Thursday June 11

Back to the travel journal!

Thursday we woke to TWENTY-EIGHT DEGREES!

So we hung out in the room for a bit.

By the time we went down to the little

restaurant next door (breakfast included in our

hotel room price...) it was in the 50's.

MUCH better.

Had a yummy little breakfast.

(Eggs / bacon / biscuit for me and

sausage/biscuit with OJ for Kyle)

Then it was time to hop back in the car

and head back into the park.

We have our Senior Forever Pass...

but it's in Rod's name and so they wouldn't

let me use it. Kyle had to buy a $35/week

car pass... but I think we got his money's worth!

This time we took the southern loop.

The cousins were out in full force.

We saw lots of "red dogs" (babies).

The southern route is much more "active"...

This is only a small fraction of our photos!

Old Faithful is not the only active geyser in the park!

Isn't that beautiful???

My seat in the car was LOW... so I finally rolled

up all our coats (since it was a much warmer day)

and covered them with my blanket and used it

as a seat cushion (booster seat) so I could FINALLY

see out the car window! LOL

Should have done THAT days ago....

We met a woman from Merritt Island (25 miles from home)

who lives / works at the park during the summers.

She recommended climbing Fairy Falls...

So we did.

At the top of Fairy Falls.

(I have Grandma Hanna's smile...)

The hike.

It's STEEP y'all!

But the view was worth it!

(And again, my walking sticks saved the day!!!)

So amazing to see HOT pools with grass just growing

right next to it. Again we took all the little side roads...

And we walked and walked and walked and walked.

My phone says I walked 18,738 steps that day!

And I believe it!

We went back to Old Faithful

and walked around, what felt like, the entire place...

We missed "Old" Faithful, but "New" Faithful was going strong...

See the Bison tracks?

There are all these signs saying DO NOT WALK

next to the pools, etc... but they apparently can't read.

Everywhere we went there were animal tracks in the water.

Right next to the pools!

I guess with all the people gone they just took over.

This was the section we walked.

Saw some beautiful things.

The weather was glorious!

We got sunburned.

And we were EXHAUSTED.

I was VERY happy to see the end of the trail approaching!

We stayed in the park until about 4:30 and then

headed back south to our Logan hotel for the night.

It was a nice drive - and we were tired and happy!

A quick stop at Pizza Hut for another pizza (delicious!)

and we crashed for the night.

Face Sheild

We have been discussing how / when we are going

to be able to re-open our classrooms and 

go back to teaching.

One of the issues, of course, is “safety”.

They want us all to wear masks.

Like the students can understand me if I

have a piece of cloth over my mouth.

So we have discussed those clear plastic 

face shields that remind me of Kyle’s

Welder’s Hood.

And then this morning 

I FOUND IT!!!

 

Stock Trailer Progress

When those men put their minds to something...

you best stand back!

Kyle finished welding on all the frame pieces 

on the bottom and then they flipped it over.

Next came the uprights (loops).

It's going to be tall!

Plenty tall for either the cows or horses...

And then I went into the Zoom Room to teach

my evening review class.

At the 2 hour break mark, I popped out to check

on how they were doing.

Holy toledo!

It has axles, uprights and side framework!!!!

Back into the zoom room to finish my class...

And now it has tires! 

A temporary tarp roof...

and more framework!

These guys are cookin' with gas!

Hahahahaha

Looks like Kyle will be heading north to the ranch

again in the next couple of weeks and there is

lots left to do before we take the cows to

"freezer camp" the first weekend in August...

so they are celebrating Father's Day by

working together on this big project.

These men don't mess around!

Bonus Post

Yup, TWO in one day!

We interrupt our travelogue to bring up an

update on the happenings and goings on

here at the homestead since our return...

Mostly I'm sitting on the couch.

Hahahahaha

But...

Thursday morning while I was on the phone with Soni,

we had some visitors.

A big ol' flock of wild turkeys!

I see them next door at Brock's pretty frequently,

but they don't usually come over here.

Because of the dogs?

Anyhow.

There were a bunch of them!

Including several Toms.

(There is another one just on the other side of the fence

in the top left corner...)

When I went out there, the cows headed in to be fed

and the turkeys high tailed it outta there into the

horse pasture... but then the horses came up to the barn,

so over the fence they went, back to the relative

safety of Brock's pastures.

Kyle's roses survived the Christobal drowning

and continue to produce some beautiful flowers!

The ducks have graduated to the downstairs apartment...

And after some minor adjustments the little girls

will be moving next door to the larger side.

(And we will open the trap door so they can

choose to mingle with the ducks if they want...)

Everybody / everything is growing and doing well.

The garden produced 2 more cucumbers this week

and LOTS and LOTS of okra.

I'm going to give blanching/freezing a try today.

Wish me luck!

Wednesday June 10

Yellowstone, here we come!

After a good night's sleep in our hotel,

we headed to Maverick for a breakfast burrito,

fueled up the car and headed north.

It was a lovely day.

A nice 4+ hour drive.

There was a bit of a line at the front gates.

Everybody is excited the park has finally opened!

("Soft" opening - lots of things still closed...)

The animals have had the run of the park for 3 months.

I'm not sure they were excited to see the people return...

As we first pulled into the park we saw a wolf,

eating something "large"... but where we stopped

we were directly behind some trees so I didn't

get a photo of it.

But there were plenty of Bison and Elk

(thanks for the clarification Dad!)

For our first day we took the northern loop

which is primarily woods and mountains

and LOTS of beautiful waterfalls!

