Welcome to CooperAmericaTour, the saga of one family's month-long "Vacation of Discovery" across the United States. Along the way, we describe our experiences and present pictures to give you a sense of what we experienced. You will also share in our personal anecdotes, which are sometimes amusing.
Be sure to check out the comments at the end of each day, and make your own notes for planning your own trip!
Start with the May 31st trip under Blog Archive in the links on the sidebar, and at the end of each blog click on the date link to go to the next day. A couple days we had two blogs, because we added a special feature.
Progress with us through our American Journey!
Final Comments
The trip is over, but a few statistics and final comments are in order, as well as a few final pictures.
First, a huge thanks to Sherry's parents, Ted and Deanna Parker, who housesat part-time and kept the lawn mowed. It was a great comfort to know someone was in and out, checking up on things.
Second, another huge thanks to our neighbors, Gennie and C.J., who kept our cat fed.
Third, thank you to all those who prayed for our trip and our safety. We felt your prayers, and the Lord was faithful to us all along the way.
Fourth, thank you to Forrest's mom Dorothy, who faithfully printed out the 300+ pages of this blog in color and passed them on to Grandma Williamson. Forrest last took the midwest portion of this trip 37 years ago with the Williamson grandparents and mom (and two brothers, in an AMC ambassador).
We bought for $80 a single family pass to the National Parks that works almost everywhere, and it was a great investment. We visited 25 national parks, and 30 national landmarks along the way, in addition to countless other restaurants and hotels. We have a new appreciation for the service of the national park system. Please support your national parks. They are keeping our American heritage alive in the minds of everyone who visits.
We spotted license plates from 49 states along the way. We tried hard for Hawaii, especially on the air force base and Annapolis, but came up empty-handed.
Loot is always an natural consequence of a journey of this type, so we put all our souvenirs into one picture. Ian got 6 new t-shirts, and both boys picked up some hats. Sherry got 5 decks of national park playing cards. The boys got a national park monopoly game with interchangeable deed and square decals, and Forrest got a 1000-piece presidents jigsaw puzzle. Ian also got a model train room sign.
In the end, gas mileage seems to depend more on altitude than on the type of gas, and we went back to "regular" 87 octane. After going through gas receipts, which had our trip mileage on each one, I applied that mileage to the previous tank of gas, and averaged the mileages.
Basically, this method demonstrated that buying the midgrade of unleaded netted an increase in gas mileage of 3.4%, meaning if I paid more than 3.4% extra for midgrade, I would lose money buying midgrade. That amounts to only eight cents extra if the cost of regular is $2.50 per gallon. So it turns out midgrade gasoline isn't worth the extra cost. It is usually 14-20 cents more per gallon.
Hotels were all over the map (literally), but Best Western was consistently good. Days Inn had good and bad hotels. One was dirty. Big city hotels all seem to have some kind of issue, although Rockville Best Western had excellent food.
People always want to know what our favorite place and least favorite place was. Certainly, the D.C. metro was our least favorite experience, with Las Vegas and the Memphis hotel a close second. Our favorites varied: Sherry couldn't pin one down. Ian really liked Gettysburg. Jeremy liked Cody, Wyoming. Forrest liked Baltimore and the area around Mount Rushmore.
We live in a great country, and it was a great privilege to be able to experience and learn about it firsthand. Our trip had three goals: Discover what parts of America are really like outside of Oregon; get out of town for awhile; experience and learn about some of our country's history. In large measure, we accomplished all three, and are quite satisfied.
A short word about blogging: it is not for the person who wants a nice, relaxing time on vacation. It takes a lot of determination and effort to keep up when you are trying to maintain a busy touring schedule. Usually, it requires sleep deprivation and caffeine. However, the rewards are very much worth it. We can remember better what we experienced, and will have a physical record of this 7000-mile trip that is more than a picture book for the rest of our lives.
