Yellowstone National Park for the Day
Along with a few thousand other tourists, we are here waiting for the Old Faithful geyser to erupt! This was great fun as we had 2 pints of Hagen Daas ice cream to eat while waiting.After Old Faithful did its thing for 90 seconds and fizzled away, Q said,
"I think I like the fountain at the Bellagio casino better!"

Adjacent to the visitor's center and boardwalk is the Old Faithful Inn. This 100+ year old log building has a fantastic light and airy almost cathedral-like feel, yet it also seems like a wildly cool tree house. We discovered a bar on a second floor balcony where we all enjoyed a fancy 'umbrella drink' while watching people assemble for the next Old Faithful show. I shot this photo of the crowds at one of Yellowstone's waterfall attractions. Because of our tight schedule, we hit this park on a Saturday, something we have been good at avoiding on the trip until now. Because we only had one day here, we did not do any hiking. We found that if you are willing to hike a little, you will encounter very few other tourists. We would like to go back to this park in the off season. They say you can have the park to yourself at other times of the year.

Crowds aside, this was still a wonderfully strange and 'other worldly' place. The geothermal activity and mineral deposits are wild.

We all agreed that being at Yellowstone was like being on another planet. You had to stay on the boardwalks, so you didn't wander into a hidden hot spring and get scalded. It definitely felt alien!

While this looks like snow, it is some type of residue left by the hot springs. The area smells strongly of sulfur.

The beautiful turquoise colors are due to the different microscopic organisms that can live in these extreme environments.

Grand Teton National Park

Neighboring Grand Teton National Park was next on the itinerary. We camped for 2 nights here on Jackson Lake and it was spectacular. The grandeur of the Teton mountains is the result of having no foothills, they just blast-off to the sky.

The Continental Divide has always intrigued me. This is the line or ridge that separates the watersheds of the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans. Call me weird, but I have always wanted to pee on the divide! Half of the contents of my bladder ending up in the Atlantic the other half in the Pacific. When we came across the divide, I slammed on the brakes and the kids & I scampered off into the woods to leave our our mark. Xi just rolled her eyes!

Cedar Point or Bust!!!

On the way home, we hit an Amusement Park in Ohio. When planning the trip, we all wanted to visit a world class 'roller coaster park.' After doing significant Internet research, we discovered that our old favorite, Cedar Point, was the best ride park in America.
We completely agree!

Ivo checks out the 'Wicked Twister' ride from the line. She found these big sunglasses next to a stream in Glacier National Park a few weeks earlier!

Another happy camper in line at Cedar point.

I shot thousands of pictures from the car window on this trip. The west is packed with amazingly wild geological feature. Because they were shot from a moving vehicle they are not clear enough to print but will make great reference material for paintings. I have decided to do some oil paint abstractions based on some of the images I have collected on this trip.

Q was the grand master of spotting wind farms on the horizon before anyone else.
We passed dozens of these green power plants in many states. We thought they looked elegant.

Celestial Seasonings Factory Tour in Boulder, Colorado


Celestial Seasonings tea company is located in Boulder Co and we hit their tour on the way home. We had read about the world famous 'mint room' in books and decided it was something we had to see for ourselves. Peppermint, spearmint, and wintergreen are tea ingredients, but because the aromas are so overpowering they cannot be stored near any other tea herbs. So the company build a 30' X 30' 'vault' to keep them isolated. Pallets of bagged mint are stacked 20' high in this room. You are allowed to enter the room for as long as you want, but most people only stay for about 30 seconds. Your eyes immediately start watering and automatically begin closing and your lungs feel like someone has poured Vick's Vapor-rub in them. We lasted about 3 minutes, it was great!

Not another hotel...

We decided to do a 30 hour marathon drive to save on lodging costs and to speed our return journey. Doing 2 hour shifts and drinking a number of energy drinks and mocha cappuccinos got us from Wyoming to Ohio via Boulder.

Arriving at my sister's home in Cincinnati was a relaxing and recuperative 2 day stop. G did our laundry for us while we crashed and chilled out; thanks sis!

Along the way we encountered this forest fire. You could see it 200 mile away! We are still about 30 miles away at this point. On the great plains the scale of objects and vast open spaces is so alien to us New Englanders.
We drove past an airport where this giant helicopter picked up a load of fire retardant to
drop on the forest fire; it flew right over our car!

Note: Our next post will be the final one for the trip. We are compiling some trip statistics that you may find interesting. Check back in a few days.