just on repeat, and that each day is the same as the day before (or in my case, each Monday is the same, each Tuesday, etc…) so seeing a new park and eating a great meal at a new restaurant were great activities for me. Even if I’m still physically a bit tired, I am mentally and emotionally a bit more satisfied, which is good.
One more full week until Thanksgiving! This week will be a bit stressful too, as I’ve got another quartet concert AND a student recital, among other things but there is light at the end of the tunnel and that light is a bright one
I know I say this a lot, but WOW where do the weeks go? How are we one full week away from Thanksgiving already? I guess the trick is to keep your head down and keep plugging away, eh?
Or keeping busy. Sometimes I think, WHY oh why do I keep doing things that cause a lot of stress for no good reason? For instance, last night’s quartet concert caused a lot of stress because we were performing Beethoven’s Op. 59 Quartet no. 1 for the first time, and it is really a beast of a piece. I put many hours of practice into it, and we put many hours of rehearsal into it. But the fact is, there is plenty of good reason, just not financial. So often society tells us that success is measured through paychecks and job titles, but I disagree. We succeeded last night by pushing through and doing something really difficult for no real reason other than the sheer joy, no, exhilaration of performing at our highest level, and performing one of my favorite quartets. Granted, I have quite a few favorites, but op 59 #1 is up there. One of my goals is to be able to perform the late Beethoven Quartets… op. 132 is my absolute favorite piece of music. But without performing and working through and struggling with these other Beethoven Quartets, which are so satisfying and wonderful in their own ways, I will never get to the late quartets. I may never anyway, but I’m on the path. So my whole point is, yes, this stressed me out, like all performances do, but I love performing and I love finishing a performance and feeling successful and accomplished, and feeling like my life is important and that I am doing something important.
(We perform again next Saturday at the Tavern of Fine Arts. Come out and hear us play Beethoven and the Dohnanyi Piano Quintet.)
Last weekend we traveled to Phoenix to see our friends Mark and Karen get married.
I did not realized quite how tall I was until this picture.
Louie and I stayed with my sister Leslie and her family—everybody else there plays with the Phoenix Symphony, basically.
I played with a quartet for the ceremony. It was like being at work but with a shorter yellow dress. Perhaps nearly too short for sitting on a stage.
This was my view during the ceremony. It’s one of the things that sucks about playing for a friend—you don’t really get to enjoy the ceremony, but it is always an honor to be asked to play by a fellow musician!
The reception was at a place called The Duce and was a lot of fun.
Too much fun, probably.
This picture is stolen from another wedding guest’s facebook page. Louie and I met through Mark and Karen, but failed to get a picture of the 4 of us. Actually that’s not true, as they are in the background of two pictures above, but that’s not what I mean.
Since it was such a short visit, and we ended up hanging around the house each day looking a bit rough until it was time to get ready for the events, I didn’t get as many Athena photos as I should have! *vain*
She wasn’t sure about this selfie.
Anyway, after a whirlwind trip over the weekend, the week felt like it had been going on and on. This weekend isn’t so bad, though I have some makeup lessons each day so I don’t get any official days off. We are going to the symphony tonight and out (finally) for a nice dinner for Louie’s birthday tomorrow (3 weeks late) so it should be a lovely weekend. We’re also hoping to get out into the world during the day and hike, walk, or run, and perhaps get some housework done too. Basically there aren’t nearly enough hours left to do all the things we’ve had to put off, or to do and see the things we want, but we keep at it.
Chloe is healing…slowly. I wish I could explain why she has to wear the cone, but then maybe she could explain what’s going on with her and then we’d all be happier. Until then, lots of cuddles and petting, and cleaning up urine and gross stuff. It’s a hard time.
I have to remind myself that life isn’t a straight line, there are ups and downs, and sometimes you take a few steps forward and a few back. I’m feeling run down and tired right now, and as usual I’m rambling, but…I’m really looking forward to some downtime over Thanksgiving (and seeing family!). I always really need to make an effort to see friends and people other than Louie-he’s great, but I can’t ONLY hang out with my boyfriend, and the same for him, we need more people! When life gets busy it’s easy to want to finish the day in sweatpants watching TV with a glass of wine, but that’s not necessarily the best thing to do every night. I think part of this age group is that we are all busy with work and then exhausted, and if you don’t plan in advance, nothing happens, but you just hate planning every step of your life in advance. Sigh.
Why do I always start complaining when I start blogging? I swear I have all these interested positive thoughts and then…I just start complaining about how hard life is. It’s not so bad. After the concert last night I met Louie at Mission Taco for our traditional Taco Thursday and had some good food and great conversation. Between now and Monday I only have 4 1/2 hours of teaching (!!) and that doesn’t seem like so much. Lots of time to catch up on all the housework
And thanks for your comments on my last post, the few of you reading. I think you’re right—my writing hasn’t gotten better, but different, as I’ve grown as a person. The best thing I can do is keep reading and writing. A good excuse to read more books, to help my blogging, right?