Thanks again to those who helped make this possible at home; to the estate of Zona Cooper, which helped fund this once-in-a-lifetime trip; to our most faithful commenter and follower Scott Cooper, whose European blog (which we linked to at the top) was the inspiration for this blog; and to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who took care of us when no one else could.
We hope you enjoyed this blog, and will find it entertaining, informative and useful for your own purposes.
God bless America!
First, a huge thanks to Sherry's parents, Ted and Deanna Parker, who housesat part-time and kept the lawn mowed. It was a great comfort to know someone was in and out, checking up on things.
Second, another huge thanks to our neighbors, Gennie and C.J., who kept our cat fed.
Third, thank you to all those who prayed for our trip and our safety. We felt your prayers, and the Lord was faithful to us all along the way.
Fourth, thank you to Forrest's mom Dorothy, who faithfully printed out the 300+ pages of this blog in color and passed them on to Grandma Williamson. Forrest last took the midwest portion of this trip 37 years ago with the Williamson grandparents and mom (and two brothers, in an AMC ambassador).
We bought for $80 a single family pass to the National Parks that works almost everywhere, and it was a great investment. We visited 25 national parks, and 30 national landmarks along the way, in addition to countless other restaurants and hotels. We have a new appreciation for the service of the national park system. Please support your national parks. They are keeping our American heritage alive in the minds of everyone who visits.
We spotted license plates from 49 states along the way. We tried hard for Hawaii, especially on the air force base and Annapolis, but came up empty-handed.
Loot is always an natural consequence of a journey of this type, so we put all our souvenirs into one picture. Ian got 6 new t-shirts, and both boys picked up some hats. Sherry got 5 decks of national park playing cards. The boys got a national park monopoly game with interchangeable deed and square decals, and Forrest got a 1000-piece presidents jigsaw puzzle. Ian also got a model train room sign.
In the end, gas mileage seems to depend more on altitude than on the type of gas, and we went back to "regular" 87 octane. After going through gas receipts, which had our trip mileage on each one, I applied that mileage to the previous tank of gas, and averaged the mileages.
Basically, this method demonstrated that buying the midgrade of unleaded netted an increase in gas mileage of 3.4%, meaning if I paid more than 3.4% extra for midgrade, I would lose money buying midgrade. That amounts to only eight cents extra if the cost of regular is $2.50 per gallon. So it turns out midgrade gasoline isn't worth the extra cost. It is usually 14-20 cents more per gallon.
Hotels were all over the map (literally), but Best Western was consistently good. Days Inn had good and bad hotels. One was dirty. Big city hotels all seem to have some kind of issue, although Rockville Best Western had excellent food.
People always want to know what our favorite place and least favorite place was. Certainly, the D.C. metro was our least favorite experience, with Las Vegas and the Memphis hotel a close second. Our favorites varied: Sherry couldn't pin one down. Ian really liked Gettysburg. Jeremy liked Cody, Wyoming. Forrest liked Baltimore and the area around Mount Rushmore.
We live in a great country, and it was a great privilege to be able to experience and learn about it firsthand. Our trip had three goals: Discover what parts of America are really like outside of Oregon; get out of town for awhile; experience and learn about some of our country's history. In large measure, we accomplished all three, and are quite satisfied.
A short word about blogging: it is not for the person who wants a nice, relaxing time on vacation. It takes a lot of determination and effort to keep up when you are trying to maintain a busy touring schedule. Usually, it requires sleep deprivation and caffeine. However, the rewards are very much worth it. We can remember better what we experienced, and will have a physical record of this 7000-mile trip that is more than a picture book for the rest of our lives.
Thanks again to those who helped make this possible at home; to the estate of Zona Cooper, which helped fund this once-in-a-lifetime trip; to our most faithful commenter and follower Scott Cooper, whose European blog (which we linked to at the top) was the inspiration for this blog; and to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who took care of us when no one else could.
We hope you enjoyed this blog, and will find it entertaining, informative and useful for your own purposes.
God bless America!
