Tower Falls

On the way to Tower Falls we stopped at the Beached Cliffs.


Driving along we stopped again in the middle of the road for no apparent reason. People are getting out of the car to take pictures of what seemed to be just trees. At closer look we were able to see a black bear and her cub walking a little bit further back in the woods. By the time we arrived at the spot, they were of course gone. There are plenty of spots to pull of the road, but I guess people get just so excited, they just stop. We really have not had to deal with tourism other than in Moab, so this is a new experience for us. And then we reach Tower Falls.


As you can see from the pictures, the weather was steadily getting worse through out the day and we actually drove through some rain going over one of the passes. There was still snow on the side of the road, but luckily not on the road. The park is a beautiful forest and probably a hiker's paradise. People that know us know that we do not hike. We enjoyed what we had seen so far, but were just a tiny bit disappointed until we stopped at Norris on the way back out of the park.

We had such a variety of geysers and hot springs it was a blast to check it all out. The geyser went off about every sixty seconds.

And then there was the one that looked like water just sizzling on a hot plate.

The trail was about one mile and was supposed to take about 45 minutes. I don't know how much time we spend there, but there were so many small geysers and hot springs, it was a blast. I wish I would have brought a gas mask, but other than that, it was great.

Yellowstone National Park - Part 1

We went to Yellowstone National Park for the first time. The park is so big that it surely will take more than one trip to check it all out. It took us about 15 minutes just to get through the entrance fee station into the park. It should have given us a clue of what was to come. I have heard that people stop their cars when there is wildlife on the road, but they stop their cars in the middle of the road when there is a bison on the side of the road. It was rather interesting and slightly annoying to us. We decided to take the northern route towards Mammoth Hot Springs and swing by Tower Falls on the way back home.

There had been a big fire a few years ago and the landscape looked very much barren with some new growth.

Of course we were eager to see some water bubbling out of the ground and stopped at the first chance to see it.

I am sure we are going to see bigger and more impressive ones along the way. But first, we found a beautiful waterfall.

Next we discovered our first steam vent.


And then we finally arrived at Mammoth Hot Springs. It was not what I expected, but now I know what the difference is between a hot spring and a geyser. The hot spring is basically a steaming pool of water that does not bubble up very often, if at all.

The mineral deposits sure create some beautiful terracing and shapes.


After a good lunch we went on to Tower Falls.

Mesa Falls

There are so many things to see here, so we decided to start outside the park first. Mesa Falls are the last two undisturbed waterfalls in the West (they say).

It looked like a miniature Niagara Falls, just without out all the tourism and the flood lights at night. It was a beautiful site, except for all the huge mosquitoes that just seemed to love me. Even the lower falls were pretty neat to look at.

On the way home we stopped at Big Springs, which is the beginning of a river and I really did not expect much, just a nice drive.

I am sure we will see more impressive "bubbles" in Yellowstone National Park, but is was cute. And then we found out that the place is know for two totally different things. First, there is the Johnny Sack Cabin, a German immigrant that build a cabin from scratch all by himself.

The second is the humongous trouts that are in this river.

Update

We have learning a lot since we started the journey this year and this time we made sure we have a place to stay through the upcoming holiday. After having to spend the Memorial Day holiday in Aztec, NM, because we could not find a campground in Moab, UT, we went up north towards Yellowstone National Park on Monday and secured a campground till Wednesday after 4th of July holiday. We had the most beautiful drive up Route 20. Once you finally hit the plateau there are these huge fields of white and purple flowers. I think the white ones are daisies, the blue ones I have no idea.


We spend the remaining days in Tetonia just checking more things out locally and moved to our new campground on Thursday. I can't believe that my car just turned over 10,000 miles and we just bought it in January. There are no regrets in taking it along. We have been some cool places that we probably would have not gone with the truck (like our adventure in Moab) and I like driving it a lot better then the truck. And lets not forget that fuel is still cheaper for the car and I get 32 mpg, which is a much better than the gas mileage for the truck. Life is good!!!!

Grand Teton

So last Thursday a week ago we moved on further north to slowly make our way to Yellowstone National Park. We wanted to stay a little bit north of Idaho Falls, but just could not find a campground that I found suitable for us. So Doug found a campground on the map in Tetonia and off we went at 5 pm Thursday afternoon. It is really in the middle of nowhere, but how beautiful the middle of nowhere can be. We kept getting closer and closer to these beautiful mountains and luckily the campground turned out to be pretty nice.

The laundromat with nice big front loaders was right across from our campsite and a nice grocery store only seven miles away in the next town. Friday was spent doing laundry and shopping and cleaning. Not my favorite things to do, but nothing you can do about it. Saturday we decided to go to Jackson. The drive over the Grand Tetons was nice, but I'm glad we did not have the rig, since there was a 10% downhill grade into Jackson. We should have known better then to go into Jackson on a Saturday. It is the beginning of the summer season and the town was an absolute zoo with traffic jam, etc.


We had lunch in Jackson and went on to the Grand Tetons. We thought they looked pretty cool from the west side, but they were breathtaking from the east side.

As we kept driving north most people turned around after the first 10 miles, which was okay with me. We had a leisurely drive up Route 191 to Jackson Lake Junction.


If you go to the Grand Tetons, I highly recommend taking 390 back down to Jackson. You can't get much closer to the mountains with a car.

The road to Teton Village was a little bit rough, but well worth it. The gondola ride was pretty cool also, but strangely enough it was not as cold up there in the snow then I had expected. It is amazing how strong the sun is up here.

Garden City, UT

We have been doing a lot of running around and checking out things since we left Mission two months ago. I can't believe it has been two months already. By the time we finished Salt Lake City, I was getting a little bit tired and so we decided to find a place to "chill" for a week. We found it at Garden City, UT at the beautiful and huge Bear Lake.

It was a gray and cold day when we arrived, but believe me, the colors of the water are beautiful when the sun shines on the lake. There is really not much to do around here other then boating and fishing, just the place I was looking for. We did one day of checking things out and found a beautiful temple in Paris, ID


and some beautiful scenic views. I just can't get enough of snow covered mountains.

We went on to Soda Springs to check out the only contained hot springs that they release once an hour on the hour. However, the valve has to work in order for the water to come out and guess what, it did not.


The "Dinkey Engine" was cute and somewhat made up for the nonfunctional hot springs. I have a feeling we will see bigger ones at Yellowstone National Park.

Salt Lake City

We went to downtown Salt Lake City on Saturday to check out Temple Square and whatever else we would find interesting. There is a lot of construction going on in and around the city, but it should be great once they are done in the fall. Temple square was amazing to me. It is so peaceful and I just loved all the flowers.


I was somewhat surprised that we were really not pressured by the Mormons to listen to their believes and were able to just wonder around the buildings. The only building you can not enter is the temple itself, which they performed 70 weddings that day.


Trying to take a picture of the temple without a bride and groom was just impossible. So after a nice lunch at Temple Square we went down to Union Station, which I thought was a train station.


The stained glass pictures were incredible.

So we go through this hall, out the big doors to step into an outdoor mall. Some things here really are not what you would think.