*After hitting publish I was thinking about how I often feel tired, even after having gotten a new bed. Sometimes I think it’s because I need more exercise! But I thought, gosh, why do we keep trying to do all these activities when I’m run down, and the answer is, because you look back and you remember the activities fondly, you don’t remember nights on the couch in your pj’s. At least that’s how I feel! So it’s worth it, and I probably just need a couple days off to reboot. I haven’t had a few days off since we got back from our trip in August.
And here we are at Part 7 of the Road Trip Summer 2015 Trip Recaps. Did I say trip too many times? I’ve been procrastinating this post, and I’ll be honest: I haven’t finished writing about it by hand either (I kept a notebook journal on the trip) so I have pictures, short notes for each day, and my memories to rely on here. I’d better get something written, haven’t I? Eyewitness accounts are notoriously unreliable!
Why am I procrastinating so much? Well, other than the fact that life and work are happening here…it’s because after Yellowstone the trip was a letdown. It had to happen. Everything we were doing was just so awesome, and then we left Yellowstone and headed east, and mentally we knew we were heading home, and honestly, no offense to the entire TripAdvisor South Dakota Forums, but Custer State Park and everything around Mount Rushmore is just not as awesome. Sorry!
But I am procrastinating EVEN MORE.
We left off with leaving Yellowstone. Louie and I decided to drive the Beartooth Highway after leaving Yellowstone. Charles Kuralt called it “the most beautiful drive in America.” It took us WAY up high, and there were tons of switchbacks, and I was mostly terrified and Louie had a great time driving it.
Some gorgeous views along the way!
It was cold and windy at the top, and it was a neat drive. I’m glad we did it. After that, we ended in the town of Red Lodge, Montana, which looked cute, but the first few hotels we looked at were full, so we made an online reservation at the “Western Inn” in Lowell, WY, and off we went. We’d decided tonight was a hotel night, and couldn’t wait. We also wanted to eat dinner at a restaurant.
(Along the way Louie took some pictures of sheep.)
We made it to the Western Inn. Lowell was a very small town, and the Western Inn was a little…well, there were bikers out and it looked like a pretty run-down, rent by the week type of place, and for approximately $45, we kind of expected it. The room was clean enough looking, though very out of date, and the owner also seemed to run a diner out of the lobby called the “Cauc-Asian” diner (she was of Asian descent) though, we couldn’t figure out how the diner worked. We ended up eating dinner at a restaurant called the Brandin’ Iron, and I had fried shrimp with fries, and we split apple cobbler for dessert. That and a few cold beers had never tasted better. And the Brandin’ Iron was amazing in so many ways, especially if you are looking at it from the point of city slicker snobs like Louie and I are 😉
Now, the other thing to know is that we hadn’t managed to get a shower in since our first night in the Tetons. We must have smelled amazing, and looked good too. After dinner I was able to enjoy the most desperately needed shower of my entire life. Seriously, it was amazing. And I slept really well in the bed.
Day 15: We woke up and considered trying to eat at the Cauc-Asian diner but I freaked out because it smelled odd and I just didn’t really understand how it worked. We also desperately needed to do laundry, and then get to the Devil’s Tower and then to Custer State Park in South Dakota, so I was having a stressed out day and was having a hard time with it. We got muffins at a gas station for breakfast and then headed east. On the way east we drove through the Bighorn Mountains which were really nice, though we were getting sad that we were nearing the end of our mountains. The whole time we’d had a Garmin hooked up for navigation and it kept track of our elevation. For days and days we’d been at over 8000 feet, and then up to nearly 11,000 feet, and suddenly we were getting lower and lower.
We found a laundromat around lunchtime and managed to do laundry while getting tex-mex and also grocery shopping in Buffalo, WY. The cashier at the grocery store was quite interested in our sparkling water, and she couldn’t believe it didn’t have high-fructose corn syrup.
Then it was time for the Devil’s Tower. We’d had started listening to the podcast “Serial” but once we got to the middle of nowhere, truly, that’s where the Devil’s Tower is!
We enjoyed walking around it and not being in the car for a little while, but we still had nearly 2 more hours to go until we got to our campground reservation at Custer State Park so we didn’t spend too much time there.
We did spent some time photographing prairie dogs.
The best part of the National Parks, with the possible exception of the amazing scenery, is all the wildlife.
It was dark by the time we got to Custer State Park. I’d made a reservation for two nights at Grace Coolidge Campground, and there wasn’t a place to check in—it was just “show up at your campsite”… and somebody was in ours. It took awhile to find it in the dark, and there was a truck parked in it and people had a fire. We verified with another camper that we were looking at the right site (she had come out to see what all the lights were about) and I guess I’d said, darkly, “so those are the people who are in our site!” The man came over and apologized and said he thought it was first-come, first-served…we’d made our reservations over a month prior! And the signage was clear. He said they would clear out as quickly as they could, so we drove around for a bit to give them space, but it was raining off and on and we were getting nervous, so we headed back. Both of us felt bad kicking this man and his wife out of their site—they were in the middle of cooking dinner too—but the fact was, the signs were clear that if you didn’t have a reservation you needed to call, and it was only about 9:30 pm, not midnight, and we did have the reservation. Sigh. It was hard to feel quite as nice about our campsite knowing we’d had to kick somebody out for it. We made a quick dinner ourselves and a little fire and then enjoyed the nearby creek sounds as we fell asleep.
