While at the Grand Canyon...a dead body was rescued from an overlook we were at
While in the Tetons.....sixteen hikers were struck by lightning and had to be rescued off the mountain...one hiker died, one was never found
The night after we left Yellowstone.....a grizzly bear attacks three people in the middle of the night, killing one
YIKES!!! Happy to be coming home safe and sound.
I can't believe I forgot to ever post this picture to the blog!
Woke up this morning and hit the road again. We made it to Indianapolis by lunchtime, and stopped to meet up with my cousin Corinne who goes to school out there. We just stopped for dinner near the Ohio/ West Virginia border. Gps says we'll be at Joel's parent's house at 2:30 am. The plan is to spend tomorrow down there, and finish up with the last two hours of driving home on Monday. I am so ready to get back to "normal" life, but I feel different than before I left. I have seen a glimpse of how unique and beautiful our country is, and how different the daily lives are of those who do not live on the east coast. This was one of the most action-packed months of my life, and I am tired. I feel like I need a vacation after my vacation- thank God school doesn't start until September! We have learned some things too this month, such as:
~When planning on blogging about a cross country trip, bring a laptop. I can't wait to not have to type on this cell phone keypad anymore!
~"America runs on Dunkin" is a farce. I'm sure there were some around, but I haven't seen ONE since the day we left! I am in need of a Coolada!
~The majority of the people found in and around the National Parks in summer are not actually from this nation. I am glad to see people from other countries coming to spend money in our's, but I hope a lot of Americans have the time/make the trip out to see just how cool the country is.
~Pennsylvania is not actually that big of a state....at least not compared to those you run through west of the Mississippi. It felt like Kansas stretched on for an eternity.
and finally....
~Not all air mattresses are created equal. Don't skimp and buy the Walmart brand when planning on sleeping on the ground for a month...your back will thank you.
Joel and I would like to thank everyone who took the time to read this blog this summer. Thank you for your comments and texts. We hope you have enjoyed our stories and can't wait to see all of you in person soon!
Well, we did not make it to the campground before dark, but it wasn't a big deal because we are now such experienced "tent setter-uppers" that we can do it in the dark! We stayed at a KOA in Interior, SD, which was right outside of the Badlands and pretty much in the middle of NOWHERE! When we pulled up to our site, we could hear a staticky noise through the car. The noise was being created by millions of cicadas. Outside, the noise was deafening. I actually did okay with it and was able to tune it out, but it drove Joel CRAZY...it sounded kind of like a really loud, non-stop, static hiss. We woke up about 4am to a crazy tstorm crashing around us. I have never seen such frequent lightning strikes in a storm, and I'm sure it was pretty, but I didn't really have the best viewing spot. Our campground boasted having "the only shade trees on the prairie," which was true. It was hard to forget the fact that we were laying under the only tall trees in miles as the lightening crashed down. We ended up sitting in the car for about an hour, before heading back to the tent as the storm moved on. We visited the Badlands National Park, which was really cool to see. It is an area where these mountains and crazy striated rock formations rise up out of the prairie floor. It looked like we were visiting another planet! We also went to see "Wall Drug," upon recommendation from the Yaden's and the thousands of highway signs advertizing it along route 90. Basically it is a gigantic drug store that takes up an entire block of a town and sells every single souvenir imaginable, plus books, clothes, homemade donuts, fudge, and ice cream, and pharmacy items. It has room upon room of stuff, it's walls are covered in a collage of old pictures and mounted animals, and is basically a giant tourist trap. The picture of me riding the jackalope is from there! It's just one of those places that you can't drive past without stopping at. After Wall Drug, we headed back to the campsite to swim. The sky was a crazy purplish color, and it DID NOT look very happy. We heard from other campers that there was a serious storm on the way and that we had a tornado watch until later that night. I was kind of excited because I thought I might actually get to see a tornado on the prairie, but also kind of nervous when the owner of the KOA told another camper about how they have a basement to go in for safety. Well, it all ended up being for nothing because the storm never came! On a different note, I got some text messages yesterday about a tragic event that happened in Yellowstone a few days ago. Apparently a grizzly bear rampaged through a busy campground in the middle of the night, attacking two people and killing a third. The attack was unprovoked and all of the campers had their food stored properly. It was just a bear that went mad...so sad and scary for those poor campers! I am glad we got out of there when we did because I probably would have been a little scared to sleep after hearing about this! As we packed up our site this morning, I couldn't help but smile, knowing that we are done camping!!! I really enjoyed it, but enough is enough! The sadness I had the other day for the trip's end has been replaced with an excitement to get home. I miss Winslow!! We have one last stop planned, visiting my cousin Corinne in Indy, and we plan on rolling in to Joel's parents early in the morning of the 1st. Probably only one more post after this one...
