Sand Dunes, Mesa Verde and Home!

We had a wonderful time Wednesday with our dear friends the Vaughans.  It’s hard to believe how big the boys are getting and they all are doing well.  Here’s a group shot.

 

Then we drove down to Pueblo for the night and hit the Great Sand Dunes NP the next morning.  It’s really neat, and it was my first time to see this phenomena.  It’s really odd…the largest (tallest) sand dunes in North America, right out in the middle of the Rocky Mountains.  So weird…

 

We wanted to hike to the highest dune (nearly 800 feet up), but the sand was about 140 degrees!  So, we decided to just hike up to the first summit and slide down. (BTW – If you’ve seen “Lawrence of Arabia”, they filmed some of it here.)

After playing in the sand for a few hours, we took off to Mesa Verde NP, where we had reservations for a deluxe room.  Unfortunately, when we checked in we discovered they had not cleaned our room and housekeeping had already left. So we were stuck in the two oldest rooms they had…no windows, no AC, and no view.  Iccckkk!  It was so hot and nasty none of us slept at all.

But the next morning we woke and explored the Mesa Verde Ruins.  This was awesome.  These are cliff dwellings that were used by native peoples from about 550 AD to nearly 1300 AD.  For some unknown reason, the inhabitants left around AD1300 and the dwellings are still intact.  Truly fascinating.

 

We left Mesa Verde about noon.  We were thinking of going to Vegas for a couple of nights on our way back to LA.  But after the miserable night of no sleep and insufferable heat, we decided we were ready to head back to our condo by the sea.  So we drove straight for 14 hours with two gas stops, and two bathroom stops. 

When we reached the CA border at 9:30 it was still 110 degrees!  When we reached Barstow at around 11 it was still over 100.  Of course, when we pulled into Malibu at about 1am, it was a balmy 65. I love our home. :-)

It was another great summer vacation for our family.  We’re already looking forward to next year where we plan to do the Pacific Coast…Redwoods, Crater Lake, Olympia, and Glacier National Parks.

Wind Cave and Rushmore

We spent our last day in South Dakota today and will have our final night at the Alex Johnson Hotel in Rapid City, SD. 

We first went to the Wind Cave National Park, which was very interesting. 

The cave is the 4th longest in the world (and possibly the longest since they believe it is connected to the second longest cave in the world, the nearby Jewel cave).

It’s hard to get a good photo in a cave, but here are two.  First, notice the intricate “boxwork” structure of the rocks in Wind Cave.  It’s estimated that 90% of the world’s “boxwork” is located here. Second, notice the relatively cramped space here.  It’s not a giant cavern like Mammoth Cave or Carlsbad Caverns.  It’s pretty narrow and small throughout.  They offer a 4-hour tour with strenuous climbing and undeveloped routes.  That would cool.

 

After this, we headed over to Mt. Rushmore, where we planned to stay about an hour, and wound up there about four.  We enjoyed the Visitor’s Center, the movies about building the monument, a hike around the “President’s Trail”, and then stayed for the lighting ceremony.  It was great!

 

Next stop…Parker, CO to have dinner with the Vaughans and spend the night in Denver.  Then two more stops before we get home… Great Sand Dunes NP, and Mesa Verde NP, both in CO.

Driving to Devil’s Tower

Today we spent most of the day driving across Wyoming.  We finally reached Devil’s Tower.  We spent an hour or so exploring the odd formation (but didn’t see any signs of alien life!).

 

Then we headed out to Downtown Rapid City, where we found the cutest little boutique hotel called the “Alex Johnson Hotel'”.  It’s in the heart of downtown and was built in 1927.  It’s adorable and our “deluxe double” room has two rooms each with double beds.  It’s really adorable.  We’ll use this as a home base for the next two nights while we explore the Badlands, Mt. Rushmore, and Wind Caves National Park.

Leaving Yellowstone into the Wild West

The hope this morning was to leave our cabin early to see wildlife in the Lamar Valley.  However, after a long day and late night last night, I simply didn’t want to wake everyone up early.  So we didn’t get up and get going until around 9am.

We then explored the Canyon Visitor’s Center and learned all about the volcano activity around Yellowstone. Then we spent a bit of time in the gift shop looking for just the right souvenir.  We wished we had room for this moose in the car.

Next we headed to a picnic spot where we cooked up some hot dogs on the grill.

Then on to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.  So beautiful!

I had hoped to take a hike along the rim, but we decided not to because of the threat of rain.  It didn’t rain on us for a while, but when it started raining, oh boy!  It rained hard for about 15 minutes. Fortunately, we were getting gas at the Eastern exit of the park, so we just hung out at the gift shop.