Day 16: Today we wanted to hike up to the tallest point in South Dakota, Harney Peak. I’d read it was a difficult hike and might take us 5-6 hours. We got a slightly later start than usual, by about 3 hours and decided that was okay, and we were just worn out and tired from our vacation. (Life. Hard.)
We drove on the “Needles Highway” to get to the trailhead. It was a crazy drive, with all these rock formations and some one-lane tunnels through rocks.
The hike was nice. It ended up being only about 3-4 hours, and wasn’t nearly as strenuous as we’d thought. Granted, we still got passed by the young and the elderly as I’m a slow hiker, but we felt in pretty darned good shape!
Louie did a bit more exploring at the time while I rested on my laurels.
After finishing our hike, the other thing I really wanted to do was drive the Wildlife Loop in the park. Since we were done with our hike early we decided to go see the town of Custer (we’d both been to the area in the past, Louie more recently, and we just decided against Mount Rushmore and some other things in order to do different things than he remembered). Well, overall Custer was an awful town, but we stopped at Ester’s Sausage House, at first for coffee, and maybe dessert, and then decided to have beer and sausage instead (obviously more logically) and also bread pudding.
Towards sunset is the best time to see wildlife, so that’s when we hit the Wildlife Loop. One thing that is crazy is that there are these wild burros roaming around, but they are actually tame (they are descended from burros that used to carry people up to Harney Peak in the past but were set free at some point) and go up to the cars! People feed them (this is a case of where feeding animals is okay) and they are pretty pushy, actually. But cute.
We didn’t see too much other wildlife other that the burros and more prairie dogs and were getting disappointed…we did see where a young burro had gotten stuck in a horse pen, away from its mother and were a little upset, so we stopped at the next ranger station to tell them (so they could let the baby burro out), and then the next thing we found were…
Bison!!! And a good old-fashioned bison jam (also sounds like a delicious product to spread on toast, no?). Smaller in scale than at Yellowstone but no less delightful. It was our last bison jam and we thoroughly enjoyed it. Interesting fact from my diaries of the trip in 1991 with my family: we saw bison at the exact same point then.
After that we returned to our campsite for more dinner and relaxing. Overnight it started to rain…
Day 17:
We awoke to pouring rain. We both stayed in the tent as long as possible, but realized that yes, we did need to leave by noon, and at some point had to pack up. Originally we’d thought maybe we would do another hike in Custer, or something else, but we checked the forecast, and the Badlands were supposed to get a lot of rain the following day, so we decided to leave and try to see them before the rain ruined everything there. It was not fun packing up in the rain!
On our way to the Badlands (about a 2 hour drive) we saw a bunch of pronghorns! They are kind of like antelope, and we were excited to see them.
I’d made a reservation at the KOA White River. As a child, the KOA campgrounds were my favorite so I thought it would be fun to stay in one for old-time’s sake. I was also worried (originally) that it was going to be too hot and sunny in the Badlands National Park campground, and having a place with shade would be nicer. It turned out I shouldn’t have worried about that, but having showers and nice bathroom facilities was nice! We set up our tent, had lunch, and then headed to the Badlands, about 10 minutes away. This was definitely a “free”visit on our America the Beautiful pass (Devil’s Tower was another one that was covered). The clouds threatened, but we managed to see a lot of things.
We started with the Notch Trail. As a kid I had been too scared to go up this ladder on the trail, and as an adult I was pretty scared, but I figured if I could climb the stairs on Uncle Tom’s Trail at Yellowstone this was no big deal. On our way BACK to the car a pair of pronghorns ran by us, over the formations and around the corner. It was so neat to see how fast they moved.
We drove around the Badlands Loop next, and stopped at a variety of overlooks. It was cold and windy, which was definitely a surprise, but the views were still really beautiful.
We saw a bunch more prairie dogs, and a small pack of goats (that blocked the road) and a lone bighorn sheep, though we didn’t even realize it at the time and thought it was a male goat—it was neat to realize it was a bighorn sheep since that was one we hadn’t “checked off” yet!
I wanted to drive on the Sage Rim Road, which is a gravel road where the bison and other wildlife/views are, but it was sadly, closed due to too much rain. According to the ranger too many cars had gotten stuck so they closed the rain. Disappointed, we headed back to our campsite.
Our little tent on the last night of camping. Notice how Louie likes to put the hatchet into a stump. We made a lovely fire and had a typical meal and just enjoyed being outside for the last night.
Day 18:
We had awoken several times during the night to some terrifying storms. Lightning and thunder and wind like you wouldn’t believe, and I was relieved that the tent survived and that we didn’t have to evacuate or something! I didn’t know if there was a tornado warning system, or something like that. I was glad we’d gotten to enjoy every night with dinner and a fire outside, but man, packing up all of our wet tent parts for the second day in a row wasn’t that fun. We got the car loaded up—the rain had mostly let up, and we drove through the Badlands on our way to highway 90.
