Grand Tetons

Hey folks.

Back again huh? Even after I told you the end of the story? (the "we made it home part")

Cool. I'm glad you are back. I'd hate to think no one was reading this stuff *grin*

Let's see... Where were we?

Oh yeah, we were headed to the Grand Tetons.

The drive to the park from Nevada was rather uneventful. We cruised over to Salt Lake City and then headed north. This took us into territory we didn't realize we had been missing for a few weeks now.

We found GREEN! Up until this point, probably the last time we saw large areas of that felt like home containing beautiful fields of green grass and trees that weren't stunted scrubs or monster alien skyscrapers was somewhere in southeastern Texas. The green made things feel soo much more inviting. While I think the browns, reds and tans of the midwest are pretty, give me green anyday. *chuckle*

By the time we arrived at the gates of the park, it was again getting late in the day. I'd say it was probably 7:00 p.m. local time. And of course the park ranger at the gate said the first campsite inside the park was something like 2 hours away.

Geez! Who planned these things? Don't they know to put the campsite next to the front door? What do they think? I may see some things on the way in that I had forgotten to bring along? It ain't like this is the grocery store and I'm just after a gallon of milk and should be forced to walk through the entire store to find it. *Sigh*

She did say "inside the park" when I asked though. Turns out that after I paid my $18 to get into the park, I had failed to ask the right question. "What is the nearest campsite?". When I asked this before driving off, she pointed behind me and said, "a couple miles that way, turn left and it will be on your right in about a mile."

I almost asked for my money back but then realized it wasn't worth the hassle. The park entrance fee at the Grand Tetons is good for three days and will also get you into Yellowstone National Park which is north of the Grand Tetons.

We proceeded on into the park and to the nearby gas station. I had planned on cooking dinner, but the smell of food coming from the open air resturaunt across the parking lot was hard to resist. So, after filling up, we headed over and had ourselves a big ole hamburger. Dang it was good.

Bonneville Salt Flats International Speedway

Ok, for those who read my last blog and were curious about my comment on the racing on the salt flats, this blog post is for you *grin*.

When we left Reno, we headed toward the Bonneville Salt Flats International Speedway.

According to our trusty GPS (her name is Ethyl by the way), the Bonneville Salt Flats was a park. It even showed up on the GPS with a cute little tent symbol next to its name.

Recall the Reno KOA? Well, we had similar luck here.

First off, when we got to the exit, the signs pointed us off into the middle of nowhere. The only thing at the exit was a gas station and once we passed that, nothing. No lights, no signs, no nothing. After a left turn a mile or so, we found ourselves on a very straight road that seemed to continue off into nothingness.


(a picture in the daylight of the same area)

The pale glow of the salt was on both sides of us fading off into the darkness. After a mile or so, I pulled over and we wandered out onto the salt.

It wasn't quite what I expected. Picture white sand but packed hard to an almost concrete-like consistency. It was nothing like what we found in New Mexico at the White Sands. After goofing around a bit, we continued forward on our quest for the elusive tent on Ethyl's screen. I shoulda known better. A campsite in the middle of the Salt Flats? Uh huh.

Soon we found ourselves a the end of the road. And what was salt a mile or so back had turned into water. The only dry spot was the road we were parked on. There were a couple of RV's parked at the end of the road and a lone pavillion with a couple of people in sleeping bags, who had settled in for the evening.

Again, not quite what I had hoped for and at 9 p.m., really not what I was in the mood to find.

So, once again we back-tracked a bit to what appeared to be the last set of casinos before crossing the state line of Nevada. There we did find a KOA campground, situated just behind one of the casinos. Basically it was a gravel parking lot, divided into tent and RV sites, with an office building containing the laundry and a pool.



The big cowboy was just off the entrance to the campsite and should give you an idea of just where we were trying to camp for the night.

Nothing like sleeping in what was the equivelant of the back alley of a casino in a tent with neon lights humming maybe 150 yards away.

Anyways, we survived the night, washed some clothes the next morning and headed off to the Salt Flats.

