Genius Bar

Here I am at the Apple store in Victoria Gardens. Joe's phone hasn't been working right, so he just got a new replacement from David at the Genius Bar. I think the same architectural firm that designed the visitor center at Teton designed the Apple stores... I like it here, too!

115 degrees & a traffic nightmare!

Here I am on I-15 between Baker and Barstow. As you can see on the dashboard, it is currently 115 degrees. We just passed the world's tallest thermometer and it said 60 degrees - the heat must have broke it!

Worse yet, when we got just outside of Las Vegas, traffic was necked down to two lanes for repaving of a few miles on the interstate. This caused traffic to stop for over an hour and a half! When we finally got to the crew of about 10 workers, they were all sitting on the K-rail taking a break! Why on earth would they be working placing asphalt of all things when it is over 110 degrees outside and more people are driving on the interstate? It seems much more appropriate to do that at night when it isn't as hot and there is less traffic...what a way end our awesome trip! The next few days are supposed to be just as hot and are going to be very hard to deal with - we will have to remember how nice it was at Jenny Lake to get us through.

Virgin River Gorge kinda

Here I am in one of the most recognizable places on our excursions - the Virgin River Gorge. I've blogged it several times in our travels. While being prepared to take a shot with the canyon and rock formations, Anne snapped this awesome picture of me! So it was taken in the Virgin River Gorge, but all you get to see is me - the bunny...rounding out our trip today driving from Provo, UT back to Riverside. Can't wait to see the doggies!

Periodic Spring, part II

Here is a close up of the neat diagram of how the spring works. Enjoy! I did

Periodic Springs

Stopped at a scenic overlook in Wyoming off of US89 and found this cool piece of information about a neat natural spring called Periodic Spring. You can read the details on the board behind me.

Jenny Lake/Cascade Canyon

Here we are on the east bank of Jenny Lake. Across the lake you can see Cascade Canyon, the big canyon that runs to the north of the Tetons, including Mount Owen that is to the left in the photo. There is a boat dock by the canyon that people can take to cut off the three mile hike to the beginning of the canyon. I like this lake!

Pack Mules

Here I an next to the bridge between String Lake and Jenny Lake again. Right after we took the last picture, a cowboy with about five pack mules crossed the creek, stopping for a moment to take a refreshing drink. They had all kinds of supplies on their backs and really seemed to like their job of transporting things. The cowboy was very good in leading them and also seemed to like his job, too.

Bridge @ String Lake

Here I am at the bridge crossing Cottonwood Creek between String Lake to the north and Jenny Lake to the south. You can also see the Grand Teton Peak behind me in the clouds. Joe and Anne were running this morning and stopped about 1/4 mile short of the bridge and ran back down the trail to the shores of Jenny Lake because they thought they missed the trail and/or bridge that crossed over Cottonwood Creek. They ended up crossing the creek by jumping on the rocks and trees in the creekbed, instead. They said it made for a fun adventure. I'm glad they took me here so I could see it, too!

Covered Wagon

Just got done eating at the Bunnery and decided to walk around town to try to understand why all the people vacation here for just the art and shopping. As we left the town square with the cool elk antler arches, we spotted a covered wagon taxi going down the main drag. We got the camera out quickly and snapped a picture of the horses as they rounded the corner. I like the horses, but don't like shopping very much.

Bunnery!

Here we are on Monday afternoon @ a place called the Bunnery - a bakery/cafe in downtown Jackson. We eyed it on our first day here, but it was too busy on Sat/Sun to go there. Today, Joe and Anne went to the Teton park and ran 6.6 miles around Lake Jenny before we came here. I understand it was an awesome trail! The Bunnery was pretty good, but they need more bunnies around if they are going to be called the Bunnery!

Lunch - Signal Mountain Lodge

Here we are looking out on Jackson lake from the restaurant at the Signal Mountain lodge. Had an unexpectedly awesome meal and now off to go up Signal Mountain and check out the view.

Disco Center again

This time, I am on the east side of the discovery center - so you can see the building and the mountains behind it. If you look carefully, you can see Joe under the flagpole taking a picture. Gotta love the good old American flag with a nice breeze making it unfurl above the mountain peaks. What a nice day!

South Teton

Another shot of the cool, metal, directional markers - this time
outside on the observation deck of the discovery center. I am right
next to South Teton's arrow. You can see some of the other arrows in
the background. Another cool feature is the poured concrete foot wall
- the top is sloped just a little bit and there are small drainage
holes here and there. Too bad the green construction fence is still
up... Cool deck!

Do you know the way to Grand Teton?

I do! Here I am in the discovery center. There are cool metal
directional markers in the floor inside the museum and out that line
you up with the various mountain peaks. I am very small in this shot,
sitting on the window sill, just to the right of the directional
arrow. When you are outside, there are interesting facts about each
peak written on the metal arrow - when they were first climbed, who
they are named after, etc. This is one cool place!

Outside of the Discovery Center

Another shot of me at the Discovery Center, just outside on the viewing deck on the east side of the building. Lots of cool features like: glue-lam beams, tall glass windows, and a fireplace built out of cast concrete "logs". The pieces of concrete are about the side of railroad ties. They look supercool because you can see the wood texture from the formwork on each piece. What a nice place to be!