Day 30: Prineville to Elmira
Today was the last day of our journey. We started out in Prineville with a breakfast of steak and eggs, homemade biscuits and gravy (thanks, Mom!).
After Forrest fixed a screen door, we visited with Grandma Williamson for a short time, and headed toward home. After seeing the country, it seemed unfair to take Oregon for granted, so we looked with new eyes at a few of the sights on the way home.
The Crook County Courthouse was named for Major General George Crook, hero of the Snake Indian Wars. It was built in 1909 for around $48,500, remodeled in the 1990s. Forrest's brother Scott has shared many stories about his efforts to upgrade this building, and the many challenges. Brother Jared has worked on the building, and knows firsthand some of the electrical issues.
Even in the Yellowstone Rockies, we did not see a sight like the Three Sisters and Broken Top, jammed together in the Cascade Range like fellow passengers in a subway car. Early settlers named the Sisters Faith, Hope and Charity. They are all over 10,000 feet tall, with the South Sister the tallest and youngest mountain. It is also still considered a potentially active volcano, and contains the highest lake in Oregon, called Teardrop Pool, at the very top in the crater.
Naturally, we had to take a picture of Mount Washington, since the ubiquitous first president was honored by the renaming of this mountain. Of course, Forrest's Dad Norm always lamented that the US Geological Survey re-christened this mountain to avoid the awkwardness of its indian name--Squaw Tit.
Sahalie Falls is a gorgeous waterfall--maybe THE most gorgeous in the country. Blue-white water with a full-on roar, surrounded by verdant green moss-covered slopes.
The word "Sahalie" is a Chinook Indian word meaning "high" or "heaven." Sounds like a reasonable name, as the falls are 100 feet tall. The falls are fed from Clear Lake, at the base of Mt. Washington, and the average water temperature is 34 degrees, fahrenheit. No one was bathing in the pool at the bottom of the falls!
By the way, Clear Lake was formed 3000 years ago when a lava flow from the Sand Mountain chain formed a natural dam, and there are still 3000 year-0ld petrified trees that can be seen standing upright in 200-foot deep water on the lake bottom. Now that's clear water!
We were glad to see Fern Ridge Reservoir. The drive along the dam area on the backside is very picturesque, and always rewarding as the sun drops on the horizon.
Five minutes later we arrived home, richer for the experience, but glad to be back with our creature comforts and familiar territory!
Tomorrow we will wrap up this blog and acknowledge a few people who helped make this amazing trip a reality for our family.
After Forrest fixed a screen door, we visited with Grandma Williamson for a short time, and headed toward home. After seeing the country, it seemed unfair to take Oregon for granted, so we looked with new eyes at a few of the sights on the way home.
The Crook County Courthouse was named for Major General George Crook, hero of the Snake Indian Wars. It was built in 1909 for around $48,500, remodeled in the 1990s. Forrest's brother Scott has shared many stories about his efforts to upgrade this building, and the many challenges. Brother Jared has worked on the building, and knows firsthand some of the electrical issues.
Even in the Yellowstone Rockies, we did not see a sight like the Three Sisters and Broken Top, jammed together in the Cascade Range like fellow passengers in a subway car. Early settlers named the Sisters Faith, Hope and Charity. They are all over 10,000 feet tall, with the South Sister the tallest and youngest mountain. It is also still considered a potentially active volcano, and contains the highest lake in Oregon, called Teardrop Pool, at the very top in the crater.
Naturally, we had to take a picture of Mount Washington, since the ubiquitous first president was honored by the renaming of this mountain. Of course, Forrest's Dad Norm always lamented that the US Geological Survey re-christened this mountain to avoid the awkwardness of its indian name--Squaw Tit.
We were just in time to get caught in traffic at the annual Sisters Quilt Show. We have seen this before, and it is very popular. They routed all traffic around the main drag, leaving that open to pedestrians. The quilts are beautiful, of course.
We noted the undergrowth is really growing fast in the area of the B and B Complex fire, which burned over 90,000 acres in 2003.
