Returning to Denver

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Friday, May 30, 2014

We were up by 6:30am again. Complimentary breakfast at Quality Inn started at 5am! It was very busy when we got down there around 7:30am. I had scrambled eggs, a sausage patty and a waffle with coffee. Clay had eggs, sausage and a bagel with cream cheese. The 3^rd item in the steam tray looked like stewed tomatoes with vegetables in it. We didn’t try that. I had a Tillamook yogurt left over for lunch today because we didn’t realize breakfast was included today. So, Clay grabbed a couple of hard boiled eggs for his lunch. We packed the car and checked out before 9am. We decided to not do any sightseeing here in order to get to Denver early and turn in the rental car early so we won’t have to get up that much earlier tomorrow. Our flight is at 5:45am and we have to be on the airport shuttle at 3:30am.

We just got back on I-25 and headed south. It was about 60F or so and partly sunny when we left. We only stopped for gas and we did make a sightseeing stop in Cheyenne to see the Capitol Building of Wyoming. In 1869, Wyoming was the first government in the world to grant women equal rights!

After not long driving, we ran into dark skies and rain. It was that way until we reached Denver. We had planned to have a rest stop picnic. We finally stopped at the Colorado Welcome Center and ate our lunch in the car in the parking lot. It stopped raining while we ate! We went inside and used the restrooms.

We decided that we had an hour to spare and it had stopped raining, so we could make a short tourist stop. We went to Hammond’s Candies for a factory tour. It was interesting. They make mostly hard candies, as opposed to chocolates. They do make chocolates, but not every day, not today. They gave us all paper hats and 2 free samples. They specialize in candy canes and make them all year long to have enough supply for Christmas! The work force was smaller than I expected it to be. It didn’t take many people to make a lot of candy. They released us in the gift shop. It was cool. They had discounted factory 2nds. My favorite sample was caramel coated marshmallows. In the gift shop, they had one pound bags called caramel oops. They were mostly caramel masses with marshmallow streaks AND get this, they were only 25 cents! Clay got flat taffy candy to take to work, too. It was a good stop.

We got checked in to the Days Inn Airport Room 110 and scheduled our shuttle ride to the airport. It was good to be on the first floor finally! It was a nice place to stay (nicer than the one we stayed at downtown at the beginning of the trip, but it had a much better location!). We had prepaid it online when reserving and it was $77 for the night. That included the airport shuttle and I believe breakfast, but we left too early to find out. We unloaded the car and repacked. Then we filled the gas tank and returned the Kia Sportage to Budget. We put 2750 miles on that car! We both said we would buy one. It was AWD and got good gas mileage and was comfortable and easy to drive. We didn’t have any problems with it. In fact, we really liked it. After turning it back in, we walked right over and got on a Budget Shuttle to the airport. I called and asked for the Days Inn airport shuttle. Right after I hung up, the shuttle arrived that someone else had called. The shuttle carries people for Days Inn, Best Western and Holiday Inn. We planned to eat at Sporting News Grill and it was attached to the Holiday Inn. The couple who had called the shuttle were complaining that they had waited 45 minutes so the driver announced he would let them off first. That worked for us and we just got off there. Clay got a happy hour Alaska Amber Ale. He had a half rack of back ribs. I ordered a pepperoni pizza. There was a problem with it sticking to the oven. So, they salvaged ½ of it and served it to me then later they brought a whole other pizza. Neither was very good. Neither of us liked it at all, but we salvaged all the good parts and ate them and left the rest behind. When we left it was raining again. Clay went over to 7-11 to get a soda and I walked back to the Days Inn. We both got equally wet. It still wasn’t cold. The weather forecast for Denver and Raleigh both tomorrow is clear so we’ll see. We have packed our umbrellas and rainjackets, so…



It is very early to bed for us tonight as we have an alarm set for 2am. We’ll both be glad to get home! It has been a good trip though, we’ve seen a lot. We just exhausted ourselves doing it!

We flew home on American Airlines on May 31, 2014. I didn’t type up any notes about the trip home and Clay didn’t take any photos. I will have to say then that it was just unremarkable and clearly we made it home safely. Sorry this has taken so long for me to get posted to the blog!

