Poppa visits Yellowstone, Part 2

Sorry about some of the pics - had the camera on a funky setting.

So, pops had the best and probably most memorable time up in the fancy town of Jardine, MT. We were actually just driving around, sightseeing, when a glint of chrome caught his eye. Turns out that the Bear Creek gulch area is a dumping ground for old cars. Pops was like a kid in a candy store. We roamed the hills for hours and found at least 20 mangled cars scattered around. Looks like more are buried - like someone ran over part of it with a bulldozer at some time. He was very excited to find an old Ford tailgate, which will be hanging in his garage soon.

So the day poking around Jardine was probably the best, but we did end up getting ticks crawling on us. Oh well.

The last day we drove along the Northern Range out to Cooke City, MT. We were looking for wolves, but unfortunately didn't see any. Saw a couple of griz WAY up on a mountain through the scope. Sleeping bear. Oh, head up bear. Oh, sleeping bear again. Not very exciting action. Had lunch in Cooke, man, that road is still torn up. Beartooth pass closed due to avalanches, so we turned around and drove back.

All in all, not a bad trip! Pops got to see baby elk, moose, bears, bison, and quite a few adults. Didn't make it too far into the park - missed the whole lower loop - but that left more for the next trip. I am making him come out during the rut this year (either elk or bison) so that should be fun.

Later.

Poppa Visits Yellowstone! (finally!)

[Poppa scoping for grizzly - Dunraven Pass]

Well, he had been threatening to visit for months, but finally made it out of Spokane for a visit! Mom stayed behind to tend her plants and work on some landscaping jobs, so it was just me and poppa for a few days. My boss was nice enough to let me off work for a few days - and we had a great time. From the photos, it doesn't look like we spent much time in the park, but we actually did.

We hit the Northern Range first - heading out to Tower Falls. Saw the pass was open, so we went on to Canyon for dinner. Saw a black bear at Tower, watched a boar Grizzly through the scope on the north side of Dunraven Pass. Then as we were driving to Canyon, saw a sow and cubs right on the road.

The water is running high - so the view of Lower Falls was quite impressive.

Made it back to Gardiner and enjoyed an evening in my flat.

More later...

More photos from the trip.

Aims and Jessi in Capitol Reef, Ellie ges camping at Bryce Canyon, and "eamiller blue ribbon beef" (that's for you Urk!)

Road Tripping through the spring

OK, so my sister has guilted me into actually updating this blog (well, starting it, really...)

So far it has been a very busy year - hard to believe it's half over already! The past two months I have been on two major trips, both for work. The first was to Ft. Collins, CO for a week of schmoozing with other GIS folks and talking about data. We got stuck in a bad snowstorm in Rawlings, WY and had to scramble for hotel rooms, but it all worked out in the end. Met Dick Butkus at the hotel as well. Great yarn store in Ft. Collins - Lambspun. Headed over there with a couple of conference attendees one evening - very cool place! Also found a great knit shop mapping mashup - http://www.knitmap.com/ that everyone should check out.

The second was for 2 weeks of training at Grand Canyon NP. Decided to extend the trip an extra week when I convinced Aimee to fly in to Salt Lake and drive to Vegas beforehand. Jessi decided to go along once she heard about the trip.

So Jessi and I took off from Gardiner early (relatively) in the morning 4/16 - got to the McD's in West Yellowstone to discover snow berms taller than Ellie!

We made it to SLC in time to pick up Aims at the airport, hit the motel, and head to IKEA for a super shopping trip and lunch. From SLC we headed south through Utah, visiting Capitol Reef, Escalante-Grand Staircase, Brice, and Zion, finally ending up in Las Vegas.

Only 2 nights in Vegas

:-(

Didn't have time to do all we wanted to, but drank free drinks, ate, gambled, and experienced The Star Trek Experience. Sent Jessi and Aims home on planes while Ellie (aka the TARDIS) and I drove on to the Grand Canyon for a couple weeks of NPS training. More on that later.