Coming around the palisades corner after the Santiam Pass, Three Fingered Jack hove into view. This mountain may be the oldest volcano in the cascade range, and was renamed in the early 1900s. It was originally named Mt. Marion.
We stopped at Sahalie Falls for a break and driver change, and saw our first old growth evergreens on this journey across the country--both firs and cedars.
Since this was our last day, we took a family picture. Looks like a few of us ate a little too well on this vacation!
Sahalie Falls is a gorgeous waterfall--maybe THE most gorgeous in the country. Blue-white water with a full-on roar, surrounded by verdant green moss-covered slopes.
The word "Sahalie" is a Chinook Indian word meaning "high" or "heaven." Sounds like a reasonable name, as the falls are 100 feet tall. The falls are fed from Clear Lake, at the base of Mt. Washington, and the average water temperature is 34 degrees, fahrenheit. No one was bathing in the pool at the bottom of the falls!
By the way, Clear Lake was formed 3000 years ago when a lava flow from the Sand Mountain chain formed a natural dam, and there are still 3000 year-0ld petrified trees that can be seen standing upright in 200-foot deep water on the lake bottom. Now that's clear water!
We were glad to see Fern Ridge Reservoir. The drive along the dam area on the backside is very picturesque, and always rewarding as the sun drops on the horizon.
Five minutes later we arrived home, richer for the experience, but glad to be back with our creature comforts and familiar territory!
Tomorrow we will wrap up this blog and acknowledge a few people who helped make this amazing trip a reality for our family.
Day 29: Ontario to Prineville
This "Oregon Trail Mural" is part of a larger initiative by Vale businesses to encourage tourism. The consulting artist is Karl Schutz, founder of the Chemanis, B.C. mural project that has been very successful.
We finally got back to our own time zone, and the clocks in the car and on the computer are right again. Plus, we gained an hour today!
We ate lunch in Washington Park in Burns (go figure!). The park also boasts this sculpture of the Statue of Liberty.
We encountered several dust devils on the road, including one that really rocked the car as we drove right into it. This one crossed ahead of us.
This is the George Millican Road, one of the crowning achievements of Forrest's brother Scott Cooper during his tenure as Crook County Judge. We appreciated the nice pavement, wide shoulders and no traffic. Scott says it is widely used by trucks at night to bypass Bend and Redmond on their way south.
Somehow, entering Crook County felt like a milestone on this journey to Forrest.
If you click on the picture to blow it up, you will see hundreds of shipping containers at the Les Schwab plant. We wondered if this is now their method of storing old tires in the high desert.
Coming down the grade to Prineville, Forrest took a picture of this view, which has evoked shouts of "Prine...ville!" for at least two generations so far.Mom fed us a wonderful steak dinner, which we enjoyed with Scott and Laura's family. Forrest got a short visit with Jared before his family took off for Michigan, and we plan to visit Grandma Williamson tomorrow on the way out of town.
Stay tuned to this blog for a few more days, as we will finish our journey tomorrow, and wrap it up with last-minute entries and statistics on Sunday.
Day 28: West Yellowstone to Ontario
We started our morning off with a swim and a slide. The boys were disappointed the slide has not been cleaned or assembled properly, and is a little slow. It has hard-water deposits and rust spots where it is fastened together. But they enjoyed it, nonetheless.
We quickly left Montana (West Yellowstone is in Montana, Old Faithful and East Yellowstone is in Wyoming), and headed for Idaho. This sign also identifies our third and final crossing of the Continental Divide.
Traveling down the state of Idaho, we learned that Rigby is considered the home of television, having been the home of Philo Farnsworth, a local inventor who was dubbed the "Father of Television" for his contributions to research. Also, the town of Arco is the first town to be powered by atomic energy!
We learned an amazing fact about birch trees along the way. One birch tree will sucker into an entire forest, essentially cloning itself, and connected underground by a contiguous root system. Thus, some of the Rocky Mountain birch forests are the oldest and largest living organism on earth!
