TIRED!

I have been writing these last few blogs about our travels out west. We have been back just over a week, and it strikes me how long it took me to recover. Most of our time we were at  elevations above 5000 feet which used to give me insomnia and anorexia.  I didn't really notice anorexia, and I seemed to sleep fine, so that probably wasn't the problem.

We do tend to go-go-go very hard. In fact Andrew mentioned this which made me stop and think that yes, we don't want to waste any opportunity, so we may over-do a bit.  Recall our family motto: "If it's worth doing, it's worth over-doing."

I have had plenty to do since our return and that hasn't helped. My personality does NOT do well when I am over-loaded with tasks.  Pacing myself, as Andrew observed, is not my strong suit.

The last couple of days have been better. Yesterday evening and this AM we have been prepping flower beds to receive the 30 day lilies that my brother and his wife mailed us from their garden. I bought some larirope today to make the border of the beds. My hope is to get them in the ground tomorrow.

We are happy to be home, looking at our own pond and sleeping in our own beds. There have been a LOT of Canada geese here, and there were none when we left in mid-July. There are now two great blue herrons.  The grass needs mowing, and there's plenty of tasks to do. Next month we do a wellness week at Laguna Beach and celebrate the Feast of Trumpets.  From there I do a couple of weeks in IT.  I know how tired I will be from that.

Until then, remember, If it's worth doing, it's worth over-doing.

American Bison

The animal we saw in greatest abundance was the American Bison, of “buffalo”. Right outside Glacier NP we saw a large herd numbering around 50-60. In Yellowstone, in the Lamar Valley we saw hundreds. In other spots around Yellowstone, we saw smaller herds of 20-40.

These are impressive animals, shaggy, some still shedding their thick winter coats. Most had calves following along, and we saw several cases where bulls had an apparently estrous cow that he was guarding. We got to see a couple very close. Several were rolling around in “wallows” covering themselves with dust. Twice we saw bulls walking down the road, obstructing traffic, with impunity.

These were the dominant food and clothing source for the Indians and for the early settlers. It is clear why. They are huge, and one could provide a LOT of meat. You’d have to kill a LOT of antelope to equal one bison.

I’m SURE this is not the case, but the animals appeared pretty docile. I’m guessing only the calves are subject to predation.

These are GRAND animals and great symbols of the American West. I’m glad they have been preserved in great numbers.

Ooops- Virginia City, MT

Our motel managers and I became good friends.  They gave us a great tip about our trip up to Glacier NP. They suggested we take a little side-trip to Virginia City, MT, the first territorial capital of MT.

This was a town that still contained its original buildings. It was the site of a gold strike in the early 1860's and the city came to be shortly thereafter. The buildings were interesting, and we love history and so seeing these places was a delight. The docents were knowledgeable and friendly.

One of the MOST STRIKING characteristics was that it was NOT at all commercial. No one tried to sell us. There was a bus tour and a horse-drawn carriage tour.  We chose to walk and see things at our own pace.

Here's the VA City barber shop.  My dad was a barber, so this gets close to home, since I spent many hours in his shop as a shoeshine boy.

I took this photo in VA City. If you have ever been in bear country, this has BIG meaning.

Here's a photo that could surprise you. Back in the lat 1970's Brenda and I did a historical architecture tour in Lexington, VA. One of the things I recall from that many years back was that the old time construction supervisors would cut structural beams down, losing a lot of their stenght. They would build structures taller and taller until they got too tall, and had a collapse.  Thank you we have made some advances.

We saw this bad engineering other places on this trip too.

This was a neat little side trip and I would recommend it to anyone.

Wall Drug and The Corn Palace

One of the MOST famous places in southern SD is WALL DRUG.  They post signs for maybe a hundred miles to the east and west of their store. Anyone traveling on I-90 through SD has seen the signs. We wanted to go back. 

            The store is HUGE with many sub-parts. You can buy new or used lassoes there, the first I can recall seeing. You can probably buy most anything there. They allegedly had “free coffee and a donut” for veterans, and I was whetting my appetite. However it was near lunch hour and the lines were so long, we didn’t want to delay. We did buy a “Where the Heck is Wall Drug?” bumper sticker for each of our kids, commemorating that first trip.

