A flock of pelicans

Our last day in Yellowstone. We packed our things and checked out. On our way to our first stop, we saw a flock of pelicans on the lake and stopped to watch them. They were done eating, but were cool.


Pelicans in the lake

We made our way over to see the artists paintpots. They were supposed to be multi-colored mud pots, but were not. Some lady said that they had dried up recently.

We went to our last hike of the trip to Osprey Falls. We knew going in we wouldn't do the entire 9 mile hike because we had a 7 hour drive ahead of us. After about 2.5 miles we came across the first people we had seen- a man and his son. They told us they had ran across a bear about a quarter mile ahead in the trees. So we were excited to see bear, but not too close.

For the entire way through the trees, we were very cautious and looked intently for bears. It was very eerie because it was windy and the wind would whistle through the dead trees and make noises and the trees would rub up against each other and make noises. None of this would have fazed us if we didn't think there was a bear. Needless to say, unfortunatley we didn't see the bear.


Hike to Osprey Falls

We got to the turnoff and ate lunch. Another couple came by and the guy was hollering the whole way "hey bear" in an attempt to keep the bear away. Funny.

We went part of the way down and turned back because of time (and how steep of a hike we were facing). On the way back we ran into the man and his son again. Very strange.

We exited the park and are now on our way to salt lake city to rest before our flight tomorrow morning.

As we made our way in Idaho, we saw a ranch that had pronghorn antelope and they were running with each other. They were pretty fast.

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.....where the deer and the antelope play

We had a great day-nothing like we had planned (which typically annoys me), but great nonetheless.

To start, it was raining-consistently and hard enough to not want to take a long hike. We had planned to hike 9 miles to Osprey Falls, but the rain changed our minds.

We drove out to that area hoping that the rain would stop before we got there. It showed no signs of slowing, so we took it easy and enjoyed the scenery. We took a couple of detours and saw a great waterfall.

We passed osprey falls and went into Mammoth. We saw a bunch of elk as we went through town. Rachael tried to get some pictures of the buck, but he was in the grass. She tried to get closer, but startled another elk and decided it was best to leave them alone.

We went past and went to Wraith falls for a short hike. It had stopped raining so we did that and saw Undine falls. We went back into town and got a few things for lunch. On the way in, more elk were there and one huge buck was just sitting there like he was posing. Rach got some great pictures.

Undine Falls

Buck sitting and posing for pictures

We were close to Montana and wanted to at least say we had been to Montana so we went that way. We crossed into Montana (the 45th parallel-halfway between the equator and the north pole) and ate lunch.

Sign for 45th parallel

We were close to Gardner Montana so we left the park and went into town (truth to be told so I could get cell coverage to check emails!!!)

While I went through all 98 emails (seriously...) Rach did a little shopping, but didn't find anything but coffee.

As we went back through the gateway arch, Rach saw an animal so we stopped to look. It was a pronghorn antelope, one of about 200 in the park. It was very close and she got some real closeups. It was especially cool because we didn't expect to see any and that it was so close.

Pronghorn Antelope

We made our way back through mammoth and on towards our last stop. We decided to hike Slough creek. We took off (followed by some Russians from new york that didn't want to hike on their own) and promptly ran into a few mule deer right on the path. More great closeups (and the title for this blog entry....)

Mule deer along the path

Slough creek was a Great hike and wish we could have done more than the 4.5 miles we did, but it looked like it was going to storm again and it was getting late.

View of Slough Creek

Slough Creek

We headed through the rest of the lamar valley to see if we could find any moose (with antlers....) And bear. We saw a group of pronghorn antelope on the road (3 of them). That is how it has happened all trip-you don't see anything and then you see them all over the place! We saw another group stopped and they said they had seen a bear. Sure enough, about 5 minutes later a big grizzly bear showed up on the other side of the river! He was pretty far away but we saw him and got some blurry pictures.

Small Grizzly Bear between the trees

Lastly, as it was dark and on our way back, rachael spotted a couple of moose-another female and baby. A great way to end the day.

Another moose and baby (still no antlers....)

Great sunset through a forest of burned out trees

We are sad that tomorrow is our last day here, but excited for what we will see tomorrow!