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Leaving Yellowstone

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Thursday, May 29, 2014

We were up early again this morning. No animal noises last night. There was a thunderstorm last night as we went to sleep. But, it was clear and cool when we woke up. We had breakfast in the room then we packed up and checked out of the Snow Lodge. We were on the road by 7am.

We made a lot of stops because everything was so picturesque and we didn’t exit Yellowstone until 10am. We crossed the Continental Divide twice driving across the southern part of the lower loop. We headed out the East Entrance to Cody. We drove along the North Fork of, I think, the Shoshone River. It was a Wyoming Scenic Byway with the Route numbers of 14/16/20. The map showed it as following along an original trail, the Overland Stage Route and the Original Pony Express. It was impressive. We visited the Buffalo Bill Dam. We stopped in Cody and got gas. There we turned south on 120 to 20 in Thermopolis and drove through Wind River Canyon. We decided to save our remaining sightseeing time for the Wyoming Dinosaur Center in Thermopolis. It was amazing! Now I don’t know how Utah claimed the catchphrase Utah Rocks! Because clearly Wyoming Rocks! too. We stayed on 20 to Shoshoni where we turned to 20/26 until Casper where we got on I-25 South.

We had a picnic lunch at a nice rest stop along the way on 120 past Meeteetse on a hillside overlooking Gooseberry Creek. They had up warning signs about rattlesnakes! That was worrisome, but we didn't see any wildlife other than a trashcan-emptying magpie. That and we watched a street sweeper clean back and forth repeatedly on the bridge over the creek without another car passing him. That was weird. Wyoming keeps a street sweeper way out here just to scrub that bridge? 

We got to the Quality Inn at Exit 188B on I-25 in Casper at 5pm. We got room 253 which was upstairs without an elevator, again. The room was very like the one in Springdale with the 5 square pillows. (Seriously! What is up with that?) It was fine and convenient and affordable. We paid $102 for the night. It included a filling breakfast, cable TV and wifi, so it was all good.

We went to Poor Boys’ Steakhouse at Exit 188A. Clay was craving steak after a 100 miles of open cattle range. I had the chicken fried steak just because it was on the menu. It was my 3^rd and best of the trip. It was a larger serving, but the best part was the light fluffy breading. They brought out a relish tray to start along with bread and butter. Then they brought out a large blue plastic bucket that was full of iceberg lettuce salad. It was a lot of food! So, then we shared a whoopie pie smothered in chocolate sauce for dessert. Clay loved it. I suspect ice cream would have improved it for him. I was done and didn't care for it.

We popped and ate my last bag of microwave popcorn while watching a Big Momma movie on HBO before retiring. Clay had his last beer, Yellowstone Roadblock Lager.

Tomorrow we drive on to Denver for a last night at a Days Inn by the airport. Then an early flight home. It is nearly over. We are ready to stop!

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Yellowstone Day 2

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Wednesday, May 28, 2014

We noticed when we came in last night that most rooms at the Snow Lodge had their windows open. Since it was overly warm in the hallways, when we got to our room we opened our window. We slept with it open all night and it was comfortably cool in here by morning. Because we had the window open, we were both awakened by what we think was wolves kind of yipping/howling. It could have been coyotes, but we have heard no one talk about them here, only about wolves. Plus we both thought we had heard coyotes and it didn’t sound like that. It was between 3 and 4 am. I got up about 5:30am and used the bathroom. Clay was sound asleep, so not wanting to face the day yet I went back to sleep too. We both got up around 6:30am. We had breakfast in the room and got dressed and made a plan for the day.

We would go over to the Visitor’s Center to try to find out the estimated times for geyser eruptions and other than that we planned to hike the Upper Geyser Basin around Old Faithful. It turned out that we had missed the first of the 6 geysers that they give estimates for. Two others they did not have times for yet. The main one that we were shooting for out there was Riverside and it was scheduled for 2:25pm. Being that it was 9am now, we’d need to find something else to do with the morning. I was not looking forward to hiking anyway. It seems that every day my gait changes and I need different shoes to be able to keep walking. We had to check luggage so I could bring 4 pairs and even that still doesn’t seem to be working.