We headed for Craters of the Moon, inconventiently located from everywhere. This National Monument, another Calvin Coolidge site, last saw volcanic flows around 2000 years ago, and is the northern end of the Great Rift, a 400-mile long series of 63 volcanoes.
Although the volcanic landscape is bleak, we were surprised at the variety and number of wildflowers in the park. The syringa (shown here) were in bloom everywhere. The ranger told us they got 6 inches of rain in June, shattering all records of rainfall for the area. Even the sagebrush was green and verdant.
Although temperatures can reach 150 degrees on the lava landscape on a really hot day, we had 75 degrees and a good breeze, which made our tour very hospitable.
Some trees managed to eek out a way to live in the lava, beginning the process of terraforming, transforming the environment. We found many grown in twisted, wind-blown shapes, such as this snag that didn't make it.
In places, crust had broken away, falling into a caldera. Some of the original caldera wall was still standing.
Another wildflower picture. These are monkeyflowers, and they formed a beautiful pink-red carpet everywhere the landscape held a little soil.
This hill, known as Inferno Cone, rose a thousand feet above the landscape. Jeremy and Forrest can be seen at the top. Ian also climbed up the hill. Forrest and Jeremy ran halfway up, and climbed the rest. Forrest will feel the aftereffects far longer than Jeremy!
Jeremy is standing on the highest spot, with Mt. Hood somewhere in the distant background. We couldn't see it from where we stood.
The tops of these hills--even this bleak Inferno Cone--contain the original vegetation from this region. This one sports a thick coat of sagebrush. The name for these types of hills is kipuka.
We looked at these spatter cones, little mini volcanoes. They have a little snow in their interior, which impressed the boys.
Many strange formations are here. This one shows a double hole in the rocks, through which one can see the sky.
Lots of lava lexicon (lava lingo) comes from Hawaii. There are two main types of lava, A'a, or rough, pointy lava (shown here), and Pahoehoe (pa-hoy-hoy), which looks like petrified bark.
The picture below is an example of Pahoehoe lava.
We really wanted to make the mile hike to Indian Cave, which has steps down inside and is lit by sunlight filtering in through large holes in the roof. Unfortunately, we ran out of time. It was after 5 o'clock, and we still had 4.5 hours of driving time, plus dinner!
The southern Idaho landscape quickly transformed to sagebrush prairie, with no trees. However, in the distance can be seen a ranch surrounded by green fields, at the base of three hills.
Here is an example of one of those fields, with lush, green grass. They use a lot of irrigation here to combat the dry climate (and they've had all the recent rains).
Forrest took this sunset picture on the highway, as the sun set on Oregon.
We stopped at the border welcome center, where Forrest kissed the ground. Our welcome centers may not be as fancy the east coast ones, but they have free coffee!
We ended the day at the Best Western in Ontario, which hosts a 24-hour pool. We went for a swim and hot tub to end the day, at about 10:30 pm.
Day 27: Cody to West Yellowstone
The town of Cody is named for it’s most famous founder and benefactor, William F. (Buffalo Bill) Cody, flamboyant frontiersman, showman, and entrepreneur of the West. Everything else around here is named for him as well: William Cody National Forest, Buffalo Bill Dam, Buffalo Bill Boy Scout Camp, Etc.
We set out this morning to visit the Buffalo Bill Historical Center. The boys were a little wary of another museum, but this was no ordinary museum.
Actually, there are five museums under one roof here, each quite extensive. On our “taste of America” tour, we gave it two hours. We could easily have spent the whole day, and not been bored. They have a Plains Indian Museum, a Museum of Western Art, a Firearms Museum, a Natural History Museum, and of course a Buffalo Bill Museum. We made it to five, missing the Plains Indian Museum in favor of Yellowstone.
In the Museum entrance, we saw this really cool MG, which they were raffling off. We thought of our friend Larry, who has an old MG. This car is really beautiful, belying the amount of labor and parts needed to keep it running!