Craig Thomas Discovery and Visitor Center

Day #2 of sight-seeing and here I am at the entrance of the Craig Thomas Discovery and Visitor Center on the south end of the Teton National Park. Joe, Anne, and I really enjoyed this brand new place! It is names after Craig Thomas, a US senator from the state of Wyoming.

Double Rainbow & Waterfall!

Here I am with the Undine Falls in the background AND a double rainbow - wow! Joe got some great pictures. Can't wait to see how they turn out!

Tall bridge

We are leaving the Mammoth Hot Springs are of yellowstone and heading east now. A few miles out of town we came upon this tall bridge and did some exploring around it. As you drive over it, you have no clue how deep the canyon is - it must be at least 300' deep! I like bridges.

Elk

Here I am in Mammoth Hot Springs just down from a church that let out and a bunch of elk decided to cruise through town. It is a little hard to make them out, but one of the is lit up by the sun in the other side of the picture from me. They are like cool deer, only larger.

Mammoth Hot Spring Terraces - Palette Spring

Here we are in the far northern end of the park at Mammoth Hot Springs. Almost all of the springs are dormant right now except for the Palette Spring, which I am standing in front of. If you look right above my head, you will see some stream and a dark "cup" that the water is spilling out of. On the lower portions of the terrace across from me are neat the way they formed, too. Pretty cool, but not as cool as expected.

Grand Prismatic Spring

Probably the coolest spot so far - Grand Prismatic Spring. The blue and orange colors are spectacular! There is a wooden walkway that goes around the area so you really get an idea of how awesome the geothermal features are. As you walk along the boardwalk, hot steam rises up and you can feel the moisture and heat - and smell some sulfur.

There is a dormant geyser downstream of this beautiful area called Excelsior Geyser. It used to erupt up until 1885-ish, with hot water and stream up to 300' high! For some reason, it erupted again in 1985 for a few days, then shut down again - very strange and interesting! I love this place!

Midway Geyser Basin

Another cool spot. There is a HUGE pool way behind me with very hot water. The pool spills over to form the cascade behind me draining into the Firehole River. The cascade is steaming and the rock beneath it is bright orange/red and so it looks like it is on fire! You can also see Joe behind me, going down to take a picture. Cool! Or should I say HOT!

Black sand basin

Another cool stop - this time at black sand basin. There are neat geysers and pools bubbling up everywhere and they drain into the creek behind me. You can see the steam from one of the pools way behind me. It is cool how the runoff from the geysers has eroded the earth and colored the earth with the iron minerals. We are standing on a bridge for this shot.

Continental Divide - 8,262'

Here we are driving through yellowstone - we crossed the continental divide three times and we stopped for this shot after the third one. It is crazy to think this area divides up the watershed for the whole western US! I like watersheds.

Tetons!

Here we pulled out on a scenic overlook in Teton national park. Got down low to take this cool picture of me, a neat bush with purple flowers, and the Tetons all in one picture! If you look carefully to the right side of the bush, you will also see an orange colored butterfly, too. It is a very beautiful day today. This is one of the only other places in our awesome country that I'd want to build a house other than HWY 54, but I don't think building here is possible...maybe we will stop back tomorrow to take an early morning picture with Joe's cool camera.

Antlers

Here we are in downtown Jackson by the tourist/park area. Caught a picture of the antler archway as we were cruising though town. Got our McDonalds big breakfast and we are on our way to yellowstone!

Teton Village

We made it to Jackson! Here I am outside of the hotel with a cool pine tree that reminds me of Christmas. It is about 40 degrees outside - what a nice change from riverside!

St. George & Target

Here I am with some cool red rocks in the background. Just stopped at Target in St. George and Joe did a store visit with the pharmacy and store team. The pharmacy is doing really awesome in that store...very hot here today. Nice people all around. Pictures just don't do the landscape justice - the red rocks and blue sky are really brilliant!

Virgin river gorge

Here I am again in a favorite spot we travel through quite often on our road trips - virgin river gorge in the extreme NW corner of Arizona. This shot is just after entering the gorge and you can see tall walls of rock where the builders blasted out rock to build the road. I often wonder while doing all my observing how the guys back in the day decided where to put the road...

Car-BQ

Here I am on I-15 just north of Victorville. We are on our way to Jackson,WY to visit Teton national park and go back to explore Yellowstone a bit more. As we are driving along, all of a sudden there is a brand new escalade (we think) engulfed in flames. Not sure how good the picture will end up looking as it was an extremely quick shot into the sun...

What a wild way to start our adventure. It seems like there is always something crazy going on between Victorville and Las Vegas!

Sunny Morning

Hi everyone - here I an in the tent looking out on our campsite. Joe stayed up very late last night and put all of the telescope stuff away already! If you look closely, you can see him in the background. You can also see the H2. We positioned our tent so there would be shade by a tree for when the sun came up. There is cool filtered sunlight coming into the tent now. I love camping!

Road trip!

Here we go to use the telescope at cottonwood springs. It is the first trip in the hummer with the new petco doggie cage. It's 89 degrees here in riverside right now - definitely hotter in Joshua tree! Probably won't need heated snowboard pants tonight! I love going to use the telescope with the whole family!

Sun City Library

Went down to San Diego today to find Anne some new trail running shoes. Stopped at McDonalds on the way back in Sun City. Joe drove us by the cool, new, modern library. Here I am outside of it. I like all the windows, stone siding, and tile. The cool architectural letters out front are neat, too!