The End

Well, another airstream adventure has come to a close. We are home now; we got home before lunch yesterday. Because we still have time left in the vacation, we are taking our time getting back to the routine here. It really was a fantastic trip. If you ever get an opportunity to go, even for a week, take it. You won't regret it. I was going to put some photos of my most memorable moments, but they are already on the blog.

Thanks for following along. I hope you will travel with us on our next adventure, whether to our state parks (I am partial to Claytor Lake, Douthat, and Pocahontas) or out of state. We'll keep on travelin'! :-)

Pics as promised

The computer is doing much better now. So here are the pics I wanted to post from the last time.


My hike in Glacier National Park (yes, the water is that color).

I think you recognize this? They posed for me.

The drive-thru animal park. This big guy took a scratch/stretch on the tree (yes, we were in the truck, but he was right near us!) The wolf was wandering around the hill over our truck, and the mountain lion was just doing his thing.

Wild Turkey (real, not bourbon) at Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky. These guys are on the side of the road, but you can't buy the bourbon outside the park because they are dry counties. The feathered one can wait until November.

Carry me back to Ol' Virginny...

Hey folks. I am now in my beautiful home state of Virginia. We are not home yet. Won't be for a few more days (no hurry). Since my last post, I have been busy.

We WalMarted it up on the way to Kentucky; once we stayed at a parking lot next to a cornfield (guess the state---IOWA!) and then another one in Fulton, Missouri. We made it to Kentucky and stayed at a beautiful state park made from a dam called Nolin River State Park, where we stayed for 2 days to rejuvinate our batteries. We were spoiled because we had water and electric hookups. We could take "hollywood" showers until the tank filled up! Yahoo! Then we headed to West Virginia, where we stayed the past 2 nights at a pretty state park called Beech Fork State Park. We are now in a KOA in Staunton, VA. Beautiful here.

Well, as promised, here are some pics from the last download. On our way out from Mount Rushmore, we stopped and drove through an animal park. That's the only place we got our pics of the wolves and bears (from the safety of our vehicle, of course). They were really cool, though. They breed the bears in the park (some have been rescued). They have over 50 of them (black bears and 2 grizz).

So Mount Rushmore is stunning close up. Kentucky is beautiful country, too. Lots of greenery and rolling hills. It was nice to see that the fire danger was low. We caught those thunderstorms that rolled through the last 2 evenings. It just made the creek by the camper rise a little bit; no big deal. I hope all of you made it safely through that.

Enough gab; now to the pics. Back home soon! Enjoy!

Sorry, the pics are taking way too long to load now. Will try again later.

Baa Baa Bighorn Sheep..

Have you any wool? Yeah, I've been trying to shed it for three days now! Just kidding. We spent this past week up at Glacier National Park; and I have to say, it is one of the prettiest parks I have ever seen. We did not have internet, so I couldn't post. But we saw bighorn sheep, marmots, elk, mule deer, snowshoe hares, different birds, and lots of mosquitos! It was a great trip, though, and well worth it. G touched a glacier. I mean, we study and see the effects of glaciers around us, but to see it actually happening is super-cool! I have pictures of a 3-hour hike I took on Wednesday that I will post another time. Too beautiful for words!

We are now in Montana near the border of South Dakota. We will be visting Mount Rushmore tomorrow and maybe stay a day or two. Then we will meander our way back to the east coast. I would like to visit Tennessee (Knoxville area) and Kentucky.  We have to give up our heavy jackets and long pants for shorts, since we are now in lower elevations where it is much warmer. Anyway, thanks for being patient since my last post.

Old Faithful in Yellowstone.

The most beautiful park yet that I've seen~

This guy was on the glacier (the one G touched) coming up to the road.

Bighorn Sheep at the visitors center at Logan Pass (they want to say hello).

Heading out of Yellowstone for future riches on our trip.

Ain't she a beauty?!

Thank you, Yellowstone!

Hi all! Well, we have conquered Yellowstone and most of its glories (at least those that we want to see). We will leave here tomorrow morning and head up to Montana to visit Glacier National Park. Then we will wind our way back home. We will get home eventually :-)

The other morning we were rewarded with 2 sightings of grizzlies. One was in the morning (around 6AM, a mother and her two older cubs) and then on the way back from gallavanting in the mountains, we saw the same "family" a little further in the valley (around 11). It was really cool but too far away for a pic. No wolf action, but since we've already seen them, well, what can you say?

