It was a trip I’ll never forget. I don’t know how else to summarize the week and a half in Wyoming in August 2021. What started as an idea on a day where Elizabeth and I were snowed in in early February turned into the most-involved trip I’d ever planned. There were campground reservations to …
Tag Archives: National Parks Trip
National Parks Trip: Returning Home
There’s a feeling that comes at the end of every trip that’s pretty much indescribable. Humans are hardwired to feel a sense of loss when something comes to an end, even if it’s a job they didn’t like, or someone they weren’t close with moving away. From a young age I felt that sense of …
National Parks Trip: Driving to Denver
There’s something to be said for the views along the drive to a place. I first came to love mountains when driving down to Florida with family for Spring Break. I would wait in anticipation for the moment we punched into the heart of the Appalachians in Tennessee. Over the years, I can remember being …
National Parks Trip: Leaving Yellowstone
Drip, drip, drip. For the third consecutive morning, it was raining off and on at Canyon Village, with the result being a morass of wet tents, wet chairs, wet towels, wet decorations. Four days ago at Colter Bay, under much drier circumstances, Elizabeth and I had gotten into a vicious first fight of our engagement. …
National Parks Trip: Old Faithful
About a hundred yards away, across an undulating field of yellowed scrub brush, a gray mound of rock belched forth steam in fits and bursts. The mound made no sound. Other than the steam, there was no indication that it was special. Except that in a 180-degree arc around it, people from across the world …
National Parks Trip: Upper Geyser Basin
One last miserable meal inside Yellowstone. We’d been scraping the bottom of the rainy barrel for a couple of days. Many of the meals that Elizabeth and I had meticulously planned out, especially the ones where we’d planned on picnicking sandwiches and snacks, had not turned out that way. Instead, with Pam offering to pay …
National Parks Trip: Avalanche Peak
The idea of relativity of time gets funnier the closer I get to this project. August 19th, 2021 feels like eons different than August 13th with the benefit of hindsight. That’s probably because I was blogging about August 13, and the first views of the Tetons, and how I felt pre-proposal, and all of that …
National Parks Trip: Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone
Our clockwise loop from Midway Geyser basin back to the return point was complete. It had been a busy, rainy, and cold day – the kind of day that could really be rescued by a nice dinner. Unfortunately, our experience two nights ago in Canyon Village underscored how difficult it might be to actually get …
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National Parks Trip: Norris Geyser Basin
For a day that started late, we had certainly managed to backload a productive sight-seeing afternoon on Wednesday, August 18. Norris Geyser Basin is a few miles north along the Grand Loop Road from the Artist Paint Pots. It’s at the junction between the Grand Loop and the aptly named Norris-Canyon Road, the last attraction …
National Parks Trip: Artist Paint Pots
Among the many poetic names for the thermal features at Yellowstone is the humble paint pot. A paint pot is basically a mud pot that takes on a characteristic color due to the oxidation state of the mud around it. Paint pots range from red to yellow to bright blue, and we’d seen several already …