So, to fill the morning we went and got in the car. We set off north towards Madison. We stopped at 3 of the geyser features between Old Faithful and Madison. We walked around Black Sand Basin, Midway Geyser Basin and Biscuit Basin. There is a video of Cliff Geyser at our first stop. There were some bison between the parking lot and the board-walked area of Black Sand Basin, our first stop. They were near the river, which must have been warm if not hot. One was wading and suddenly came out at us, Clay got video. It seemed scary, but all the bison were too busy eating or resting. 

Then we decided to go further north and look for the dead elk in a meadow from yesterday. (I did have a photo of that, but I thought it was too gross to post!) Anyway, I thought it was before Madison but we didn’t find it. And then I was sure it had been before Norris, because I remember that a long line of pullout parking was nearly filled with people watching. We had pulled over and I used the binoculars to identify it as a dead elk and we assumed that the ranger-directed car circus that was going on was people waiting and watching for scavengers to come and finish it off. Well, we didn’t drive as far as Norris today, and we never found the dead elk in a meadow. We turned around and headed back so we would be in plenty of time to see Riverside Geyser erupt. Now, we know why Firehole River is so named!

After a couple of false starts because I couldn’t get my shoes laced comfortably and then for Clay to have a huckleberry ice cream cone, we finally set off. We had wound up buying a 50 cent Old Faithful Area Trail Guide this morning when asking questions of the ranger at the information desk. Given the amount they charge for entrance and lodging, I find it obscene that then you have to pay something to answer every little question. They should be giving these details out at the entrance gate included with the brochure and newspaper. It shouldn’t be like pulling teeth to ever get a map with everything on it. And even when you buy one it is still missing things. You can compare any 3 maps they provide in some way, free or pay, and every one will have different stuff on it. It is ridiculous. Anyway, the 50 cent map says that The Morning Glory Pool trail that we had to take in order to see Riverside Geyser was 2.8 miles roundtrip from the Visitor’s Center. We combined it with the Geyser Hill trail on our return and that one was supposed to be 1.3 miles roundtrip. At least one of the geyser features we drove to in the morning had about a 1 mile hike. So we spent a lot of time walking today. We are both glad and relieved it is the end of this National Park vacation. So, we saw eruptions at Riverside, Grand, Anemone, Lion, and Old Faithful this afternoon. Riverside Geyser was most impressive and scenic.  Clay shot a lot of video of it from several angles because it went off for about 15 to 20 minutes. I think it might have been the longest of any of the geysers we saw too. I also really liked Wave Pool. It was perfectly round and clear-watered and had a single stream of bubbles coming up from the bottom center. Three little ones followed by one really big bubble. The big bubble would set off a series of concentric ripples out to the edge of the round hole and when the pond had gone still the next big bubble would break the surface. It was like watching a clockworks of a liquid and gas kind. (Sorry no photo. Clay rushed by to catch Grand Geyser erupting.)  Anemone Geyser was my next favorite. It erupted every 7 to 15 minutes or so and it would fill up and then flush down and empty out and then start over again. It was small and entertaining.

We got back from the Old Faithful area trails about 4pm and walked straight to the cafeteria at Old Faithful Lodge. We had an early dinner by a window overlooking Old Faithful and it erupted about the time we finished up eating. It was a civilized way to view it as Clay said. Also, it was a different angle for us, so that was good. We wandered through Old Faithful Lodge and the Haynes Photo Shop, which was like a museum of photography in Yellowstone. Then we made another stop in the General Store. We had planned to get ice cream cones, but we saw what must have been the last one of the day walking out as we entered because it was closed when we got inside. Clay wanted a soda and so we went over to the grocery area where he got one and out of a freezer box, I picked up a single-serve Frosty Chocolate Malted from Wilcoxson’s. We shared it in the room for our dessert after a walk back to Snow Lodge through a just-started thunderstorm.

At 6pm Clay got out of the shower and went to bed. By 6:30pm, he was snoring. It doesn’t even get dark here before 10pm! I expect it will be a very early and difficult morning for me tomorrow. Since he started showering at night, he just sits and glares at me every morning as I ever so slowly get myself going each day. Oh well, I expect I’ll only get slower and he’ll only get more annoyed.