As for other animals, we saw a bald eagle and used a higher power lens (a fellow at the wolf hangout let us borrow it). So the pic of the bald eagle was taken with that. We also visited the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. It was made from glaciers and volcanic activity. Really neat. They also have pelicans and osprey here. How cool is that?!

So if you plan to visit Yellowstone, here are some fun facts.
1) Dress appropriately. You want to make sure you have a heavy jacket for the mornings and lightweight ones for the evening. Be prepared for thunderstorms in the afternoon. They can be pretty brutal with the lightning and so forth.

2) Be patient for your wildlife. Remember this is not DisneyWorld where they show up on cue (although the prices you pay for things are like DisneyWorld). If you have children, just bundle them up in the car and tell them you'll wake them when something interesting shows up :-)

3) Go early. Most everyone is up and out by 10AM (this includes ramming the roads). So if you want to see things and not have parking issues, go between 7A and 10A to see/take pics of the best stuff.

4) Give the altitude some latitude. It varies from 6600-8500 feet, unless you want to be a real sport and tackle Mt. Washburn (10,000ft---yeah, right!). Anyway, give yourself at least 1-2 days to get acclimated when you go to different parts of the park. It is well worth the wait (after all, it's not going anywhere, now is it?)

5) Heed the park ranger. Ranger Rick and his rules are meant to keep you safe. Buffalo are cute but more people are hurt by bison than by bears. Also, if you are staying at a campsite, they want you to lock up your food. If not, they will confiscate it. We saw that yesterday. Some tent campers left out a lot of food and canned sodas. They don't want the bears to come around for the food, so put it away. People food harms the bears and they will have to either be put down or relocated (both of which are expensive endeavors). So heed Ranger Rick to be safe but still have a good time.

Overall, we have had a tremendous, once in a lifetime trip. We are truly blessed to be able to have this much time to see and explore things. I can't wait to see what the other half of this adventure brings. Later~

Brown bear, Brown bear, what do you see?

I see a lot of people looking at me! Yeah, baby! We caught our bear. We saw a grizzly on the way back from the last posting (you can tell by all the cars on the side of the road). So when you click on the pic, zoom in. He is so cute! Then, the day before yesterday, we went to a place called Tower Fall (we heard that's the best place to see black bear) and we were rewarded with 2 sightings:  one mama and her baby, and the other a male on his own on the hillside. Too cool!

We have sinced changed sites. We were at Grant Village. Yesterday was "moving day." We moved to Bridge Bay. This is a great site. We are away from the "squatter's camp" (what you see when you first drive in. There is no coverage of trees and everyone "squats" there). We have a real nice wooded site where we backed into. The nice part about this site is that it cuts out 30minutes of our commute to Hayden Valley--- a "hotspot" for bear and wolves. Supposedly there is a pack there. We've seen the male and female. Have yet to see the pups. The day of the last post, there was some action after 5PM when they went on a hunt. We only saw pictures, but wow!

We are still looking for Big Horn sheep; that is up on the mountain. But the day of the black bear sighting, we saw a mountain goat and her baby. You will have to Google images for that because they were too far away to get a pic; and we didn't bring our National Geographic super-high-powered lens. Oh well.

The last pics are of a swift fox we saw on the side of the road, and of course, the sunrise over the lake. We are at 7700feet of elevation, but that is the view most mornings (when there is no fog).

Enjoy!

Great days

We came into town today for more supplies, so I am able to post. Yesterday was a good day for wildlife. We are frequenting a popular place called Hayden Valley. They say you should see lots of different animals. The first day all we saw was fog. On the way there yesterday, we saw 2 coyote (see pic). We also saw lots of bison. We were told when the fog lifts, there should be bear, too (at least, there were 7 sighted the morning before). No luck. But we did see a wolf; alas, it was too far to get a good pic. We also saw a real bushy coyote on the way back to the trailer. Then this morning we heard the wolf howls (real eerie in the fog) and no bear. We will try Lamar Valley tomorrow.

Later~