Again, another wow moment. The sheer size of the Salt Flats leaves you feeling rather small. It is a pretty cool place that seems to go on forever.

As you guessed from the comment about the water, we were too late into the season to get to see any racing events. The majority of the area used for racing was covered in about two inches of water for miles and miles.



While we visited the flats, I was able to catch these pictures of Ethan and Zachary racing each other on the flats.

Here is a shot of Ethan headed down the track.
(click for da big picture)

And here comes Zachary out of nowhere to challenge for the lead.


Impressive huh? *grin*

This picture should give you an idea of the size of this place. You can see the mountains off in the distance miles away. And between us and there was nothing but salt water.

After we left, we headed off toward Mount Rushmore. On the way out of Nevada, we passed this odd looking creation. Turns out it is some kind of artist rendition of the Utah tree and it is called "The Tree of Utah".

Huh?

Yeah, that's what I said as well.

It was about this time that Zachary mentioned that friends of ours would be arriving the next day just north of us in Jackson Hole Wyoming to particpate in the ArrowCorp 5 program in the Grand Tetons. "I still wish I had been able to join them" he said. I hadn't let him sign up because of the trip. He had wanted to do summer camp, the road trip, and work on the ArrowCorp 5 project. I told him he had to pick two. Summer camp and the roadtrip won out.

Go visit the Grand Tetons? *Shrug* At this point, what's 8 hours of driving? "I guess we could go meet them getting off the plane. They land tomorrow at 9 a.m. correct? Why not?", I said. And off we went, with the trip to Mount Rushmore pushed down the list. We still had a few days left on our trip and I figured we could make a side trip.

I'll post some pics on our time at the Grand Tetons and in Yellowstone National Park next time around.

Until then!

P.S.: Thanks for reading my posts. I can't tell how many of you are visiting, but have had a few people tell me they've been following us along. It sure was a fun trip!

Yosemite and Reno

(found on top of a building in Reno)

Hey folks, time to bug you! (get it?)

Just in case you were wonder, yes, we have made it back home. With a couple of days to spare in the month actually.

Sorry about not keeping the posts up and current. The last week of travel I just didn't have the time or connectivity to post. There just was no reliable signal in Yosemite, Grand Tetons, or Yellowstone I could use to connect to the net.

So, I've saved everything up and figure I'll continue posting each segment until I get to the end of our trip.

If I've given away the ending for ya, I'm sorry about that. I should have said "Spoiler Alert!!! Spoiler Alert!!!" before the post started.

That way you could skip this part and keep wondering if we make it home or not.

I know my wife was beginning to wonder *grin*.



So, where was I? Oh yeah, Yosemite. The picture above might have given it away if you've ever been there.

First off, I know what you are thinking. "Could the tarantula-killing, squirrel-bashing redneck have started that fire I heard about on tv?"

Nope. Wasn't me. Luckily we were out of the area long before it started approaching Yosemite.

Seems we kept dodging disasters as we went.

For those of you who have not been to Yosemite National Park, the views rival that of the Grand Canyon on any day. As a matter a fact, I found the park to be much more visually interesting than that big ole hole in the ground with the rabid squirrels. Ever see a 2900+ feet tall waterfall?

Now you have *smile*

I can proudly say I harmed no animals in the visiting of this park.

One did seem to be looking at me funny at Glacier Point though...

Talk about a large park, geez! When we finally made it to the park entrance on our ride from San Francisco, the park range (a transplanted Georgia girl by the way) smiled as she pointed out that our campsite was still a 2 hour ride away.



If they would have let us, I'd have setup camp right then and there. But there was a line of cars behind me and it was getting late. No need to upset the nice park ranger from Cleveland Georgia I decided. So, I did the honorable thing and smiled right back, took my booklet on the park, along with the map to the middle of nowhere, and headed out.

The ride to the campsite took us down to the valley floor of the park and back up the other side of the valley. We went through multiple tunnels during our ride. These tunnels had been carved out of the cliffsides and connected a rather windy road back to the various campsites and sites within the park.