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A day around the lake

We spent the day around lake Yellowstone today and did three hikes. We started with Natural Bridge, a stone bridge carved by a stream. It was a nice hike-not to difficult. My knee started giving me more trouble during the hike-still sore from the other day.


Natural Bridge

The next hike was up elephant back mountain. Not quite sure why they call it that. Supposedly the original survey party thought it looked like an elephants back, but we couldn't tell.

Anyway, it was a great hike and we ate lunch at an overlook that had a great view of Lake Yellowstone. We saw some rain coming so we started down. We got a little rain but not much. My knee just about killed me on the way down. I decided to change out shoes from my old hiking boots to my running shoes.

We went on our final hike around storm point. My knee felt so much better on the hike. I am throwing out the old hiking boots!

Ironically enough, a storm was brewing over storm point! We had to hurry back. On the way back we ran into a couple from reno and they said they had been to a bear course and were headed to lok for bear. We hadn't seen any and followed up the road. It started raining really hard and lightning so we packed it in and headed back to the lodge. We may try again another day.


Buffalo butting heads in the middle of the road

We enjoy the quiet days like today much more than the crowd-filled days at old faithful and canyon. But, you kind of have to go to the famous places. It would be like going to paris and not seeing the eiffel tower!

We are headed to dinner. We have an early morning and a lot of driving for our day tomorrow.

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Old faithful

As a postscript to yesterday, we went out after dinner and right down the road, we saw a group of three elk. So, they do exist!

We got up a little earlier today and went to the old faithful / geyser basin area. We stopped along the road to send email out.

Once we got there, Rach went to the visitors center and got the times for the geysers that are predictable. I was following slowly because my knee was killing me. I think I pushed too hard on sunday and screwed it up.


The greatest sign EVER! We loved seeing this everywhere.

Old Faithful was starting in 10 minutes so we went straight there. As soon as we walked up, it started! Talk about timing....


Old Faithful

From there, riverside was to start in 30 minutes. So we hustled there (limping) and made it there for a great view. It was really cool.


Riverside Geyser

The next was daisy and it erupted right on schedule. Along the way they have so many other formations.


Morning Glory pool

We ate lunch and sat down at giant geyser to wait. It will shoot water over 200 feet in the air. Worth the wait! While we were waiting, saw a little creature called a marmot hanging out by the geyser. Grand truly lived up to its name! It was spectacular and better yet, 1.5 hours early!


A small picture of a marmot - the little head in the middle of the picture

Grand Geyser - it was HUGE

We left the old faithful area and went to another geyser area that they listed would be erupting at 3:15. We got there right at that time. However, the sign at the geyser said 3:15 am. We decided not to wait!

Our last stop was the fountain paint pots. It started raining on us so we are going to call it a day and head back


Kepler Cascades - a great stop that I forgot to blog about!

We may go out at night and see if there are more animals at dusk.

Another great day!

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The long hike

We were a little sore this morning, but not too bad. Rach had a great idea to switch up our plan and not do Old Faithful on a holiday. We decided to do a long hike to two lakes, totalling about 10 miles.

We saw a group of otters playing in the lake on the way out, so we added that to our list of seen animals!

Otters!

It was a beautiful day and in the parking area for the trail, we were greeted by a moose and her baby. Rachael got some very good pictures. We have seen so many buffalo, but no moose or elk. We keep looking!

The moose (still no antlers.....)

The wonderful bear sign we were greeted with as we started our hike

About a half mile down the trail, we came around a corner and there was a buffalo just sitting by the path. Remembering the 30 miles an hour, we detoured around while keeping a close eye. Rach was watching him and not her steps and walked into a pile of buffalo crap, which we washed off her new boots in the next stream!

The buffalo in the path

Rachael's new boots - initiated with buffalo crap

We then saw another buffalo as we crossed a corner in another half mile. This one had a crazy look in his eye so we hurried and didnt take any pictures. We made it to the first lake without any other challenges. It was very clear (cascade lake).

Cascade Lake

A swan on Cascade Lake

We headed to the second lake (grebe lake). After a mile, I saw a guy waving at me and pointing. We saw a screech owl that they had been watching for two hours (they are a lot more patient than I am). It flew to another branch while we were there and we got a picture.

