- Adventures (12)
- Corgi (4)
- Family (32)
- jazz (10)
- Notes (1)
- photography (8)
- 25 October 2011: Trip to Yellowstone, Grand Tetons, and Arches National Parks
- 17 October 2011: Roosevelt Jazz Band at Earshot Jazz Festival 2011
- 26 September 2011: Trip to Olympia area
- 9 May 2011: Our corgi Raffle
- 7 March 2011: Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival 2011
- 15 February 2011: Bonnie's Going to State!
- 9 February 2011: Clark College Jazz Festival 2011
- 27 December 2010: Christmas 2010
- 6 December 2010: Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn's Jazz Nutcracker
- 3 December 2010: Roosevelt Jazz Band Community Outreach
- October 2011
- September 2011
- May 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- June 2010
- June 2009
- April 2009
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- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2007
- June 2007
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- January 2007
- December 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
Trip to Yellowstone, Grand Tetons, and Arches National Parks
Our family vacation this year took us to several national parks: Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons, and Arches. We drove to Missoula, Montana the first day and each took a spin on the Carousel for Missoula near the riverfront park. Day two, we drove to Bozeman and then south to Gardiner so that we could enter Yellowstone through the famous northwest arch. The Gardiner area allows convenient access to Mammoth Hot Springs and the Lamar River Valley, where we saw a couple of grizzly bears, numerous bison, elk, and antelope.
We took a couple of hikes while in the park, the first in the mist and the second in the mosquitoes, and explored the area around geyser basin and Old Faithful Lodge. And for the first time, we dined at the historic Old Faithful Lodge between viewings of the famous geyser’s eruptions. On our drive towards Lake Yellowstone, we had the incredible good fortune to spot two gray wolves at dusk while they hunted an elk near the road. In thirty seconds, they had vanished along with the rest of the pack we couldn’t see. We stopped nearby, and I could hear them yipping for a couple more minutes.
After a couple nights, we drove out Yellowstone’s eastern entrance towards Cody, Wyoming, and stayed three nights at Absaroka Mountain Lodge, were we enjoyed an amazing horseback ride up a scenic ridge, an evening cook out, and a trip to Cody to see the nightly rodeo.
Heading south, we next drove to Jackson, Wyoming. Our highlight in the area involved riding the gondola up to the top of Rendezvous Mountain, about 10500′ elevation, where we embarked on a 13-mile hike from the top, descending gradually in a clockwise manner back to Teton Village over the next 7 hours. On the way, we had to traverse numerous small snow fields, scared up one large elk, watched several marmets study us, and encountered three bull moose just across Granite Creek. A small shower welcomed us to an aspen forest in the final miles as our legs grew very weary. On the drive back to our motel, we spotted a Cross Fox patrolling a recently cut hay field, a type of fox none of us had ever heard of before.
On the way to Moab, we stayed one night in Rock Springs, Colorado, knowing there was a large wild horse reserve just up the hill. However, after driving around for an hour as the light faded, we only managed to find one out of more than 1500 horses which roamed the large area. But we did spot an unusual critter while meandering around on sketchy dirt roads through the sage brush: a badger!
Finally, we arrived in beautiful red rock Moab, Utah, a location which allowed us to visit both Arches National Park and Dead Horse National Monument. Both parks are scenic, and we enjoyed a dusk hike out to the famous Delicate Arch nearly clear skies with a full moon rising in the east.
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