The rest of the trip that day was uneventful. We finished the Serial podcast, and decided to try to get to Kansas City. We’d originally planned to eat at a restaurant Louie recalled, La Bodega, but their hours online weren’t correct and they were closing as we arrived. We ate at a nearby Mexican restaurant called El Pueblito and had wonderful margaritas and shrimp tacos, before checking into a suite at a 4 star hotel, the Crown Plaza, that we found on Priceline for around $75. It was…a bit nicer than our previous hotel. We walked to The Yardhouse, a nearby pub, for a nightcap before turning in.
Day 19:
One of the reasons we got our room for so cheap was the fact that the hotel was under construction. Around 9 am we awoke to loud construction noises…but we decided to relax, order room service, and enjoy the amenities (including a wonderful shower..) until nearly noon when we had to check out. From Kansas City to St Louis is about a 4 hour drive…and then we were home. Safe and sound.
The end! I’m so proud to finally have finished my trip recaps, even though I feel like I rushed this one—sometimes you just have to sit down and WRITE. Thanks for reading, and if you have any questions or comments let me know.
I never would have thought I’d say that after a weekend of backpacking. In fact, I never thought I’d go backpacking (where you hike with all your camping gear, and then camp in the middle of nowhere) but part of being in a “new” relationship means you try new things. Louie got a bit jealous of all the people that were backpacking in the National Parks, so we decided to plan a little backpacking trip here. Nothing too fancy, and just one night. We invited a bunch of friends, and finally managed to convince two other people to go… a bunch of stressors here and there almost made us cancel on more than one occasion, but we decided to forge ahead and I’m glad we did.
We decided to hike an out-and-back from Taum Sauk State Park to Mina Sauk Falls and then a little ways along the Ozark Trail, find a nice place to camp, and then head back the next day. I had a backpack with a sleeping bag, sleeping pad, change of clothes, extra layers and rain jacket, food (lots of pbj, trail mix, and bars), 3 liters of water, various first aid stuff, water treatment, headlight, and a few other things. Louie had our stove and tent, and his own clothes, sleeping gear, and a few other things. We were with his brother Julian and our friend Jim, neither of whom had been backpacking before either. (Louie had gone once before, and a very similar trip to this one—in fact, he realized as we went along it was basically the same trip, except we camped further along). We also brought the dog, Mackenzie.
Mackenzie didn’t seem to realize she was being photographed. She also didn’t bring a tent, backpack, water, or ANY of those things! Silly dog made us carry her food for her too…but we figured it was worth it for the intrude warnings AND seeing her have a wonderful time in the outdoors.
The park was about 2 hours drive from St Louis, and the day ended up being cooler and a little more overcast than we thought. We started hiking around 1 pm, and took the right fork to get to Mina Sauk Falls. The “Falls” were basically non-existent, and all of the views were foggy though…but we enjoyed the scenery anyway, especially as it seemed finally autumn was here and the leaves were turning. (I would have said fall was here but with “the falls” that seemed confusing. And here I am saying fall and falls anyway…sigh…)
Trying to perfect our explorer poses. (Side note, I think my waist band is too high, anybody know? Maybe that’s why my shoulders hurt so much?)
I didn’t take too many pictures, because I was mostly focused on my footing! The hike was QUITE rocky and steep, especially once we continued from Mina Sauk Falls down towards the Devil’s Tollgate (which I definitely referred to as the Devil’s Tailgate by accident on at least one occasion.) When we climbed down to the bottom of the falls area (the most difficult part of the hike) we saw a little campsite on the left. We didn’t realize there would be a variety of makeshift campsites along the route, complete with fire rings—even though it seemed that making fires wasn’t allowed, there were fire rings. We didn’t want to camp yet, so we kept going, and passed another campsite right before the Devil’s Tailgate (note: I actually typed that by accident…) which Louie suddenly remembered he had stayed at before. We were tempted, but it was really close to the trail, and we thought maybe we’d find more if we continued along.
That’s the Devil’s Tollgate. Not THAT frightening, really…but really cool. This was definitely the coolest hike we’ve done in Missouri!
Finally we were getting a little impatient to stop. Our packs felt heavy (how do people do this? I suppose we overpacked/didn’t have them adjusted well? My shoulders ended up really being sore, but they do from my regular backpack too…?) and we were ready to relax and enjoy the woods. Just before we were tempted to turn back to the campsite we’d passed, we found another, even better one, with a large flat area for a few tents and a big log to sit on near a fire ring made with rocks. It was perfect! The only downside was that the creek was totally dry, but we had plenty of water with us (it wouldn’t have been so much, actually, but it wasn’t too hot so we didn’t need as much.)
By this point Mackenzie was exhausted. I think we’d been hiking between 2 1/2 and 3 hours (the same for miles, oddly)—not much in the greater scheme of things—but a long way for us backpacking newbies!
We set up our tents and then looked for firewood (we were tempted by the fire ring, even though we weren’t sure it was legal, why have a fairly used ring, plus it was pretty damp all around so we felt good about a fire.)
Louie and I returned to the tiny orange tent for this trip since it was much lighter than the larger one we’d camped in in August.
We made boxed red beans and rice for dinner and added “textured vegetable protein” to it for extra protein/calories. We’d decided that everybody was in charge of their own snacks/lunch/breakfast and such but dinner could be one thing. After dinner we just sat around chatting and discussing gender equality and various other important manners!