They had several sculptures or casts of sculptures throughout the museum. This sculpture cast of Teddy Roosevelt was taken apart to demonstrate how sculptures are put together. The actual sculpture was donated to the City of Portland. We wondered where it was in Portland.
The boys and Forrest took the sculpture challenge and successfully assembled a cowboy on a horse (after a false start in which the whole thing fell apart).
We started in the Western Art museum, which featured around 500 works, including several Remington paintings and sculptures. They had a computer module to make your own painting, using pre-drawn elements that grew or shrank depending on where you put them (perspective drawing). Both boys made a creation and sent it via email to themselves. This is Ian's. He focused on a battle between cavalry and Indians. Several battle scenes of Little Bighorn and other cavalry-indian battles were featured in the exhibit.
This is Jeremy's. He liked the buffalo, and decided to show them chasing the Indians, reversing history and giving the buffalo and chance to recover. He should have had them chasing Buffalo Bill!
The firearms museum features over 2700 firearms, the largest single collection of historic firearms in the world. We were amused to see a pistol donated by Dick Cheney—would have liked to have seen a shotgun.
Buffalo Bill contributed greatly to the popularization of the West with his adventures. Born in a log cabin in LeClaire, Iowa, he was raised in Kansas. He worked as a bullwhacker, mounted messenger, guide, cavalryman, rancher, author, scout, buffalo hunter, entertainer, national guardsman, speechmaker, newspaperman, miner, hotelier, Santa Claus, Circus performer, and motion-picture producer. Many of these were not jobs he took, but enterprises he started. He was a true entrepreneur.
The Wild West Show featured performers such as Wild Bill Hickock, Annie Oakley and Sitting Bull, as well as Cossacks. They performed in large cities in the East and in Europe for royalty. Many shows were sold out, yet this show eventually went bankrupt. The dime store novels contributed greatly to both promoting the West and propagating in untrue, glamorous image of western life. Buffalo Bill always had great sympathy for the Native American Indians, claiming that every Indian uprising was brought on by a treaty that was broken by the U.S. He was actually called upon to negotiate with Sitting Bull prior to the massacre at Wounded Knee, but the negotiations failed, and Sitting Bull fled to Canada after the battle.
The museum had a lot of interactive exhibits for kids and adults, more than the Smithsonians had. It also had a great photography section, that made us think of Grandma Parker. The first photo in that section was a beautiful waterfall scene from Oregon. It didn’t tell us where in Oregon.
On the way out of the parking lot we took a picture of our new bug collection. We have bugs from about 15 states plastered on the front of our van (Forrest got the car washed in Virginia—sorry, Audrey). South Dakota was the worst bug state, as displayed on our windshield.
Headed out of Cody, we saw the original settlement on the cliffs above the Shoshone River. Cody and some business partners established the Shoshone Irrigation Company in 1894, and surveyed the settlement in 1895. Cody’s vision was build a resort community around the hot springs in the area.
The hotel in Cody had a stuffed buffalo in every room. Jeremy was quite taken with it, so we got him one as a souvenir.
We stopped for lunch on the shores of Yellowstone Lake. With a maximum depth of 410 feet, and over 160 square miles of surface area, this lake lies at the bottom of caldera. Yellowstone Caldera is the largest active volcano in the world, and considered one of the natural wonders (our third on this tour). It was quite windy on the shore, and 63 degrees felt chilly in shorts. We picked up some interesting driftwood.
We spotted these buffalo grazing close to Indian Pond, a hydrothermal explosion crater (looked like a small pond). We expected to see a lot of buffalo, but didn’t until we spotted a large herd late in the day, on the way out of the park. We also did not see a bear at all.
Forrest picked up what he thought was a fishing lure along a trail. When he showed it to the boys, Ian correctly identified it as a gummy worm (candy) and popped it in his mouth. After Forrest told him where it came from, Ian quickly ejected it from his mouth!