Near the east side of the state is the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD. Early in the 20^th century, two enterprising guys were looking for a way to get more tourists into town. There had been a failed attempt to build a corn museum in Sioux City, IA, so the men said, let’s do it in Mitchell. They promptly raised a bunch of money from local folk, and started it. After a few years, it was so popular, especially for the annual corn festival, it was moved a block south and a MUCH bigger building was constructed, then expanded.

The most noteworthy aspect of the Corn Palace are the huge murals using various colors of corn to make the art. We watched the video about the founding of the corn palace.

A HS sophomore, Jamie, served as our guide for describing the murals. Brenda and I were both impressed with his maturity, so I grabbed a photo with him.

After the Corn Palace, we visited an interesting store across the street. It featured a model of the Jewish tabernacle, supposedly to the right dimensions. It was interesting to see and was built by a 7^th-day Adventist. It wasn’t there 24 years back.  But it was neat.

From here, we merely had to drive home—we still were over 1100 miles from home.

Headed Home - Mt Rushmore

On Saturday 3 August, we headed eastward. Sunday 4 August we reached Mt. Rushmore. It was threatening to rain and the sky was overcast. We made a quick pit-stop and then walked toward the carvings.

     The last time we were here the kids were little, and it was near sunset. Now it was Brenda and I and early Sunday morning. The carvings are amazing, and more so when we learned of how they were done.

     After taking pictures, we hobbled down to the "Artist's Studio" which had been the last office of the original conceiver and carver,  Sculptor Gutzon Borglum, aided by his son, Lincoln, did the carving based on a scale model of 1"= 1' Borglum had made.

     Borglum had been previously hired to do the Civil War carving on Stone Mountain in GA. He had been fired from that job, for some reason, and had chiseled off the work he had done, and incurred the wrath of his employers, so he was HAPPY to leave for the far West.

     The park ranger showed us how the workers had painstakingly reproduced on the mountain side Borglum's models. Borglum had carefully selected a SE-facing site so that the lighting would be good.  I would never have thought of that, but it worked to a charm. We had seen it late in the day and early, and it was well lit each time. He had also picked a mountain composed of the ideal type of rock to carve well, and not deteriorate quickly.

     After the talk by the well-studied park ranger, I had to ask some questions. 

     "How had the workers gotten to the top of the mountain?"

     "They either walked up, or the brave ones could ride a bucket up a cable that stretched from just outside the studio to the top."
      "How many workers were killed in the project?"
      "No lives were lost over the 14 years of work."

Wow, that is even MORE amazing.  Here 'tis.

Saying Goodbye to Andrew

The saddest part of our trip, was in the Eastern part of Yellowstone, at the Fishing Bridge store. We took a few minutes to eat a bit on the picnic tables outside.

We had a great time with Andrew. We had visited 4 Major National Parks with him, traveling about 4500 miles. We enjoyed great weather and magnificent views. We had some adventures, like that looong hike.

     We had  chance to reminisce about our great trip to AK back 7-8 years ago when he graduated from UA.

     We can't take these times for granted. What a blessing it was to spend 9 days traveling around a beautiful part of the world with Andy. 

     Thanks be to G^d!

Glacier NP

Our LAST BIG National Park to visit before heading back East was Glacier NP. If you are visiting parks, I’d recommend doing Glacier FIRST, then Yellowstone.  Glacier is great, but not relative to Yellowstone.

The MOST distinguishing characteristics of Glacier were the beautiful, beautiful wildflowers which were abundant, and the waterfalls, streams and lakes, also abundant. We drove the “southern route” which started in St. Mary’s to the East and headed west on the “Driving to the Sun” Hwy. The vistas were stunning. We had been told how scary the road was winding up through Logan Pass, but we have done similar things, and didn’t notice it, except on occasion.

We loved seeing the abundance of wildflowers. One stood out, and one of our few opps to ask a parker ranger, we learned it was “bear grass”. He further told us that it only blooms every 7 years, and this year happened to be one of the best blooming seasons of recent history.

