Links to Picasa Albums

These links will go to the Picasa albums for our 2009 trip to the Rockies:

Denver to South Fork

South Fork to Pagosa Springs

Mesa Verde

San Juan Skyway

Grand Canyon - South Rim

Grand Canyon - North Rim

Zion

Bryce Canyon

Arches

Black Canyon of the Gunnison

Sylvan Lake State Park, Colorado

Grand Tetons

Yellowstone

Jackson Hole

Home!

We arrived home Sunday – 6 weeks and 1 day and 6,045 miles and 7 National Parks that we had not seen before. Tired and broke but very satisfied – even with all the problems and extra expense it was a most excellent adventure!

That's all for this trip. The View/Navion Midwest Rally in La Crosse, WI in Sept is the next trip.

On The Road Again...

I didn’t want to put this up Friday (Jackson, Day 12) because I was afraid something would go wrong. They put the transmission in yesterday and this morning we’re heading home. We’re going to stop for fuel, food, toilet, and to nap if I get tired. But we’re going straight through! East bound and down, loaded up and runnin'!

Jackson WY - Day Ten

Just to keep ourselves from crying because we can’t get a firm date as to when we can get in the RV and head home, we drove down to the south end of the valley that is Jackson Hole. Barb finally got to see some wildlife close up.

Then Junior came out of the weeds.

A really nice place to be stranded! Went to Nani’s Genuine Pasta House night before last, back to Rendezvous Bistro last night and Koshu (Asian/Latin Fusion) tonight. I’m obviously working under the premise of “Eat. You’ll feel better!”

Jackson WY - Day Seven

We went back to 43N to eat yesterday and we're going to do a repeat of Rendezvous Bistro and try Nani’s Italian before we leave. We broke into the RV today and made sandwiches with stuff in the refrigerator before it goes bad. We have a microwave and fridge in the motel room so we’ll have some snacks here.

This is the view down to Jackson Hole from the Teton Pass.


An arch of antlers at an entrance to the Town Square in Jackson.


Two examples of sculpture at the National Museum of Wildlife Art.

Jackson, WY - Day Four

We're settling into Jackson quite nicely. Had some wine and baked Brie at 49N at the base of the Snow King ski area. And I bought a T-shirt with a Jackson Hole logo on the front and a mountain setting on the back with the saying "If a man speaks in the forest and there's no woman there to hear; is he still wrong?" I said to Barb, this is great and she said "No, it's not!" - pause - "But it's right!"

The Rendezvous Bistro is a good imitation of a French Bistro set in the West. There are over 300 wines on the list, Steak Frittes, fresh caught trout, Bistro Meatloaf (with ground buffalo meat), and a raw bar! There's Chipotle on a lot of things and it's casual while giving very good service.

Going up over the pass West to Idaho tomorrow with a camera so there will be some pictures!

Jackson, WY - Day Two

This is turning into a soap opera; you can stop reading anytime! The power wheelchair won’t work in the rental car so we rented a folding manual Tuesday. However, up to that time Barb had been walking everywhere that she normally rides. The last walk that she was going to have to make was from the motel to the car and we fell. Went to lunch at the Cadillac Grill and got her a half pound burger as she was starting to suffer withdrawal for a good burger. Afterwards her wrist was swollen and really hurting so we went to the hospital. She had a nice clean fracture; Doc set it and put on a cast and we’re settled into The Point at Jackson Hole. That night Barb ate in the room and went to bed and I went to a nice restaurant within walking distance from the motel last night – the Rendezvous Bistro. I made reservations for both of us for Wed.

We’re going to do some day trips from here, sleep a lot and spend way more money than we had expected. They said we could stay in the RV but I don’t think that would be relaxing. It’s parked in their lot with no power or water and tow trucks come and go 24/7. And if it calms down at night, they’re right next to a ball diamond that looks like a minor minor league deal with lights, lots of yelling and a PA system. So in addition to the transmission cost, we’re going to sit here for a week or two and burn through cash!

Jackson, WY

The adventure continues. Our transmission stopped working in Yellowstone on the Fourth. We cancelled our next reservations, extended in Yellowstone till Monday and will be towed Monday. Coach-Net (our roadside service) will find a Sprinter dealer who can deal with transmissions and that’s were we’ll go. I assume Cody, but don’t know that as of this writing.

We just went south a bit to Jackson WY (in the Jackson Hole Valley). The guy is not a Sprinter dealer but the nearest one that could look at it this week is 300 miles away.

Yellowstone National Park

We’re getting jaded but making great memories. Yellowstone isn’t so much about grandeur as it is geology. There’s all of this bubbling and steaming and heaving going on. More than half the geysers in the world are here – over 500. Lots of wildlife but no bears or wolves yet. From the Grand Canyon to here, we’ve been perplexed at the city folk who stop in the middle of the road to snap a photo of a mule deer or buffalo. We’ve buffalo 5 miles from our house and can’t drive out the drive without stopping for deer. It makes for great traffic jams in the midst of the wilderness. Yesterday a herd of buffalo was dining on one side of the highway and people were stopping to take pictures, when they decided to try the grass on the other side of the highway. One at a time. Slowly. By the time we got up to the front of the line, there were 3 rangers directing traffic. If you stopped, the buffalo stopped. The ranger would encourage you to drive slowly forward and the buffalo would then walk slowly forward. After you passed, another buffalo would take his position in the middle of that lane. I think they knew exactly what they were doing and loving it!