Tomorrow we head for Cody and 1 night in Casper before driving on to Denver for a night near the airport and flying out on Saturday. So for all intents and purposes this is basically the end of our big West tour. Not to shortchange Cody or Casper. I don’t know anything about them and have no idea what to expect. But, I’ll report here and post some photos. I’ll try to get this posted to the blog in a timely manner after we return home. (Yeah, I thought that. Sorry!) That’s it for now.

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Yellowstone National Park

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Tuesday, May 27, 2014

We were up about an hour later this morning. The days here seem much longer than at home. We got up and had some breakfast and packed up and drove up to the registration building and checked out. We stopped at the gift shop and Clay got a t-shirt. We stopped and got gas and Clay sent me inside for chocolate. I also bought a bag of huckleberry taffy and a gift for him. Today we planned to drive the lower loop of roads in the figure eight. It would be more about geysers today than waterfalls. But, we still got waterfalls and animals.

Yellowstone Lake was less frozen today than it was yesterday. Our first stop was at West Thumb Geyser Basin. We walked all of the board-walked path and it was interesting. We were nearly the only people there so early. As we started out walking, we startled out from under the board walk a large gray and white rabbit. He had huge back feet and long ears. He hopped off and we would see him between the trees as we walked and he grazed. At some point he was out in the open and we were watching him when he exploded straight up about 3 feet in the air with his hind legs stretched out behind him. It was startling and if he had burst out from under the boardwalk like that we would probably have fallen over. I laughed out loud and it startled him and he lit out hopping over a small hill. Later we saw a small herd of elk. The steaming, boiling, bubbling cauldrons were strange, interesting, colorful and smelly. We were there about an hour.

As we were driving on to our next stop, we saw an elk with velvet antlers grazing beside the road. Then, we encountered a pair of bison walking down the road. It was a dilemma how to get around them since we’re instructed not to stop when we see animals here in Yellowstone. Yet, how to keep going without getting within 25 feet of them, which is another rule. A couple of other cars went past them and as we got ready to go, the bison moved over into our lane. Now we had to pass them on the left. We did, but it was a little scary. They are the size of a car and I had my window open because Clay wanted me to record it. (I don’t know how, I guess, because again I got nothing. Well, next to nothing. I got about 5 seconds which was almost one entire bison! Though I did get some still photos this time.) I was only about 4 feet from them and they were dripping wet. So, did they cross the river?

We stopped at Mud Volcano and saw some completely different geysers, and mud pools. We walked around the entire boardwalk again. Then we walked over to Sulphur Cauldron which was different yet again. In the Hayden Valley, we saw some more bison activity and this time Clay had the camera and did record a short video some of it. Look for it in today's photos. There were 3 bison very near the road. One was on a small green island in the Yellowstone River. One drank from a scummy looking pool of water and then walked about 3 steps and peed and it ran right into the drinking pool. Gross! The bison on the island crossed the Yellowstone River and climbed the river bank.

Then we crossed the Yellowstone River and drove along the south rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. We went to Artist Point to see the Lower Falls at 308 feet tall. We went to Upper Falls View at Uncle Tom’s Point to see the Upper Falls at 109 feet tall. We drove across the top of the loop uneventfully.

At Norris we drove to the Norris Geyser Basin and walked the Porcelain Basin Trail because it was shorter. This is where we saw our first spouting geyser, Constant Geyser in the center of the field blew 2 times for a few seconds each time and maybe 12 feet high during the 45 minutes we were there. We were thrilled.

It was about noon to 1:15pm by now and Clay was getting testy. I had told him to expect lunch by this time and we were 15 minutes behind schedule. I had planned to picnic below Gibbon Falls, so we blew by the rest of the geysers here in search of the falls. We didn’t find them quick enough and just pulled in at some other picnic grounds that had a pit toilet and no shade or views. It was quiet and private though. Mostly Clay stressed that it had a urinal so I suppose that and not low blood sugar was the problem. After we ate we drove about 3 minutes and found the falls which we stopped to see. Then we found the picnic grounds and Clay conceded they were more scenic alongside the Gibbon River but they did not have toilets. It didn’t matter now anyway.