By the time we got to our campsite it was almost dark and the ranger assigned to the site had long since packed up shop and gone home. By this time we were camping experts and knew the drill. "Proceed to your campsite, setup, eat, go to bed". We did however have to make one slight adjustment. Since bears have such a presence in the park, they provide steel boxes at each campsite and you are required by law to place all of your food in these boxes. Or you face fines and even worse yet, a midnight meeting with Yogi or his cousin Boo Boo.

Now the box and the directions for placing our food in the box didn't bother me much. What did bother me was the fact that we were camping under the equivelent of a mosquito net. "Put food in box" you say? What about me? Where am I going to sleep? I'm quite certain bears also eat meat. I'm thinking that most bears would also consider me meat. But then I had a moment of inspiration.

When animals hunt they always go for the animals on the fringes of the herd correct? Simple enough. I just made sure I slept in the middle of the pavilion or aka mosquito net. Problem solved. They would go for the small tender kid burrito in the $100 sleeping bag on the edges of the area first. With such an arrangement I was sure to be in good shape the next morning.

I just gotta make sure that the wife doesn't find out I made such sleeping arrangements. She'll never know I'm sure. The boys didn't even realize my clever move. They just thought I was being nice by sleeping on the area with the rocks. I'm such a good daddy huh? *grin*



Anyways, we survived. The next morning, we broke down the campsite and had our nutritional breakfast of Captain Crunch and Pop tarts. Throughout the trip we kept a cooler in the rear seat with the milk, O.J. and squeeze butter. I made sure to give Ethan the first cup....errr I mean I made sure to have Ethan test the milk each morning of course. What's up with the squeeze butter you ask? You can't have pancakes without butter now! Come on. And yes we did on occasion have pancakes.

Well something that resembled pancakes anyways. We did use pancake mix but they didn't look much like pancakes most mornings. *shrug* What ya gonna do?

After breakfast we headed off to the sights. If you do nothing else in Yosemite, you have to go to Glacier Point. From this vantage point you can see the entire valley floor, the waterfalls, and the path carved through the mountain range by the glacier a bazzillion years ago.


It is quite the sight. If you look closely in the picture above you can see two very large waterfalls, both over 300 feet if I remember correctly.

While at Glacier Point we were able to get signal on our cell phone. So, the boys hastily texted friends and I called the wife. "Hi Honey! We are on the top of a big big hill." For some reason she wasn't as excited about it as we were. *shrug* It probably had something to do with the fact that she had returned home from San Francisco and was no longer on vacation. Sorry dear! Zachary made me call.

Anyways, we oooo'd and ahhh'd for a bit and headed for the road out of the park toward Reno Nevada.

It was on this road out the back side of the park that we hit almost 10,000 feet in altitude for the first time during our trip. We even saw snow on the mountain peaks around us. I can only imagine what winter is like out there. None for me thank you very much. The boys of course fell asleep on the ride out. I had to wake them up when we passed this beautiful mountain lake just before exiting the park. I convinced them they wanted to go swimming. *chuckle*

They thought it was a great idea... until they got in the lake and realized that the water was from the snow caps still on the mountains towering nearby. Can you say "realllly cold" boys and girls?



If you look closely at the next picture (really really close and squint at the black dots near the edges of the mountain), you might see something that made me just shake my head. There are people in this picture free-climbing this mountain! It was directly across from the lake and I wouldn't have spotted the climbers if we hadn't stopped. Simply amazing. The dots are people. Crazy people, but people all the same.



It took a few hours to exit the park and make our way to Reno. We had plugged into our trusty GPS to take us to the KOA campground there in Reno.

If anyone ever tells you, "Oh sure, there is a KOA in Reno. A nice one in fact", you should not believe them.

The GPS took us to a location just off the interstate in almost downtown Reno which just happened to be a casino. Go figure.

Apparently the campground property had more value as a casino than a campground and they sold out. Zachary and Ethan tried to convince me that staying at the hotel there at the casino would technically count as camping since it had in fact once been a campground. But I didn't buy it.