Owl in flight

Grebe lake was nice as well and we ate lunch and rested there. The great thing about the hike is that we only saw 4 people the entire way there -in stark contrast to the hundreds of people the day before!

Grebe Lake

Rachael in the water at Grebe Lake

On the way back, we came across more buffalo on the trail. Right after that we saw a coyote hunting for mice in the field. We got some great shots because we were pretty close.

The coyote in the path

We decided to do one more thing when we got done and went to the west thumb geyser basin and saw some more cool boiling springs. These weren't smelly though!

Very cool pool at West Thumb

We took a wrong turn on the way back, but made it safely and are headed for dinner. Tomorrow we will go to old faithful and hope that the crowds don't kill us!

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The grand canyon of the yellowstone

Our first day hiking in the park was great! We headed to the Canyon area for the day. On the road to canyon, we were greeted with a traffic jam caused by........buffalo! They were crossing the road and we had to stop. Rachael got another "extreme" closeup of these large beasts. Supposedly they can run 30 miles an hour, so we treat them with a great deal of respect.

Buffalo Crossing

Buffalo fording the river

We made it to the canyon area (after a detour due to poorly marked signs) and did the south rim area. One of the most famous spots is called Artists point. However, it was closed. Well, we wanted to see it anyway. So, after we saw the very cool lower falls (308 foot drop), we tried to go on the closed path. We decided against it after seeing the warning signs and that they had it closed off very well. We decided we didn't want to break federal law in two parks this year!

Lower falls

We finished with the south rim and went to the north rim for more hiking around the "grand canyon of the yellowstone". The name got to be a joke because they had it plastered everywhere and wondered if the real grand canyon was upset about the name being stolen!

Unfortunately for us, we hiked up and down three really steep trails that about killed us. We walked at least 7.75 miles, but it sure felt like more! It was cool, but we saw enough of it for the day! The walls of the canyon are yellow by the way, hence "yellowstone".

"Yellow" stone

After that, we had some time and decided to drive up to see tower falls. Along the way, a huge number of cars were stopped. We asked what was going on, so we pulled the tiny car off the road to see the wolf in the field. It was really tiny, but Rach took a picture as proof. You will have to trust us.

Here is the picture as proof of the wolf. It is tiny, but is near the tree in the middle of the pic.

After dragging the bottom of the car to get back on the road (its a rental), we made our way through the burnt forest to tower falls. Unfortunately, it was closed as well! We got some pics, but from far away.

Tower Falls

On the way back, we saw a coyote in a field and got some great pics from the side of the road.

Coyote in Heyden Valley

We then ended with a couple of thermal areas. The first was the sulfur cauldon, basically two giant pools of nasty, boiling, sulfuric acid! Very stinky ( and cool). We then went across the road to a whole set of pools, mud pots and other thermals. Also smelly and very cool. I have some great video that I will post when we get back.

Video of the nasty, stinky hot boiling pool (very cool...)

A very long day, but very enjoyable. We will see how sore we are in the morning!


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Yellowstone traveling fun

We started our trip to yellowstone early Sabbath morning. David White is a good friend and offered to pick us up at our house at the unkind hour of 5:45! Our flight was at 7:15 and took off on time.

We were blessed enough to both get upgrades to first class so we were able to get some sleep. We arrived in salt lake city on time and since we flew continental rather than delta, we got our luggage (that one is for ben!)

After getting our tiny rental car (a chevy cobalt), we started the long trip to yellowstone. We know it would be 6 to 7 hours. We spent a ggod bit in utah, more in idaho and a long time in wyoming. Idaho was a lot of wheat fields. Wyoming started the mountains and the national parks.

We decided to go through the Grand Teton national park on our way. When we first entered the park, it was a dirt road and I thought we were going to take forever and ruin the rental car to make it through. Luckily it turned into a paved road.

We saw the grand tetons and stopped at signal mountain for a great view. Signal mountain had a cell tower right there, so that was our last cell signal (which means I have no idea when this will go out!)

The Grand Tetons - grand indeed.

The last cell phone tower!

A view from Signal Mountain

Another view from Signal Mountain

We finally arrived in yllowstone around 7 in the evening-9 hours from when we picked up our car in salt lake city. It was a good but tiring trip. We got to our cabin and checked in and were headed to the lodge for dinner. A ranger-type person stopped us and told us that there was a herd of bison roaming through the area and offered to take us back to our cabin. Well, they were right next to our cabin, so we got an extreme closeup of them. That made for a good first night.