A mangy Bison losing his coat for the summer and a lazy Elk laying down in the tall grass.


Old Faithful just starting up and one of many geysers just letting off steam.


It was cloudy yesterday, rained late in the evening, but it’s beautiful blue sky today on the Fourth of July. We’re going to do a “walk with the ranger” talk around noon. (Like the skiers at Vail and Aspen belonging to the “Crack o’ Noon Club”.) And will attend a wildlife presentation mid-afternoon tomorrow.

We’re going to stay here an extra day (four total) and then head home. We’ve been to Banff but not Glacier and we’ll be sorry to miss Glacier, but it will cut 12-1500 miles off the trip. I think we’ll make it a separate trip without all the stops in the South. This trip will still be very close to 6000 miles and 5 weeks.

Grand Teton National Park

We drove up to within a couple of hours of the park and stayed the night in the parking lot of a Shoshone Tribe grocery/gas/gift store. We went diagonally northwest thru Wyoming on US 287, probably the most desolate and beautiful US highway I’ve ever been on. Stock up on groceries, diesel, water, etc. in Rawlins ‘cause there’s nothing till Teton. After the Shoshone sleep, Dubois gave us diesel and coffee at 6:00 AM. Then about 20 minutes from the Park, the Hatchet Resort gave us a dynamite breakfast with a Texas waitress that made great “morning coffee”.

We’re staying in a campground in the park; nice and quiet with views.

We went to the top of Signal Mtn, had lunch in the Jackson Lake Lodge Mural Room (great food and views to match), and drove to the Jackson Hole ski area. I blew off laundry – that will be in Yellowstone tomorrow.

Sylvan Lake State Park

This Colorado State Park is the top half of a 15 mile long valley. Entered from Eagle, CO, you climb from ~ 7600 feet steadily. At the end/top of the valley there’s a beautiful, deep lake full of fish surrounded by a campground full of fishermen. There’s also a trout stream running past the lake and down the valley. Very peaceful.

Unfortunately, the day-trip to Vail was a bust. Vail has restricted any RV parking to Lionshead in a miniscule lot. We could get in there, but then found that the buses require 24 hour notice to put a bus with a lift into service (!) and the cab company has a mini-van but it doesn’t have a lift or ramp. So we cancelled the Sweet Basil reservation, shed a few tears, got mad and went back to the campground, drank wine and dined al fresco.

Now all the way up to the top of Wyoming and Grand Teton National Park.

Black Canyon of the Gunnison

The Black Canyon and then on to Sylvan Lake State Park a few miles from Vail. The Gunnison River has cut a canyon more than twice as deep as the Empire State Bldg is high. The water force varies from 5,000 to more than 12,000 cubic feet per second. A good way to picture that is to picture a basketball (roughly a cubic foot) being thrown past you every second. Now picture 12,000 of them!


Not so many pictures this time; it’s hard to show the perspective of just how deep this is. This is the Painted Wall. It was formed more than a billion years ago when molten rock was squeezed into fractures of existing rock and then hardened.

Arches National Park (6/26)

Through Arches in the morning and to Montrose in the PM. I chose the back way to Montrose – 40 miles shorter than the Interstate and 90 minutes longer! But very scenic.

I’m using the larger format for all the pics from now on – it’s only storage.

Don't know what Barb was laughing at, me probably!

And the best for last:

I’m amazed at the number of big class A RV’s on the road and in campgrounds; for being in a recession it surprises me, but then I’m naïve. I’ve seen 3 or 4 Views (the relatively efficient RV we have) the whole trip. Granted, most of the big A’s are parked but there are still many, many on the road pulling Navigators and Suburbans.

Two nights in Montrose now; laundry, showers, naps, groceries, and a good restaurant Saturday night. Then on to Sylvan Lake State Park, near Vail. Reservations already made at Sweet Basil.

Bryce National Park (6/24)

Bryce features columns, some stand alone, some like bas relief in a row. The columns are called Hoodoos. Hoodoos are composed of soft sedimentary rock and are topped by a piece of harder, less easily-eroded stone that protects the column from the elements. People have seen all kinds of characters and figures in them; they reminded me more than anything of the rows of carved saints on cathedrals we have seen in Europe. Some of the more “life-like” ones reminded me of the figures carved in stone peering out of internal windows in St. Stephens cathedral in Vienna.

The last 3 seem to cry out for larger images.

On to Arches National Park tomorrow and then to Montrose, CO. where hopefully it’s cooler!

Zion National Park (6/24)

Zion has the most amazing geo strata showing. Most of the Rockies show stone masses that were pushed up at an angle and the resulting strata show as diagonal lines at that same angle; or, they were pushed straight up and resulting strata show as lines parallel to the ground.

(The example above is in the Grand Canyon).

Zion has strata that look like they were put on in swirls; Barb says like frosting swirled on a cake.