So, we backtracked a few miles to a state park I had spotted before entering town. Once again the ranger had long since gone so we paid at the "Self pay" station and picked our spot.

The next day we spent some time being a tourist in Reno. Not much to be a tourist about in Reno in my opinion.

The one shining spot was the National Auto Museum downtown.

The museum as an incredible collection of vehicles from the dawn of automotive history into the 40's. They even have THE 1907 THOMAS FLYER!!!


They do have cars from other time periods, including cars designed and built by the creator of Rat Fink (I'll let you look that one up if you don't know it)



If you are ever in Reno and can pry yourself out of the KOA errr Casino, I highly recommend the visit. You really should look at the rest of the car pictures we took (sorry for the blurry ones...was the light). You folks do know I'm a car nut right? Ok then. Nuff said.

From Reno we headed on to the Bonneville Salt Flats (car nut remember?) where both Zachary and Ethan got to race on the salt. It was pretty cool to watch.

I'll post more on that later.

You can see all the pictures of Yosemite and the cars here.
Until next time!

Link to more pictures

Here are a few more pictures

San Francisco

Ok I'm behind again.

It happens *grin* I'm blaming it on arriving late at the campsites and hotels each night. Being worn out each day just doesn't promote consistent on time posting. Next trip I'll be sure to bring along an independent recorder to document our activities. I'll be sure to post the job on Monster *wink*.

From Hearst Castle, we went on to San Francisco via the Pacific Coast Highway. A windy twisty road overlooking the Pacific Ocean that runs for over 80 miles from the castle to Monterey California. We got lucky and missed the major portion of the fires. The fire crews seemed to have the fire in Big Sur under control or at least the part that was threatening the coastline. It looks like we dodged another disaster... first the hurricane in South Texas that landed AFTER we drove through and now the wild fires in California.

Before we had left on the trip, I arranged for Donna to arrive on the same day we hit San Francisco. A good friend of mine, Larry, used his Marriott rewards points to reserve a room at the Courtyard in Novato California, just north of the Golden Gate bridge.

She arrived early enough in the day to go to dinner with Larry and his family. It was pretty much a blind date for Donna. She had only met Larry a few times and had never met the rest of his family. Dinner went well and she had a great time with them. We of course arrived too late to join the group. Figures, I get an opportunity to eat a nice dinner on someone elses tab and end up going to McDonalds. *sigh*. Maybe next time. I'll have to plan better huh?

On our first day, Larry's daughter played tour guide and took us to the city for the day. We took the ferry across the bay over to the city. It definitely beat driving over to town.



It was the first time I had ever been into San Francisco without having to visit a customer and the first time Donna, Zachary and Ethan had been as well. It was fun seeing the town through someone elses eyes. Karen (our tour guide) took us to her favorite spots in town which as you can see involve some rather beautiful art work.



We had dinner at the top of a hotel which provides a great view of the city.


Overall a great visit to a beautiful city full of art I would have overlooked if it weren't for Karen. You know, there might be something to taking a guided tour when it is available huh? Maybe a business opportunity. I bet nobody has thought of doing such a thing. I'll have to file that away under my "Future Sure Fire Money Making Business Ideas to Try" file cabinet.





The picture above is from the area just outside of the pier where we docked. The art work / fountain in front of us is the Justin Herman Plaza Fountain which has been the center of controversy since its creation. Some say you either love it or hate it. I guess I'd have to say I'm on the "don't hate it side". It is pretty cool in my opinion. Bono thought it needed a bit of color...

The next day, Larry played tour guide and took us to Sausalito for some shopping and over to Muir Woods to see the giant redwoods. Wow. Talk about some big ole trees. And these were not the largest ones. There was a cross section of one of the trees at the entrance which demonstrated how old the trees really were. The oldest of them was around during the birth of Christ. That is just impossible for me to wrap my head around. That's older than Ron! (inside joke)



That's not a homeless man in the picture with the family. That's Larry *smile* What you are seeing to the side of them is a tree, yes a tree. Its easy to see why they were so sought after for their lumber. Cut down one and build SEVERAL houses.

