Fire Safety
I burned my hand this morning. It was an amateur mistake. It didn't need hospitalization, but it looks like I'll have a dime sized scar on my palm.
Category Wyoming
Read MoreFire Safety
Dawn Shoot
I couldn't sleep last night. I was too hot. I was too cold. My shoulder hurt. My other shoulder hurt. By 4:30 AM I had pretty much given up. That, and my driver woke up. We looked at each other. "You want to get some pictures?" I nodded.
Geysers, Canyons, and Buffalo
Today, I walked around a corner and came face to face with a buffalo. That is arguably hyperbole but 15 feet might as well be face to face when Buffaloes are concerned.
Old Faithful
Everyone comes to Yellowstone National Park to see Old Faithful. Maybe it is the 106 to 185 foot tall plumes of boiling water shot into the air. It could be the 3,700 to 8,400 gallons of scalding liquid dispelled in each eruption. Perhaps it is the grand predictability of the eruptions—averaging every 90 minutes. Or maybe everyone has just said "this is where you go" and so thousands of people from around the world crowd a boardwalk around a hole in the ground every 90 minutes and then file away for the next frothing earthly phenomena.
Day 2
Waking up in Grand Teton National Park feels like an accomplishment. After desperately charging through Yellowstone so that we could get a campsite before they were all taken (there were only 6 out of 320 remaining) we were ready to take it easy. Friends would be joining us in the afternoon and, with limited cell service, we didn't want to get too wrapped up in the wild nooks and crannies of the park and miss a call. So we scoped out the park.
Night Shoot
I photographed the Milky Way! For a slight pedantic digression: we are in the Milky Way. So, in a way, every photograph that we take that is not done by astronomers, is pretty much guaranteed to be of the Milky Way. All the same, this is a view of the rest of the Milky Way as captured within the constraints of a single camera on Earth. It does not compare to some of the amazing photographs I've seen online. The moon was still out and overwhelms the more distant stars. But it is amazing, and I can go to sleep, happy.
Day 1
I feel like some Judie Bloom high schooler when I write that today was the best day ever. But it was really awesome. After a couple days of travel, we rolled through Yellowstone to our campsite in the Grand Tetons. In the course of the day, we saw a bald eagle, buffalo, elk, and moose. The only thing left on our Yellowstone bingo card is "bear." My preference would be a black bear, but I wouldn't want to be considered "picky." There certainly is an unhinged part of me that wants to see a grizzly bear in the wild.
Heart O’the Hills Campground
There are more popular campsites in Olympic National Park, but we couldn't be more pleased with the magical atmosphere of Heart O'the Hills Campground. It is the perfect balance of beauty, seclusion, and accessibility. Not only could we roll in on a Saturday afternoon and get a spot but we still had cell access where we could set up a hotspot and work.
Cowboys and Engines
Day 2 in Wyoming was just a continuation of delightful traveling from Rock Springs, on down highway 80. There continued to be new and exciting rock formations interspersed with grazing cows. For all the boot shops and references to cowboys, Wyoming can be quite refined.
Wyoming, From Highway 80
WE LOVE WYOMING. This has been (aside from highway 1) our favorite stretch to ride. Rock formations flank highway 80, making scenery watching of greater interest than getting from point A to point B. Also in Wyoming's favor is that it isn't as mind meltingly hot as California, Nevada, and Utah. Still, we were in a rush. We stayed in Rock Springs for little other reason than we were too tired to make it to Lincoln.