Oh, and we hung up a backpack with all the leftover food. It probably wasn’t bear safe, but we figured it would keep smaller critters (and large black dogs) away from it while we slept. Louie figured out how to manage this.
Notes: 1) We had definitely passed some hikers earlier in the trip, but once we set up camp we didn’t see another person until the next morning. 2) As it got dark, it got pretty scary on occasion, trying to figure out what various strange noises were! Mackenzie wasn’t sure what to think of all of this and the rest of us weren’t either 😉 but we never got too freaked out. The moon was HUGE and basically full, and kept it from being too dark. 3) We’d passed a couple that said they saw some wild boar/feral pigs (?) earlier in their hike so we were a little worried about those and, for some reason, coyotes.
We all awoke several times during the night. It rained lightly and between that and all the weird noises (mostly insects, but probably birds and snakes and raccoons too) and rustling from everybody tossing and turning, I didn’t sleep terribly well. Also not having a pillow didn’t help…but it was still fun to be outside, and we’d had a great evening hanging out and a lovely hike! So morning broke, and we got up, made coffee (instant!) and packed up, and off we went, back towards the car. The rain made everything a bit wetter, and some of the rocks we had to climb over were a bit scary, but my pack was lighter (I actually ran out of water—I’d shared a bit, and one thing we did learn was to make sure to tell any future hiking companions how MUCH water to bring—Louie and I each had 3 liters, more than anyone else) so that helped. I had a wooden walking stick for awhile too, that Jim had been using but he gave to me when I was struggling too much…next time, I am bringing my walking sticks, no matter.
We finally made it back up the top, and made a slight detour to the highest point in Missouri (we’d missed this on the day before while going down the trail.)
Being very weird and pointing at the sign…
Looking a little more normal, albeit tired!
So there you have it. Approximately 5-6 miles round trip hike, quite short by my usual standards (ha!) and some parts were really technically difficult, especially for a Missouri hike. Overall I had a wonderful time and learned a lot about how to prepare for any future backpacking, though I am (unlike most people on the internet)far from an expert. I will go backpacking again, though now Louie is talking about taking an overnight bike trip somewhere…the thing is, we have a lot of good gear for hiking/backpacking already, and not great biking gear (I really need a better bike, first off, that fits me better, and we don’t have any panniers!), but that’s a worry for another day. We do plan to try to backpack another part of the Ozark Trail the next time we can both get away for an overnight and wrangle some friends with us for entertainment and company, so I’d say the trip was a success.
Saw this guy when I came home, and now I’m gearing up for the workweek (Bach at the Sem!) and looking forward to October.
Our plan for the day was to sightsee along the “upper loop” of the figure 8. We headed left out of the campground, and boom! BISON.
That was from the car.
We could probably have spent hours there watching them and photographing them, but Mammoth Hot Springs seemed a long way away, so we continued on our route.
Here’s something I didn’t know to think about: road construction. After we started onto a part of the road we hadn’t been on the day before, we found ourselves in road construction, and how. There were two parts that were one lane roads, which meant we had to wait on a flagger. One of them we waited for a very long time. Our day was not looking up to be very exciting, as mostly we seemed to be waiting in traffic.
Finally we were clear of it all and able to make a few stops.
Some scary roads, but really great engineering!
Oh, and we learned that not everything that has a stripe down its back is a chipmunk. We learned this the awkward way, by arguing with another couple…so ground squirrels don’t have stripes on their faces, only their backs, and chipmunks have them all the way up. Good to know. It was even more awkward when we ran into them at the next stop, after having checked our field guide and verified…oh yes, they were correct.
Anyway. We finally got to Mammoth, and parked at the Upper Terrace parking lot.
I’ve read that people didn’t like Mammoth as well as other places. It wasn’t the case for me: I was simply blown away by this area. And like the other thermal features, the springs here are constantly moving and changing, even from day-to-day. I found the entire experience to be fascinating…the way that the water trickles and makes these crazy looking terraces and steps, and how it happens gradually over time.
The trees especially are interesting, how the springs just take over and kill the tree, but the tree often just remains standing. What a funny planet we live on.
We followed along the boardwalks, heading down to the Lower Terrace eventually. It was a hotter day than we had experienced since leaving Boulder, so I was definitely glad I’d brought my backpack with the water in it.
When we got to the bottom of the hill, we decided to walk over to the Mammoth Hot Springs Visitor’s Center. There’s a little village around there, with a hotel, restaurants, and even some private homes, which I guess are from quite some time ago. Creating the National Parks sometimes meant that land was already “owned” before the park was created, I guess.
I paused here in my writing and did some internet research on this, but didn’t get very far. I know our maps and guidebook said there were private homes there, but as to who owns them, I couldn’t find out. Or maybe private as in, not open to tourists but people who work at the parks live in them. That might make more sense. I just don’t know!
We saw this elk hanging out at the terraces of a spring that is currently not active. That could change at any time though!
