Yellowstone National Park

Yellowstone is one of those places that every American should see at least once. It is a wild place in a remote location, but you can visit in high style with luxury accommodations and air-conditioned bus tours if you want. You can also rough it by back-country camping or staying in a campground. Or you can do what I did, which is a combination. No matter how you do it, though, go! 

There are several ways to get into Yellowstone; having explored them all, my favorite is definitely the Beartooth Scenic Highway, which takes you into the northeast entrance of the park. It's not for the faint-hearted, though. Climbing from the valley floor to a height of over 11,500, this is a serious road. Here's a view of the valley below from about 9,000 feet up.

The climb is vertigo-inducing, but once you get up to the plateau, you cruise along for a while at about 11,000 feet. It's absolutely gorgeous, with stunning vistas in all directions. And who doesn't love a little snow in July?

The Lamar Valley: Once you actually get into Yellowstone, you drive through the beautiful Lamar Valley, one of the best places in the park for wildlife watching. Drive through at dawn or dusk for the best chance at seeing bison, wolves, bears, moose and deer. I was fortunate enough to see a mama moose with her calf.

And of course, several bison. It's neat to see a bison in person, but after the first few, they become sort of routine. Some animals don't, such as moose or wolves, but bison get old. They are still huge, awesome creatures, though.

Weather in Yellowstone, like in any high mountainous area, can be unpredictable and change quickly. A storm rolled through the Lamar Valley, which was a bummer, but this rainbow made it worth suffering through the storm.

Canyon: Another beautiful area of the park is in around the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, called simply "Canyon" in the park. The best view in Yellowstone is from Artists' Point. Not only is the waterfall gorgeous, but the colors in the canyon really change, especially at sunset.

Geothermal Features: Yellowstone actually sits in the collapsed caldera of an ancient supervolcano, which is partly what creates all of the unique geothermal features for which the park is known. In my opinion, they're interesting to see, but they're not really my favorite part of the park. Here are some of the ones I saw:

Fire: Forest fire is common in Yellowstone's pine forests; coniferous trees actually depend on fire to reproduce. In 1988, many areas of the park were burned and still look stark today, especially from far away. But fire replenishes the soil and while it may take longer for trees to grow, gorgeous wild flower displays are common in Yellowstone in the areas that have been recently burned and re-seeded by fire.

Cuyahoga Valley National Park

Cuyahoga Valley National Park, located along the Cuyahoga River and the Ohio & Erie canal just south of Cleveland, is amazing because of how close is it is to an urban city like Cleveland. You can bike or run (or walk, which is what I did) on the towpath that runs along the canal. Parts of longer trails, including the Buckeye Trail, pass through the park, and there are some nice short hikes as well. I checked out Brandywine Falls, which is a waterfall that used to power a grist mill in the now non-existent community of Brandywine. This was a nice boardwalk trail (with steps) that provided several views of the falls as well as interpretive signs. Overall, what I thought was neat about this park was that it is obviously used often by locals, thanks to its convenient location and great trails.

Civil War Weekend: The Rest

Here's the short summary of the rest of my Civil War weekend, in pictures:

The confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers in Harper's Ferry, WV

Maryland Heights, from Harper's Ferry

A deer I met on an early morning hike along the Appalachian Trail to the summit of South Mountain near Boonsboro, MD

The view from the summit of South Mountain

Washington Monument on South Mountain, the nation's first to the first president

A pileated woodpecker along a trail in Cunningham Falls State Park

Catoctin Mountain Park in MD (where Camp David is located)

Cunningham Falls

Back to the Road (Trip)

I've been posting tons of things about other travel I've been doing, but tonight I'm going to head back to my road trip. We left off as Tasha and I were leaving Seattle. So let's return to the I-5 and our totally unplanned jaunt down the west coast.

The International Rose Test Garden in Portland is really cool. They have TONS of roses (duh) with really interesting names. Unfortunately, I didn't write any of them down, but I did spend about hour taking pictures. The shots below were my favs:



This is Powell's City of Books in Portland. THE absolute coolest bookstore ever. It is basically a 4-story, city-block-sized warehouse chock full of books, on every topic imaginable, including bargains and new books. I could have spent days in there, but I restricted myself to only an hour, because that's how long our free parking was good. But the mere existence of this bookstore really made me consider moving Portland into the number one spot on my "Cities I Want To Move To List."

 

 This is Salt Creek Falls, a random waterfall (which happens to be the second highest in Oregon) that we came across in the Willamette National Forest on the way to Crater Lake. It was pretty cool to be at a point overlooking the top of the falls.

Now we come to Crater Lake, which was my absolutely-must-visit national park. And it did NOT disappoint. The water was so blue and clear and it was so uncrowded and peaceful, even on a gorgeous summer day. We only spent a few hours hear, but one day I plan to come back and spend a few days. So amazing!

 They call this little rock formation the Phantom Ship, because it looks like a ship, I guess, although I didn't really get that. But the towering trees at this edge of the lake lent such a majestic note to the view.

 The one thing I was most excited about at Crater Lake was a wildflower meadow trail. Well, we obviously missed the peak wildflower bloom, because this is all we saw. But we didn't miss the mosquitoes! Still charming though.

 Up next, we become crazy California girls!

Vermont

My grammie and I had an awesome time in Vermont! I have never seen so many beautiful trees all at once. I don't have that many great tree shots, but here are some of the fun things we saw:

A countryside scene, taken in West Cornwall, CT.

Classic covered bridge.

Grandma at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, MA

Norman Rockwell's studio.

View from the top of Mt. Greylock, near Williamstown, MA

More views from the top of Mt. Greylock.

The watchtower on Mt. Greylock. You can climb to the top, but I was too scared.

 Colorful hillside near Adams, MA

 The Vermont Country Store in Weston, VT-so much cool stuff!!!

 The old-fashioned candy counter in the Vermont Country Store-too bad it's not penny candy any more.

Gorgeous hillside in the Green Mountain National Forest.

 Moss Glen Falls along Route 100 on the edge of Green Mountain National Forest. We didn't know this place was here, but it was so gorgeous and peaceful-well, minus the hordes of camera-toting tourists.

 Another beautiful, colorful hillside, this one in Waitsfield, VT. Some of the views along Route 100 were amazing, but unfortunately, there was no safe place to stop and take pics.

 Sweet little country church in Waitsfield, VT.

The flavor graveyard at the Ben & Jerry's Factory, which you can see in the background. We didn't tour the factory because there was a long wait and they weren't in production that day anyway, but it was still a cool place to stop and see.

 These next few shots are all of Lake Champlain, taken from Burlington, VT. We got there just around sunset, and it was so pretty.

 We also took a tour of the Vermont Teddy Bear Company factory in Shelburne, VT, which was pretty neat.

My favorite part was the teddy bear hospital, where they repair any "injured" bears that were made by the VTBC. You can see this little guy is on a honey drip!

We had such beautiful weather all weekend, and it was so awesome to just look at the pretty New England scenery. The fall foliage is as nice as they say! I'll end with a few of my favorite "tree" shots.

There's just something about trees I love. My two favorite tree quotes about trees are:

 "I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree."

~Joyce Kilmer

"I couldn't live where there were no trees-something vital in me would starve."

~L.M. Montgomery, from Anne of Green Gables

Up next, I'll be returning to my summer road trip-I think we left off along the Oregon coast.