The next picture is what is known as a Banana Slug which we found clinging to the side of a tree in the park. I think if we had these in Georgia, walking around barefoot at night would be out of the question. Larry said they can get up to 11-12 inches long...



The next day we were left to our own devices. My plan was to visit Alcatraz, a destination both boys wanted to visit. How was I to know that this was such a popular destination that tickets to visit the prison were sold out for over a week. so we had to settle for touring Pier 39 and Fisherman's Warf. I'm sure a few of you have heard the quote that was supposed to have been made by Mark Twain, "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco". I can vouch for the weather. It was windy, overcast and in the 50's. And this is mid July!

We had lunch overlooking the floating docks the sea lions had taken over.

After we left the piers, we figured we would try to find a movie theater to watch the new Batman movie. My GPS wasn't much help when we tried to find a theater. Maybe I should have asked the desk clerk at the hotel for directions... Nah.

The first one we visited was closed. *Shrug* No big deal. There have got to be more right? It is a major city right? The next one we picked was probably 20 miles away. When we got there, we found a very old movie theater that was only large enough for two screens. Neither of course were showing the Dark Knight. Ok, on to the next which was of course 18 miles away.

By the time we got to this one, the shows were sold out. Maybe asking for directions might not have been such a bad idea. Who woulda thunk it? (yes, maybe Donna did suggest it).

Since Donna had to get up very early the next day to catch her flight back to Atlanta, we decided to just eat dinner and head back to the hotel.

The next morning, I took Donna to the airport. Later in the morning, the boys and I headed over to Yosemite, probably one of the most beautiful places in the world.

I'll post some stuff on Yosemite a bit later.

Until next time!

Hearst Castle Visit

Anyone want to know what old money looks like?

Go visit Hearst Castle on the Pacific Coast Highway in California.

Imagine having enough money to purchase ancient Egyptian statues and 1800 year old Roman columns to decorate around one of the two pools you have in your yard.





Now imagine having your own zoo with lions, tigers, bears, antelope, zebras, kangaroos, etc. running around on that property and friends such as Charlie Chaplin, Sir Winston Churchill, and the like stopping in for extended visits.

This was the last stop on our way up to San Francisco. At first Zachary and Ethan were a bit bored. But once the tour started they were hooked.

I think we all liked the pool beneath the tennis courts the best.

Or maybe it was the private home theater in the main house... Tough call *smile*

Anyone else been there?

Universal Studios

Once upon a time Donna and I visited Universal Studios in Hollywood California. It was 20 years ago and during our honeymoon trip. At that time there were no other movie studio "theme parks" and Universal was somewhat unique. It didn't have all the rides and stuff you'll find in Universal nowadays. The main portion of the visit back then was through the backlot of the studios.

When the boys and I arrived at the park, it was quickly apparent that it had been updated to match much of Universal Studios Florida. The backlot tour was still there though. Even with the damage done by the fire a few weeks ago, most of the backlot was available to us. A few more sets had been added, but it still looked like what I remembered. One of the coolest new additions was the plane crash site from the War of the Worlds set that Stephen Spielberg did a few years ago. They left the set up and put a road through it for the tours.




After the backlot tour, the boys tried to drown me by taking me on the Jurasic Park ride. If anyone thinks they can ride this ride without getting wet, they are sadly mistaken. You will get wet. *chuckle*



After our fun at Universal we cut through downtown Hollywood and headed up the Pacific Coast Highway. Of course we had to drive by Hollywood Blvd and take a ride down Sunset Blvd before heading out. Here is a picture of the Chinese Theater on Hollywood.



It may surprise you but there are campgrounds on the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu California. This is where we ended up pitching our tent for the evening before heading on up to San Francisco. It was full moon so we spent an hour or so on the beach that night playing in the surf and watching the waves come in. The temperature dropped down to the 70's once we got across the mountains into L.A., so it was very pleasant out on the beach at night.

It was a tough way to spend the night, but we somehow suffered through it *grin*.

Oh well, gotta go.

Until next time!