Been here a few days, and already we are "Yellowstone Snobs." I have to admit, at first we also joined the masses and pulled over for every single animal. Now, though, I have plenty of pictures of bison and elk and find these roadblocks more of a nuisance than anything else. I can also see black bears any time I want at home, so they are becoming routine. Now, if it's a grizzly or a moose on the side of the road, that is a different story!! We've done lots of sightseeing these last few days. One of my favorite things was the "Dragon's Mouth" (at least I think that is what it was called) at the mud volcano site. It was basically a large cave in a rock that continuously spewed sulfuric steam and gray waves of water. It even made a rumbling hissing noise! We went fishing again on the beautiful Lake Yellowstone, but unfortunately the only things biting were the mosquitoes, and bite they did! They were vampires! Today we went to the "Grand Canyon of Yellowstone" to see the waterfalls. Took a trail called "Uncle Tom's Trail," where I nearly keeled over. There were A LOT of steps involved! Tomorrow we are leaving Yellowstone :( and heading to Cody, WY. I bought myself a cowboy hat yesterday, which is something I have always wanted, and am very excited to wear it to the rodeo! Apparently they have one every night there in Cody. We are heading east..so even though we have a few more stops planned (Mt. Rushmore, the Badlands), you know what this means..we are starting to head home :(
Sorry, accidentally hit the publish button mid-post. Didn't even get to proofread it at all, so sorry for errors! We absolutely loved the geyser basin where Old Faithful is found. It felt like we were on another planet. Joel liked how the Earth was randomly steaming in spots, and I loved the "Morning Glory" hot spring the best. It is one of the springs with the orange and blue colors in it. I was saddened to read a sign at it that said that it's pretty colors are being affected (and getting uglier) because stupid people are throwing trash and coins into the hot springs. How sad...
Okay, sorry to keep you waiting for a new post! I have received a few complaints about the delay..cut me some slack folks, I'm supposed to be on vacation! Ha, just kidding...terrible service in the Tetons and since arriving in Yellowstone I've been too busy! So rafting on the Snake River was amazing! We used the Mad River Tour Company, which came highly recommended, and it was fantastic. If anyone comes out to Jackson, GO ON A SMALL BOAT WHITE WATER RAFTING TRIP WITH THEM!!! The trip lasted about three hours...an hour and a half of which was actually spent on the river. It was an eight mile trip with lots of class 2 and 3 rapids..so much fun. We took the small raft, which ran the risk of capsizing, but was more wild. Our guide was really nice and actually grew up in Morris County and has a friend that lives in Paulinskill...so again I am seeing just how small this world really is! After rafting we headed back to the Tetons. If I didn't say so before, this is my new favorite part of the country! It is just so beautiful. I mean literally, everywhere you look is gorgeous. On our way back we saw two huge bull moose! Got some great pictures! We left for Yellowstone EARLY the next morning so that we could get a campsite. On the way, we saw a grizzly bear! It was eating on the side of the road, so we pulled over way in front of it....but, I guess it really wanted to inspect a log right by the car because it just kept walking toward us. I did have the camera zoomed in all the way, but as you can see from the picture, I may have let it get a bit too close before shutting the car door and driving away! So we continued on toward the gate (where the title of this post comes into play). You see, we had no idea it was a Friday morning and had not made reservations. Subsequently, regardless of the fact that it was 7:30 am, we were told that the campground we wanted to stay in was already full. Thus began our wild rush through the park to try to get a spot. You see, in Yellowstone, campgrounds may not look far mileage-wise, but can take HOURS to get to. At one campground we were waiting in line and literally the car directly in front of ours got the last site in the place! We finally ended up getting a site (around 11:30. am) in Mammoth Springs, which is way in the NW corner, five miles from Gardiner,MT. The campground was fine, but is so far from everything that we want to see so it is a pain. After setting up we drove three hours (including road construction, and the occasional stop for a glimpse at an animal) back to Old Faithful.
The photo taking policy for the Hoover Dam (according to our tour guide): Take all the dam pictures you want!
This is a test entry to see if this stupid thing will work again now that I erased and redownloaded it.
Wrote a long blog about our time so far at the Grand Canyon...for whatever reason it will not post. Will try again tomorrow when we have better service.