Entrance to Yellowstone

The bison by our cabin

A good first day!

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Home Safely

We made it home safely on Friday after a LONG travel day. We got to the airport in Athens at 6:30 AM. I was worried about our luggage and transferring in Athens. I thought we would have to claim and recheck our luggage in Amsterdam and if we would have enough time. Luckily, they were able to check our luggage through to Continental and Houston at the Olympic Airlines counter in Athens. That made me feel a lot better and took the stress off of the trip.

The flight to Amsterdam was uneventful. We didn't have to go out and check back in at Amsterdam - we just had to go clear to the other end - that is where the Continental gate was. Luckily we didn't have a time crunch. We made it no problem and had a good (long) flight back to Houston. No nasty people behind us trips trip.

We wanted to get back into the swing of things and didn't sleep much on the plane - only about an hour. That made us good and tired by the time we got back to Houston. Ben picked us up in Houston and we ate dinner and went to sleep around 9:00 and slept for 12 hours! We were a little tired.

a great trip and an uneventful return.

Final day-Athens

The ship arrived in Athens this morning. We got off the ship and caught a taxi to the hotel.

We arrived expecting to have to check our bags and come back later to check into our rooms. Well, thanks to Marriott and the request for early chrck in, we were able to check into our room at 9:30 in the morning! Yet another reason I love staying at Marriots.

They have a shuttle bus that runs to the city center every hour. So, we go downstairs to get on the shuttle. There was a pretty good sized line. The bus finally pulled up and people started to get on the bus. Well, the driver stopped people from getting on and asked for two more people. Naturally, the last two folks were right in front of us. I asked the driver if we could just stand and he said no, it is not permitted. Very annoying.

So, we asked the bellman if he could call us a taxi and he asked where we were going and we told him. He said we would be better off walking 800 meters (about a half mile) to the subway station. In his words "you don't want to deal with taxi drivers". I guess that means he didn't trust them.

Subways are fine with us, se we started walking. It was sprinkling a little and we thought our last day was going to be rainy. It kept spitting rain till we got to the subway.

We got on the subway and got to where we needed to go and we go outside and the sun is shining again. Go figure.

Our first stop was the Roman Agora and the tower of the winds. The tower was a way for them to tell time and wind direction-fairly advanced. From there, we were trying to find the ancient Agora, but I got turned around and ended up at the Acropolis. That actually worked out better in the long run.

- tower of the winds

The Acropolis was very cool. Very massive structures and pretty well intact. The only dissapointment is that they are doing conservation and reconstruction on most of the ruins in the Acropolis (including the Parthenon, the temple of Athena and the Polysporius). Those are the three main monuments. Even with scaffolding all around them, they are very impressive feats of craftsmanship. Hard to believe that it only took the Greeks 9 years to build the Parthenon. Ironically, they have been working on the restorations for longer than it took for the original construction!

- view of the Acropolis

- Parthenon

- porch of the Carytatids

They had a museum of the Parthenon as well that was good to walk through. They had a lookout that we could see other areas closeby, such as the temple of Zeus and the Olympic stadium.

From there, we walked though the ancient Agora and another museum. Very interesting. We also saw the only ancient temple that still has its original roof intact.

We then stopped and ate lunch at a restaurant and had some great greek food. We have had a lot of great food on this trip, but we are actually ready for some good chips and salsa when we get home!

While we were eating, a storm came up and we thought we might be in for a rainy afternoon. We could actually see the rain coming down close to us, but it blew by and we had great weather the entire day.

Our last stop was the musuem of ancient archaeology. Very worthwhile. Very impressive. Very large. We were beat by the time we were done.

We did get some bonus pix for our friends that we will post later.

- picture for Ben of ancient hockey players

We then took the subway back to the hotel and took a shower and walked down to a restaurant. More great greek food. I always find misspellings interesting. For instance, tonight Rachael had the "Mashroom" pie and I had the vegetarian kabobs with......"Mashrooms". Spelling aside, the food was fantastic.

Now we are done repacking the suitcases and are ready for the dreaded day of travel with multiple flights and tight connections. Joy.

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