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.

Rocky Mountain National Park

One of our greatest thrills, any time and any where is to see animals in thier native habitat. That was our favorite thing in Africa, and also on this trip.

3 BIG bull Elk were right by the road coming out of Rocky MTN NP.

 These little marmots were looking for a handout. I enjoy all wildlife, regardless of it's fame.

More of the big bull elk.

A deer, not sure which species, but we ended up seeing several.

Of course one of the things that made seeing these animals special, was having Andrew with us. He is skilled at spotting game, and enjoys it as much as we do. It was a great way to start our time together.

CRU 19

 Josh McDowell- New Evidence talk

Every second year, Cru holds a worldwide staff training meeting in Ft. Collins, CO at CO State Uni. For at least the 2^nd year in a row, our part of Cru ministry, Faculty Commons, held a conference for local Christian profs, and a second meeting the next day for all our ministry staff.

      After 2 days of intense meetings, we started Cru 19.  Every day the meetings started at 0930, which allowed for a pretty relaxed morning. The Morning meeting was done by noon or a bit later, and then we had lunch break. At 1:30 PM we had smaller seminars and workshops until about 5 PM. Then from 7 PM until almost 10 PM we had another large group session. Cru 19 lasted 7 days and between us we missed a total of one-half of one session. Which is to say, we wore ourselves out!

We heard a lot of great speakers, sang some great worship songs, and learned some new stuff. But our greatest joy was in seeing so many good friends. As well as US friends, we saw friends from Africa, friends from Europe, friends from Central America, friends from South America. We made a new friend from South Asia and saw friends HEADED to Eastern Asia. Some friends we hadn’t seen in 6 years.
     My favorite part was feeling like we were ONE BIG FAMILY.  As an extrovert, it was great to greet and meet people working in different ministries. In the workshops and seminars, my mind was stimulated as to HOW we could use that info in our ministry to Profs and staff.
     Thanks for making Cru 19 possible by your prayers and financial support.  We worked very hard, did it very cheaply, and benefited greatly.

      

Here are some Faculty Colleagues we invited to Cru 19 in hopes they would consider joining our staff as Fellows (shile still teaching) or as Affiliates (after retirement).  It was GREAT to meet these fine folks.