We decided to get lunch at the “Terrace Grill” which was really just a fast food restaurant. We hadn’t eaten out for some time and the thought of making another pbj wasn’t super appealing to us. We got fish sandwiches, black bean burgers, fries, salad, and fruit. The whole thing was fine, and more expensive that anywhere NOT in a park, but totally fine. It made me sad for people who didn’t have picnic lunches most days though, and I was glad that mostly we didn’t have to eat the National Park food! It was a nice change for lunch though, and the coffee was pretty good too.
After lunch we had to walk back UP from the Lower Terrace to the Upper Terrace, to where our car was parked. This would have been a nicer walk if it weren’t so darned hot!
But we made it back, and then did a quick little drive through a loop of MORE springs.
All in all, I found Mammoth Hot Springs to be really interesting and unique, of course!
Next our plan was to continue along the upper loop, but we actually took a wrong turn out of Mammoth and headed into Montana for a bit, BUT it worked out well because we saw more elk! I didn’t get pictures of too many, but we saw dozens of them.
We found our way back to Mammoth then, and had to do mildly annoying things like drain the cooler, get more ice, that sort of thing. Camping is hard work sometimes! And then more sights…the afternoon wasn’t super exciting, but we saw a few neat things.
For instance, the Petrified Tree. Right before this we took an ill-advised drive on a gravel road—it was one-way, and right after the turn we realized we shouldn’t have done it but it was too late. So we got to the Petrified Tree and were tired and exhausted and SOO hot…and it was a petrified tree in a cage! Evidently there used to be two, but people stole the other one in bits over time (this is why we can’t have nice things) so they put a fence around it. Evidently there are also a few more but it’s an unmarked path to find them.
Our next big stop was Tower Fall. It was a neat little stop with a general store and crowded parking lot. The north part of Yellowstone had a different feel from the southern part, and was definitely less crowded overall, by the way.
I guess in other years there is a hike down to see Tower Fall from the bottom, but that hike was closed for reconstruction. We did a little hike down to the river….but the trail ended before we were all the way down. There was a sign saying basically, proceed at your own risk. Which was ridiculous in a way, since all hikes are at your own risk!
I made it down to the river though! It’s not a great drinking water area though, since there is so much sulfur around…
The bad part about hiking down into a canyon of sorts is that the hard part is the way back. We decided ice cream was in order at the top! Then it was more driving, some real mountain driving, which Louie loves and I’m terrified by! We got out at a ton of overlooks. There was a lot of this sort of landscape, with trees that were fire damaged (1988 fires, I believe) and the new growth around them. This went on for miles and miles.
Finally we were getting back to the Mud Volcano area from the day before, and we got stuck in some horrible traffic. After 30-45 minutes of barely moving, we finally saw what seemed to be the reason…
Many, many bison, slowly crossing the road and taking their darned time. I believe we were stuck in a good old-fashioned bison jam! It was entertaining ONLY after we were able to see the bison!
We stopped near Lake Yellowstone to watch the sunset on our last night here.
I’m a little sad looking at these pictures! It was so beautiful there…my mom was surprised I guess, reading my blog, (hi Mom!) by how much I loved Yellowstone. I just felt that it was so full of different things, animals and beauty and desolation, all together…just one of the most unique places on earth.
Day 14: Day 3 in Yellowstone
We had to pack up our campsite that morning. So the last thing we felt we needed to do was to see the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. Since we had mostly been in the car the past two days, Louie and I decided to take a hike. I found one in my book that was a loop with the South Rim of the Canyon, so we headed out! We ran into a few bison on the way to the Canyon, but traffic was light enough that it wasn’t an issue.
We kept thinking that we were “over” the bison, but for me, every time I saw them up close I was really excited. They are such magnificent creatures and a testament to how we CAN turn things around…at one point they were nearly extinct.
The first thing we saw when we found the trail was a bald eagle. Just staring at me before it flew away. I did not get a picture, but I can picture him in my head!
It was nice to get off the beaten path and away from the crowds.
And…Yellowstone. The reason for the park’s name!
We decided to go down Uncle Tom’s Trail. It was a series of 700 million steps. Well, 328 metal steps that go down to the bottom of the falls. It was horrible. I nearly had a panic attack on more than one occasion. I guess I’m proud that I made it, but I honestly didn’t enjoy any part of the trail, so I won’t do that one again! Louie really liked it, I think. Silly man!
The South Rim Trail basically followed along to a variety of viewpoints that one could drive to, but instead we walked and enjoyed the beautiful scenery all along the way AND didn’t have to deal with parking.
We got rained on a little bit, but it wasn’t too bad. We had rain jackets (well, I did, and Louie had an emergency poncho with him.)
Just to mention safety: we had bear spray and we tried to keep talking or making noises the whole way. It’s tough because you hate to scare off wildlife…but you would hate to sneak up on a bear! We didn’t see any bear scat, so I don’t know what we would have done if we did.
Just amazing views the whole way. Louie kept standing near the edge to take pictures and on occasion I had to look away. I’m sure he was being careful and safe, but I have a huge fear of people falling.
And then the path turned away from the canyon, and we walked by a lake called Lily Pad Lake.
And the trail headed by some paint pots and other thermal activity, no boardwalks, just out in the middle of the woods! How cool is that!!