We didn’t really have a plan for the night since we didn’t have Internet or Cell service in Yellowstone.  So we actually had to (UGHH!) look at a paper map to get out of the park.  We made it to Cody, WY for dinner.  There we found it was Rodeo Night (in fact they have a rodeo every night in the summer).  We simply couldn’t resist.  So we ponied up for the Cody Night Rodeo.  What a kick!

We saw bareback riding, barrel riding, calf roping, and of course bull-riding.  It was a lot of fun for the whole family.  The best part, was the clown.  Despite several offensive, misogynist jokes, he put on a good show.

When it ended at 10pm, we still didn’t have any plans for lodging.  I couldn’t get AT&T service out here (apparently they don’t really do Wyoming), so we flying blind.  We pulled into a local hotel and they only had a “vacation house” left.  We took it and found it was a “double-wide” about 7 miles outside of town.  A bit scary to pull up to this strange home in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night.  But the kids liked it and it was a cozy night’s sleep. Plus, it has laundry facilities, so we got caught up on the dirty laundry.

Hopefully we’ll get AT&T reception somewhere today.  It’s been weird being completely “unplugged”.  It’s not so much the email/news that we miss.  But it’s the travel planning tools that we’ve come to rely on like Google Maps, Kayak, & Priceline.  How did they take vacations in the old days? 

Geyser gazing and a guided fishing tour

After two straight nights of fishing on the local lakes with absolutely nothing…not even a nibble… we decided we needed a bit of expert assistance.  So first thing this morning we headed off to the Lake Lodge and made a reservation for a Guided Fishing Tour.  We scheduled it for 6-8pm on Lake Yellowstone with a guide and a boat for our entire family. 

With the fishing tour as one bookend, we were ready to fill the rest of the day.  We headed over to Old Faithful.  It took a little over an hour in the car to get from the Lake to Old Faithful.  We arrived in time to walk around Geyser Hill and see Anemone, Plume, and Sponge Geysers erupting before finding a seat for the the big show.

 

We were all delighted when it erupted.  What a show!

We watched from the other side of Geyser Hill where the Ranger said it would give us a better view of the height of the blast.  Sure enough, it was enormous!

After the show we went on a tour of Old Faithful Inn.  So cute.  I think I prefer staying at the Lake Area, but Old Faithful was pretty nice.

We took in a few more features, like Old Faithful from up close, Grand Prismatic Springs, Fountain Paint Pots and the Firehole River.  Then we started heading back to the other side of the park to check into our cabin at Canyon Lodge and head to our fishing trip on the lake.  Unfortunately, it took us two hours to get back across the park because of traffic and construction.  So we pulled into the marina at 5:55 and went straight to our trip.

First we sped across the lake.

 

Then we started fishing.  On Madi’s first cast she pulled one up, but with the barbless hook rule in Yellowstone, the fish slipped off before our Fishing Guide could get it in the net.  We all saw it though and it looked great.  Eventually Matt caught two, I caught one, and Madi brought one onto the boat on her very last cast (when our fishing guide said “OK, guys, last cast then we need to head back).

 

By the time the fishing trip was over we were super satisfied with the day even if we were freezing and hungry enough to eat a moose.  We headed up to Canyon Lodge just stopping long enough to get some photos of Mule Deer, and a Grizzly.

We got to the cabin and cooked up some Ravioli on the stove and ate around 10pm then went right to bed.  Tomorrow we’re off to Cody, WY to take in a rodeo then head to Mt. Rushmore and points east…

Bears, and bison, and beer. Oh my!

Today we checked out of our quaint little cabin in the woods by Lake Jackson and explored some of the rest of the Grand Tetons before heading up to Yellowstone.

First, we drove to the Signal Mountain summit.  Such amazing views from the peak.

 

Then we drove down Jenny Lake and splashed around a bit.

Then, onto a 1.5 mile hike in the Lupine Meadows.

Until we reached a beautiful mountain stream to splash around in and have a snack.

 

Then we packed up and headed on to Yellowstone. This was at our arrival into the park, but since the sun was better on this side, we took a photo on the “leaving Yellowstone” side.

Between the parks is the John D. Rockefeller Memorial Highway, on which we saw our first grizzly bear.

 

Then onto Lake Yellowstone for some fishing and dinner.

When we arrived at the Lake Cabins, we were pleasantly surprised by the quality of the lodging.  Our cabin is essentially a modern hotel room with fine furnishings and amenities.  We can’t quite see the lake from our front porch, but it’s really pretty. Of course, as we approached our cabin we saw a full-grown bison walking beside the cabins grazing outside one of the doors. We didn’t get a photo, but it was pretty funny.

The Lake Lodge is beautiful.  It’s a huge log lodge with an enormous front porch overlooking the lake.  The kids were beat, so we let them crash in the cabin while Michelle and I went and watched the sunset and had a little time together by one of the fireplaces at Lake Lodge. 

What an amazing day.  Tomorrow we intend to head down to Old Faithful and the Geyser areas of the park for the day.