At the Fishing Bridge visitor’s center, Forrest liked this moose skull. On the beam to the left, a squirrel can be seen peeking out. He was actually the main attraction for all the kids in the room.
This is a picture of Grizzly Peak across the lake from Bridge Bay. The surface of the lake is at 7733 feet. We drove the southern loop of the park, headed from east to west. This route followed the entire western boundary of the lake.
At West Thumb Geyser Basin, Sherry liked this hot spring. These springs contain millions of microorganisms, which have developed their own ecosystem in the boiling water environment, and make the colors vibrant and fun to look at.
We didn’t see any deer all day, but saw quite a few elk, in three different herds. This bull was by himself, across the road from several cows. He was a little restless having his picture taken, and eventually left.
At the Grant Village visitor center, we learned that Lodgepole Pines, which make up 64% of the 2 million acres in Yellowstone (80% of the forest), are a very adaptive and opportunistic species. They make different cones, depending on the conditions they are growing in. In a high-fire region, they make a serotinous cone, which is covered with a waxy substance that prevents the cone from seeding, and sometimes stays on the tree for 20 years. When a fire sweeps over, it will melt the wax, leaving the cone free to re-seed the area without competition, since the fire destroyed other plants. In a low-fire region, the trees drop non-serotinous cones annually, just as other conifers do.
We caught this momma and calf elk laying beside the road, in a herd of about 8 cow elk.
The Continental Divide winds through Yellowstone, and we actually crossed it twice, with a third crossing anticipated for the trip tomorrow.
This is Kepler Cascades, a beautiful series of waterfalls along the Firehole river.
Blue Star Spring is an incredibly pure hot spring that looks inviting. Too bad it’s around 200 degrees!
We finally reached Old Faithful. The rangers missed the predicted eruption time by 11 minutes. It was windy, but worth the wait.
After Old Faithful, we went in search of food. The Old Faithful Lodge still looks as Forrest remembered it, only they have restricted access to the upper crow’s nest—too unstable for the crowds.
Forrest caught the resident pianist playing in a corner. He was doing a good job, and we could hear the piano reverberating everywhere in the lodge, even with all the people. We did not stay in the many accommodations at the Old Faithful site, because everything was full.
Eventually, we decided not to eat in the lodge, because it was very expensive. We found a “cafeteria” across the fountain from the lodge, and it had very good food for less than half the price. Plus, we were able to catch a second eruption of Old Faithful with the sun passing down behind clouds in the background. Forrest took 46 pictures, and this is the best one.
From the restaurant, we headed out of the park, with much to look at on the way out. We stopped at an overlook, and took a picture of this lupine with the sun-tinted clouds and deadwood in the background.
This is the Upper Geyser Basin. There are over 10,000 geothermal formations in Yellowstone. With the wind fairly light here, these hot spots created an other-worldly effect.
We spotted this road-crew buffalo, who had apparently decided to water down the sidewalk. He sedately walked around behind our van and kept plodding down the middle of the rest stop, unconcerned about cars. We decided he was pretty full of himself, knowing that he was the star of the show.
The Midway Geyser Basin contains several more hot springs, and they come together in several of these hot cascades into the Firehole River.
This series of mud rings was along Firehole Lake Drive.
Just after sunset we went by the Pink Cone Geyser on Firehole Lake Drive, and it was erupting!
Altogether, we enjoyed our 6-hour tour of Yellowstone. Jeremy pronounced it a favorite of his for the trip, and we all feel that a return trip for more than half a day would be fun. However, this is the “Taste of America” tour, and we got a great “taste” of Yellowstone today. We headed to our hotel in West Yellowstone, arriving shortly after 10:00 p.m. Jeremy and Ian’s eyes lit up when they spotted another slide in the swimming pool. One wonders why we drug them all over the country, when we could have just gone to Splash every day. It would have been a lot cheaper! By the time we got settled, Forrest realized blogging would have to wait until the morning.
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