And to this green pond, called Clear Lake, that is DEFINITELY not okay to drink out of.
I loved this hike. LOVED it. We had been surrounded by so many people since getting to Yellowstone and while yes, we passed quite a few people hiking, it was far fewer, and we really did feel like we had our own private little bits of Yellowstone for awhile. Private thermal activity and private green lakes. I loved it.
After Clear Lake the hike headed through a sagebrush field and back to the trailhead. We saw something from a distance that might have been a rock or a bison, and we just couldn’t decided, but finally when it rolled over playfully we knew which it was.
We made peanut butter sandwiches at the car and then headed north. We had decided we would take the Northeast exit out of Yellowstone to the Beartooth Highway and wanted to be on our way. I didn’t have a reservation for us on this night. Well, I kind of did…originally we’d thought of going to Cody and I’d tried to reserve something there but the place I reserved a cabin at wanted us to call by 3 pm if we weren’t there and I knew that wouldn’t work, since we didn’t have service! So they gave it away, which is silly. How could we call coming from Yellowstone where there was no cell service? We didn’t have service until nearly 5 pm. Oh well.
On our way out of the park we went by Lamar Valley, another place where wildlife and BISON are plentiful.
Those brown dots are bison, grazing all over.
Another awesome thing that I don’t have a picture of (but Louie does, he needs to share!) is: we were driving and the car in front of us suddenly stopped….and we saw a black bear running up a hill to our left! Louie got a picture of the tail end of it running. So we were thrilled that we got to see a bear up close…and safely from the car!
We drove into Yellowstone through the Southern entrance. Right after entering the park a coyote went across the road. That was, in retrospect, the first sign that Yellowstone was going to be an amazing time!
Honestly. One of the reasons I’ve had trouble getting started on this post is because we just did so darned much in Yellowstone, and I took so, SO many pictures. I’d been to Yellowstone as a kid, in 1991, and I remember really enjoying it, but man, oh man, I had no idea. Just no idea.
One thing to know is that the park is huge. Nearly 3500 square miles. We had three nights of camping reservations, and then we would have to leave. So we weren’t going to be able to see it all, and in fact, we would be lucky to see the highlights!
Anyway, we entered the park and then had about an hour of driving until we’d get to our campground, and since it had already been a very long (and wonderful) day at this point, we decided to mostly drive straight there with perhaps an occasional photo stop. Like the above one at Lake Yellowstone…which made us say, Tetons who?
We found Bridge Bay campground within any trouble, and went to check in. Check in was really busy, but well organized. There are nearly 500 sites at the campground, so you can imagine that around evening plenty of folks are checking in! We got a very nice wooded site where our tent was tucked into a corner with nice privacy—the views weren’t like Glacier Bay in RMNP but the woods were lovely and the lakeview was a short walk away.
This was a great picture…except the construction truck drove into it. And then started setting up for construction so things only got worse. But really, it was a quick walk from the campground!
I should also mention: when I checked in the ranger was VERY stern about the bear safety rules, and in fact I had to sign that I understood and agreed to properly store all food and toiletries, and in fact we weren’t even allowed to have WATER in the tent with us. We could keep things in the car trunk though, which I’m told isn’t an option in Yosemite, so there’s that. Anyway, our first night at the campsite, basically, we set up the tent, went for a walk, made a fire, and ate dinner. And that was that!
Day 12: Our first full day in Yellowstone! I’m excited just remembering how awesome it was.
We decided to tackle the lower loop of the road through Yellowstone on this day. (It’s a figure 8). Basically, today was GEYSER day.
Here you can see Lake Yellowstone and see the West Thumb area (I think) with the geysers and other thermal features. The West Thumb Geyser Basin, as it’s called, was our first stop for the day. We were there before 8 am and just barely beat a busload of tourists! Luckily there was enough room for everyone, though we had to duck around folks taking selfies and whatnot, but the boardwalks are pretty roomy. Being around these thermal features was like being in a different world: after spending nearly two weeks in the mountains, we were (mostly) used to them, but hot water and steam coming out of the ground? Totally new and weird!
We learned so much about the thermal features over the course of the day. I enjoyed West Thumb because they were set right up against the backdrop of the beauty of Lake Yellowstone and the nearby mountain ranges…the steam from the various thermal features is otherworldly. I could definitely see why nobody believed the first explorers!
We got back on the road and headed towards Old Faithful. We made a quick stop to look at a waterfall.
One thing that started hitting us about Yellowstone was that these little side stops that hardly anybody visited, random water falls and such…these little stops would be the HIGHLIGHT of other places! We might have hiked several miles somewhere else to see this waterfall…that we hurried by in our quest to get to Old Faithful before everybody else.
The Old Faithful area is pretty crazy. There were multi-lane exits off the road to get there, and huge amounts of parking. The geyser itself has seating for hundreds in front of it. We naturally arrived right after an eruption, so we took advantage of the indoor plumbing at the nearby lodge (and HOT water to wash my hands in, just crazy) and then headed out to explore the nearby Upper Geyser Basin. We caught a few interesting eruptions there—the Castle Geyser, one of the Lion geysers and the Anemone geyser for sure.