Just past Madison, we took the little one-way side road to see Firehole Falls. We saw a bison right beside the entrance to Fountain Flat Drive so we turned in and found a lot of bison, a trumpeter swan and 2 sandhill cranes. The swan could hold his breath for a long time, so I had a hard time getting a photo. The cranes were visible back out off the main road and too distant, so no picture again.

Our last stop of the day was a good one. We took the one-way side road, Firehole Lake Drive. There were about 8 to 10 named geysers back there that almost all had parking pullouts and boardwalks. The star of the show was Great Fountain Geyser. See video in today's photos. There were a lot of people parked sitting and waiting just like at Constant Geyser, so we knew we wanted to see it. We had to park pretty far away on the side of the road and walk back. Shortly after we got our places, it blew and blew and blew. It moved a massive amount of water with great force. There were spouts so high up that I almost toppled over leaning back to see them. I would think they were probably as high as 75 to 100 feet. It was incredible. A woman walked up beside me and said it was better than Old Faithful. There was a White Dome Geyser behind it that from time to time we could see spouting behind Great Fountain but in a single stream, unlike the great wide spew from Great Fountain.

After that we came on into the Old Faithful area to check into Snow Lodge for the next 2 nights. It is the newest property in this area. The others are overlooking Old Faithful and are much older. We have a tiny window on the 3^rd floor in room 3043 and have a view of the mountains in the opposite direction. The lodges here are all representative of National Park Lodges unlike the convention center architecture over at Grant Village. Snow Lodge is quite attractive and next door to the Yellowstone General Store. The room is a bit on the small side but attractive and interesting. It has a refrigerator and a Keuring Coffee Maker. There is a sink/vanity outside the tub/shower and toilet and you enter by walking between them. I should note that unlike all the other National Parks we have just come through, that Yellowstone does not offer free wifi anywhere, but charges for it. All the previous National Parks had free wifi in their lobbies/information centers, etc. Not here. We paid about $260 to $265 per night here with the first night being prepaid when we reserved online. The other thing I forgot to mention is that on either check in or checkout at each National Park Lodge we have been asked if they can leave a donation charge on our bill. It has only been a few dollars each time and so we have left it to benefit the parks since we are basically getting free entry, but you know...

After we unloaded the car, we hustled over to see Old Faithful. See video in today's photos. We have renamed it Old Tardy. We saw it blow twice and it was not as impressive as Great Fountain. A little bit of a letdown. There were at least 10x as many people waiting around to watch it, too. It blew 15 minutes after the projected time. The next one we watched after dinner was about a half hour late. There was a phone number posted at the Visitor’s Center that you could call to get the estimated geyser times, but we didn’t write it down because we assumed it would be somewhere in our room or on the phone. It isn’t and they don’t have it posted anywhere we could find either. We did hear a ranger inside the Visitor’s Center loudly announcing to anyone who would listen that we should go over and watch Beehive Geyser (see video in today's photos) instead of or in addition to Old Faithful. He said it only erupts 3 times a day and sounds like a jet engine and is perhaps more impressive than Old Faithful. We walked over. He was right.

Oh, I forgot about dinner. We ate at the restaurant at our Snow Lodge because no reservations were required. I had a glass of Fess Parker Riesling and pork schnitzel. Clay had a Teton red ale and bison short ribs. It was all good. After the geysers, we shopped at Old Faithful Inn and the General Store. We got stuff for lunch and breakfast for the next 2 days I think. We picked up a pint of huckleberry ice cream and shared it in the room for our dessert. It was from a Montana company called Wilcoxson’s and the ingredients list said it was made with blueberries with no mention of huckleberries. But there were whole berries frozen in there and you could see they were huckleberries and not blueberries. It was delicious anyway, but after I read that I didn’t want anymore. 

We have no idea how we will fill another entire day here. I am so exhausted. My feet hurt, and my whole body aches. You can stick a fork in me because I am seriously done. The good news is we only have less than a week to go. Clay told me at dinner, he hoped our remaining scheduled trips are easier than this one. Me too.

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