Including the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.

Wow!

We just kept thinking about those poor

explorers and pioneers - what do you do when

confronted with THIS???

This was the Dragon's Breath cave...

It looked like a dragon was in there,

breathing smoke and fire!

(We are listening to the Harry Potter books

on my Kindle, so dragons were very much on

our brains anyway... lol)

Kyle brought his big camera and got some EXCELLENT photos!

Still working on those selfies... 

It was a beautifully sunny day, but still a bit chilly.

Especially with the wind coming off all that 

cold mountain water!

 There were plenty of beautiful pools.

We learned that the brighter blue, the HOTTER

the water is!

We figure these are about 166 degrees!

Yowsa!

We took every little side road we saw which

brought us to some truly spectacular views!

We did LOTS of walking!

And ended up at Old Faithful.

(This is a geyser we who were waiting for

Old Faithful started calling NEW Faithful...)

I only took video of Old Faithful...

On the way out of the park was a giant lake!

And lots more bison!

Several of them quite close!

Hi Cuz!

Out the park gate and right into West Yellowstone

where Kyle had reserved a room for us in a hotel.

That's pretty much all West Yellowstone is...

hotels, motels, eateries, and a couple of gas stations.

We didn't get back until after dark (we never want 

to waste a minute of sunlight...)

and by then we were STARVING!

The hotel guy was pretty helpful and recommended

a nice little restaurant with good pizza called

Gushers.

We looked at it on Google Maps - it was literally

across the street! So we took our stuff up to

our room and then bundled up (it got chilly once

the sun went down!) and walked on over

to pick up a delicious Hawaiian pizza.

Ate it in our room and then SLEEP!!!

Another fantastic day!

Tuesday, June 9

Tuesday morning dawned bright and sunny.

A perfect birthday morning!

We dressed and headed to the Maverick

gas station/store and picked up a couple

of Kyle's MOAB breakfast burritos and

then headed up to the mountains.

The canyons are lovely and green!

There was still snow on the peaks,

but it was a lovely day.

Beautiful blue sky!

We headed to Tony Grove.

One of Kyle's favorite hikes.

The change in elevation was felt by my chips... lol.

There was quite a bit of snow on the trail.

It was probably in the mid 40's, so it was melting.

It snowed up there on Monday,

but it was wet and slushy underneath.

There were LOTS of rushing little creeks.

Lots of snow melt.

Hard to tell, but I'm crossing a creek.

Thank goodness for my sticks!

Some creeks were more challenging than others.

Of course, Kyle, the mountain goat, 

just walked across with his hands in his pockets.

It was fun in the snow!

And luckily another man and his dog had gone up

before us, so we never had to try to figure out

where the trail was supposed to be.

I only slipped and fell twice.

My jeans got wet, but it was only embarrassing.

Kyle got a good chuckle.

And pulled me up.

We stopped and built some little snowmen!

We laughed and laughed our heads off.

My first photo bomb.

It was very difficult giving them mouths...

We left them there to greet any other climbers.

However, the sky clouded over and it looked

like a storm might be blowing in.

So we didn't make it all the way to the mountain lake.

It's over the hill behind Kyle and Straight Down.

I was pretty sure I could make it down,

but not at all sure I could make it back up.

The snow was REALLY slippery.

And by then our feet were pretty wet.

There was LOTS of snow on the top of Naomi Peak.

We actually saw some people up there on the top

and could see where they had skied back down.

Crazy people!

It wasn't all snow though.

There was lots of bare ground.

And lots of little green plants and flowers.

The snowmen didn't survive.

It was too warm for them...

There were lots of boulders for Kyle to perch on.

We both took LOTS of pictures.

By the time we got to the bottom, the weather had

cleared up nicely, so we decided to walk around

the lake at the bottom.

We didn't make it all the way around, the trail on the far side

had quite a bit of slippery, slushy snow and it's 

pretty steep. So we went part way and then came back.

(There was a big boulder with deeeeep snow all around it...

you had to step over a deep hole between the snow and the

rock both to get on and off it... I did ok on the way out,

but on the way back my back foot slipped as I was

trying to get on the rock and I fell... laughing my head off...

but unfortunately I got a major cramp in the arch of my

right foot and couldn't even stand up...

So I just crouched there on my hands and knees,

laughing and waiting for my cramp to go away...

Finally managed to get up and get off the rock.

But we wondered what the other people on the other 

side of the lake thought was going on...)

Such a pretty place!

We finally decided to head back to the valley.

And on the way back into town, we stopped

by the Logan Temple and walked around it.

Of course it was closed, but still beautiful.

And the afternoon was lovely again.

It's on quite a hill.

Something we discovered while walking around.

So we had to climb back up it!

I was TIRED!

But it was a lovely afternoon...

Next, we drove up another canyon to the 

Hardware Ranch and then Kyle took us 

up a fire road.

We saw a small herd of deer...

There were 4, but one was really shy.

We saw a couple of realtor signs and took pictures.

It was BEAUTIFUL land up there!

The field was full of these weird yellow flowers.

And a new resort that looked pretty neat.

We could have joined the highway (39) in 

N. Ogden and taken the highway back to Logan,

but decided the fire road was so pretty we just

turned around and went back the way we came.

By the time we got back into town it was getting late.

So we ended Kyle's birthday with an online order for

Fettuccine Alfredo, bread sticks, salad and soup from

Olive Garden and ate it in our hotel room.

It was a lovely day!

And he was happy he didn't waste a single minute of it.

Happy Birthday Kyle!