The only drawback to our visit on 1 August, was the lack of parking. Parking spots were limited, and the first two hikes we hoped to make, we couldn’t due to lack of a parking spot.

We did get to make one hike, and we’ll tell you that story next blog post.

 This is "Bear Grass" and only blooms every 7 years, but we caught it at the right time!

Both these were along one of the many, many glacial streams.

Animals, Animals, Animals

Animals, Animals.  Photos

For reasons I cannot explain, seeing animals is always a thrill. Over the course of this trip we saw 4 black bear, more than a hundred antelope in groups of 12 or less, many mule deer, a few whitetails In Glacier, and lots of cow elk, we saw one heard of bighorn sheep, plus a few bull elk. I already mentioned the hundreds of bison. We saw one coyote, but no grizzly or wolf. On two mornings we got started at 0535, in order to try to spot animals, but that really didn’t seem to help.

We like to see animals in their own natural habitat. This is why we enjoyed Africa, and enjoy spotting animals in the wild. We have always loved zoos, but still prefer the natural settings. At one point in Yellowstone, the traffic was backed up and the sides of the road covered with people and cars. A young black bear was feeding on berries about 50-60 yards off the road, and everyone was focused on him, as long as we could see him.

Probably the best sighting of a bear happened on our trio from West Yellowstone to Glacier. On a two-line road, we cross a little brushy creek and there by the roadside fence was the biggest black bear we saw. There was no traffic and we were able to watch it a few minutes. He had a neat reddish-brownish black coat. He could have easily been mistaken for a brown bear by his color. Finally in our last hour in the park, a young reddish grizzly crosses the road in front of us. Thank you L^rd!

We saw lots of birds including white pelicans, which I didn’t anticipate. We saw one bald eagle, lots of Great Blue Herons, lots of ravens, cliff swallows, Canada Geese, osprey (who carried a fish to his nest) and ducks.  Almost every pond had ducks and geese.

Of course, the west grows PLENTY of cattle and horses. Seeing these wide open plains with horses and cattle free to roam was pleasing to the eye and mind.

            The most ubiquitous animal was the pronghorn antelope, which we saw from New Mexico to Eastern WY.

I’m not sure why we take such pleasure I wild animals, but we do.  Thank you L^rd.

I mentioned in the Rocky Mtn NP post about the joy we get from seeing animals in the wild. One of the great thing about this trip, was the abundance of animals of different species.

These were an elk herd right by the road in ROcky Mtn NP. Note the front left one has a collar for tracking their movements.  One other cow had a collar too.

We saw a poster for this t-shirt in Virginia City, MT.  I have too many t-shirts, but not enough funny photos.

 A black bear we saw from the side of a major HWY in North MT. He was a young bear, and had a beautiful reddish coat. The traffic was light, so we watched him for 2-3 mins before he headed into the thick brush of a creek bottom.

This Mulie doe was right by the road. you could have hit her with a rock very easily. I don't recall ever being this close to a free-ranging deer.

Ravens were common and these had little fear as they hoped for a hand-out from visitors. This was one rule we obeyed--we never fed any of the wildlife.

In the Lamar Valley of Yellowstone, this big bull was in the road and impeding traffic. When we finally got around him, he charged our car.
     The most COMMON cause of traffic jams in Yellowstone are photogenic animals lingering near the road. We were in traffic jams on at least 2 occasions for bison, and 2-3 times for elk near the road.

Here's another look at one of the big bulls near Estes Park, CO.

We don't discriminate. We like all the wild animals including these little chipmunks that seemed abundant along with the larger ground squirrels.

North to Yellowstone- via Dubois

It was too long a drive to go from Ft. Collins all the way to West Yellowstone, so we spent the night in Dubois, WY. It was a neat place to stop and a welcome respite.

We stopped fairly early, because there weren't many places to sleep beyond Dubois. We got to walk around that Saturday night and see some of the highlights of the town.

 We thought the elk horns in Jackson Hole, WY were impressive, but they weren't any better, by my 20+ year-old memory, than these in Dubois.

We enjoyed a good meal and a good rest.  Now on to Grand Tetons and Yellowstone.