I believe this part of the ruins was called Spruce Tree House. We took a path down to it. The Native Americans had to climb to it using toe and finger holes carved into the cliff walls. My clumsy self wouldn't have lasted a week in that place!
Just a GIANT pile of sand! If you see any little specks on the sand they are probably people hiking up.
Well it has been a busy and exciting few days. Since I can only post one pic per entry I will type in this one and then add the pictures separately. We spent all of Thursday at Great Sand Dunes National Park. As the name implies, it has the tallest sand dunes in North America. They are so huge but the pictures don't really show the height so well. Above is the view from one side of our campsite. The other side looked out over the dunes. We spent most of the day hiking the dunes. Although we didn't make it to the top, we came pretty close. This was hard work considering that the wind was gusting and the sand was 140 degrees hot! We could feel it through the bottoms of our hiking boots! By the time we got back the temperature had dropped into the fifties and tstorms were rolling in. It was a cold night and I ended up sleeping with a blanket over my head for warmth. Friday and Saturday were spent at Mesa Verde National Park. This place was SO cool! We took the path down to one of the cliffside villages. These were the homes of the ancestoral(?) Pueblo people. I took tons of cool pictures in case I ever teach ss some day! We spent the rest of the day hiking around and looking at some other ruins of pit houses that were built around 600 ad. It was kind of funny...out of 400 sites, the man next to us was from Oak Ridge, NJ ..small world! Best part of this place = free showers!! Again, thanks to Liz and Dave Yaden for all of the tips and suggestions. We have LOVED everything so far! Tomorrow we head toward the Grand Canyon!
**Can't figure out how to flip pics or add more than one on the phone. It was raining today and so I only ended up getting crummy pictures that simply don't do these mountains justice. Hope to get better ones tomorrow.** So, Kansas ended up being pretty darn flat in the end, and surprisingly, a lot of Colorado was too. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn't plains right up to the bases of the giant mountains. Today we got off of I70 and on to a state "highway" in Colorado. Let me tell you, I will never look at where we live and think of it as being in the middle of nowhere again! Houses were interspersed across the wide open prairie in about twenty mile intervals. The county roads were not paved. I really can't imagine living like that! The weathermen were calling for t-storms with 50mph winds and hail, so we decided that tenting might not be the best idea. Tonight we are staying in a KOA cabin and honestly it is nicer than either of the hotels we have slept in thus far. Naturally, we pulled in and set up "camp" in the rain which then immediately stopped. It is beautiful here, but COLD. Low of 40 for tonight...brrrr. Have some chatty but very friendly neighbors from Texas. We are heading into the Great Sand Dunes Natl Park tomorrow and then Mesa Verde Natl park for the next few days. Cell service is getting spotty...will post when I can. Happy birthday to my baby brother and my bestie Rena!!!!
Blogging from the road tonight. Today was a busy day, though not very productive milage-wise so far. We spent the morning in St. Louis touring the arch and the Westward Expansion museum below it. It was actually really cool to see and we even got to ride up to the top of it in this little barrel thing! We didn't have time for the brewery...oh well. We did, however, have a "Michael Scott-like" moment involving the GPS and the Mighty Mississippi. As I was driving down the GPS-directed riverfront street, I saw in front of me some mud in the road. I thought nothing of it and was about to drive through when Joel stopped me. The freaking Mississippi River had flooded over it's banks a little and I was about to drive right into it! Why that road was open to cars, I have no idea! We later saw some other poor soul stuck in the river mud! Guess that's what you get for following the GPS. Okay, I have killed enough time with this post. Back to staring out the window at the surprisingly hilly Kansas prairie.
After a LONG sixteen hours of driving, we made it to St Louis! We saw lots of cornfields and even two gigantic crosses on the side of the road. The one thing that we did not see any of was traffic! I know, it is hard to believe but we literally did not stop once while on the highway. Hopefully this trend continues because we still have a lot of ground to cover. Sightseeing tomorrow at the Arch and the Budweiser brewery before hitting the road again. Good night!
Sorry, still getting used to blogging via phone! Anyway, we made it here in time to watch fireworks from the driveway last night. Today was spent poolside relaxing and this afternoon I took what might be the last nice clean shower for awhile. Tonight we are going to sleep super early and we plan on waking up and leaving by 4 am. The goal for tomorrow is to make it at least as far as Indianapolis- or St. Louis if we can manage to drive further. Happy Fourth of July everyone!
Well, we made it safely to our first stop-over at Joel's parent's house in Whiting, NJ, or as Joel affectionately calls it: Wrinkle City. The rooftop carrier survived the Parkway and we made it just in time to wa