After looking around a bit we headed back to Old Faithful as it was near the predicted eruption time. We didn’t have to wait long—there was a giant crowd at this point so we didn’t get terribly close. Maybe it was more impressive up close, but I don’t know.
One thing we had to remind ourselves of repeatedly was that we needed to practice patience with the crowds and potential idiots that we would be surrounded by. One thing that made me almost lose it was seeing a couple of parents encouraging their toddler to feed a chipmunk cheerios. Aside from the fact that this is completely illegal…I mean really. First off, if you feed a wild animal then they might grow to depend on humans, who aren’t around year-round so said animal might starve in the winter. If you don’t care about THAT then maybe you’ll care that they might bite your kid’s finger (we were told by Brandon, our bike tour guide from earlier that finger bites were the number one reason for ER visits in Estes Park) and if that doesn’t mean anything, remember that they might be carrying the plague.
The other thing is just that there is a lot of traffic, both vehicular and pedestrian, and that can be frustrating. So practicing patience is important in order to keep the stress levels low and keep the fun levels high!
After Old Faithful the next stop was Midway Geyser Basin, home of the Grand Prismatic Spring.
The Grand Prismatic Spring was giant and overwhelming and absolutely beautiful. The colors were unbelievable.
This was a beautiful stop!
Next we had a little picnic lunch and then drove through Firehole Drive. We saw a few more springs and geysers and enjoyed a slightly less crowded area than we had been seeing. It’s funny how quickly Yellowstone can go from busy and overcrowded to empty and quiet!
We skipped quite a few potentially interesting stops next, but we knew we couldn’t see it all. We decided to do a “quick” stop at the Artist’s Paint Pots because there was a little more walking involved and we wanted to get out of the car for a bit more. The paint pots were awesome and different enough from anything else we’d seen yet, so of course totally worth it.
The last big stop I wanted us to do for the day was the Norris Geyser Basin. Wow, was the parking lot crowded. We got lucky and were able to squeeze into a tiny spot at the end that most of the bigger cars couldn’t fit into! Norris was amazing. It was truly the best actual representation of a post-apocalyptic world that I could imagine. And in fact, one day the Yellowstone Caldera will likely kill all life as we know it…
Things that I did not do at Norris: use the toilet. I went in, and I walked back out. It was one of the most disgusting bathrooms I’ve ever been in and I figured I could wait…forever.
Louie and I were desperate to see wildlife by this point. Where were all the bison?? We soon found out. We were driving away from Norris and heading back on the loop towards Bridge Bay and noticed someone coming towards us flashing their headlights. Naturally we thought they meant a cop, but suddenly we saw a single male bison walking along the road. That’s what they meant! We were panicking with excitement, and I managed to take a picture out the window right up close to it! After we went by we were just so thrilled. Such magnificent creatures, but so funny looking really, with huge heads, and somewhat skinny looking legs, and just walking along the road with no cares.
Then we got close to Hayden Valley…and we saw more bison. So many more! At first it was a little group, and then it was perhaps 100’s. We realized if we had just turned left out of our campground in the morning rather than right we would have seen so many bison first thing!
Quickly we got the hang of the “pull off the side of the road” for wildlife move. Louie and I had a lot of fun looking at and photographing bison, and then we found a huge group of cars and it turned out there was a bear, way far away though. We spent quite a lot of time trying to see it though, but didn’t have too much luck. Then we ran into an area where people were trying to look for wolves, which seemed scary, but also those people were intense, with high-tech looking scopes and whatnot. Louie made a snap decision then to pull into the Mud Volcano area, and that’s where a couple of bison were walking across the parking lot! Just when we’d think that we were over the bison we’d get all tickled by them again—I think they are fantastic! We saw that about 5 of them had headed up into the thermal features area of Mud Volcano, so we parked and went up the boardwalks to check them out.
We were careful to keep our distance, but it was neat to see them a little closer and doing something more interesting than simply eating grass! They were snorting, and two of them were butting horns a bit.
We decided, after awhile, to head around the other side of Mud Volcano to see the springs and stuff, and that’s when we saw another group of bison, with a young one too, come galloping across the boardwalk and roll around in the mud, leap around the various hot springs, and then run further away. They were moving so fast, and seemed to be really having a good time! I was pretty frightened while at the same time being really excited. Louie wanted to follow them and get closer and I was a little scared especially since I’d seen how fast they could move! We could hear them, snorting and making all kinds of noise, but they were a bit out of sight.
We finally decided to head back around and down towards the car. We saw a park ranger and asked her about the bison, and we learned that it was mating season, which explains the head-butting, and she also said that the bison DO walk on the boardwalk sometimes (Louie was thinking maybe they didn’t, kind of like how roads will have those bars in them so the cows don’t cross) and that they break them a lot and especially over the winter. Good to know!
We finally headed back to the car after all the excitement. Seriously, it was the best day of the vacation! Louie and I couldn’t get over what an amazing day we had had…we made it back to our campsite around dark, and quickly made dinner and a fire to relax by.
(And since I have been having trouble finding the time to finish these posts…I’m going to publish this day alone and then finish up Yellowstone in a later post. Enjoy!!!)
