Capulin Volcano National Monument

Our last day on the road, we stopped at Capulin Volcano in New Mexico. The park ranger who checked our parks pass asked if we had been here before. Rich said it had been 17 years. The ranger said nothing had changed.



Connor and Di in the bottom of a volcano crater. The kids talked about going inside a volcano this entire trip. I think they thought it would be more active.


Views from the walk around the rim. Vents, lava flows, and other volcanoes are everywhere.


The van sits alone.


Another view from the top. We found our 600th cache right here.

And that's it for this trip! Our "states completed" geocaching list is growing. Next trip will probably be New England. Or Florida. Or the center of the country. Or somewhere else! Stay tuned!

Rocky Mountain National Park

After visiting friends in Fort Collins and Longmont, we headed up to Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park. Rich and I were here 17 years ago. The town is much bigger and busier.


We ate at this restaurant and shopped in the souvenir/gift shop both 17 years ago and this trip. That's a beaver dam in the pond. We saw beavers last time, but not this trip.


"The mountains are calling and I must go" ... John Muir


Incredible views all around


Ob shot of the kids!


On the way out of the park, down the west side of the mountains, we hit a rainshower, but were rewarded with a double rainbow.

The Swetsville Zoo

The Swetsville Zoo is a someplace that looks like it belongs in Austin, 'cept the skeeters are wimpy. The art is made mostly of old farm machinery.


Time for blast off!


Connor's favorite piece was a set of musical chimes and a big horn to tooooot.


Andrew's favorite piece was a set of ants marching to a picnic.


Now that's a bug!

South to the Tetons and some cool rock formations

Immediately south of Yellowstone National Park is Grand Teton National Park. If you are driving south, you don't have to use your parks pass to get into the Tetons. We didn't stop very much here, as we wanted to get as far south as possible today so we could make a side trip to Rocky Mountain National Park (and use our parks pass) before heading home.


Grand Tetons and lake


South of the Tetons were some very cool rock colors


How would you like that view in your back yard? Too bad they live on a US highway.

Last day at Yellowstone

We took one last swing through the park on our way south to Colorado. We stopped at many interesting features.


This is a glacial erratic which was moved here by a glacier. This type of rock didn't come from around here, hence the name erratic. Richard is shown for scale purposes.


A nice hike up and down hills brought us to a location where you could spot Upper Yellowstone Falls. There was another hike down (and back up !) about 300 steps, but we passed on that one.


The other way from the falls lookout. Lower Yellowstone Falls is down that-a-way. There, you can get pretty close to the falls via a short walk and 56 stairs. We did do that, and the boys both loved it. The canyon walls are colored in a way which leaves no doubt as to why this is called Yellowstone River.


The Dragon's Mouth. It stunk here. Hydrogen sulfide gas comes out of the ground all over this area. It was not a nice place to smell.


Sulfur Cauldron. More hydrogen sulfide. Icky.

Yellowstone - More Other Features

Bubbling pool


Bubbling mud


Twig geyser, my favorite


Clepsydra geyser. It erupted continuously while we were there.


Excelsior geyser. It erupts every 70 years or so and we're very glad it didn't erupt that day. The colors of this pool and the prismatic spring just up the hill were incredibly intense.

Yellowstone - Old Faithful

We spent a lot of time at Old Faithful and its geyser basin both days in the park. The first day we were there at suppertime, so didn't do the walk around. The second day we walked the walks to all the different geysers on the hill.


You wonder what part of the park you're in now...


A nasty little thunderstorm rained on us before the eruption. We didn't leave, reasoning that we'd get wet on the way back to the car anyway, and wouldn't see the eruption. The rain was cold.


The thunderstorm didn't last long and left us with a gorgeous double rainbow.


The requisite shot of Old Faithful. I'm adding the duration/interval dataset to my Model Building class.

Old Faithful was really amazing. It steams all the time, and then a couple of minutes before it erupts, it starts teasing with small jets of water. Cameras start clicking... Then it really erupts. It's not the tallest, or really the prettiest, but somehow it was the common favorite in our family.


The boys got erupting pens as a reward for staying on the boardwalk and not falling off and killing themselves. Three eruptions at once!

Yellowstone - Other Features

On the road south to Old Faithful.


Sheepeater Cliff. Columnar basalt which has broken off and tumbled down in ancient times.


Water bubbling from the earth. The magma (said with appropriate accent) is about 3-5 miles deep in Yelllowstone, and even shallower in places.


Gibbon Falls


We got lucky and this geyser erupted when we were driving around it.

Yellowstone - Mammoth Hot Springs

We came into Yellowstone through the north entrance. It was a short wait, maybe 20 minutes, to get into the park, then on to Mammoth Hot Springs. We spent a long time here, walking the trails and shooting lots of pictures. This is just a sample of the amazing features.


Minerva Terrace. In other pictures we've seen, there's been water coming down this hill. There wasn't any this time, perhaps it's going down the other side of the hill.


A happy little toxic tornado.


It was cool to see how the trees were gradually being covered by the springs. We saw this throughout the park.

Glacier National Park

We only got to spend one day here, but wish it could have been more. There is a road through the park called Going to the Sun road, very scary driving on the side of a mountain. I got to drive it both ways, it was fun! The smoke from the fires obscured lots of the good scenery, unfortunately. I'm writing this entry 6 days later, and they are still fighting the fires.



Waterfall along Going to the Sun road


Smoky mountains.


We had stopped to get a geocache. It meant walking back along the narrow road and taking a picture. Richard did the walking. I took the picture, and to distract my mind from him getting killed on the way back, I took pictures of the scenery.


Mountain goat got in our way. We backed off.


All of us at a lookout.


Jackson Glacier, one of the only ones you can see from the road. We did a lot of hiking, but the hikes to the glaciers were too long for us!


A hike led us down to this waterfall. There was a geocache at the bottom. It was one of those where the GPS said it was a tenth of a mile as the crow flies, but turned out to be a half mile climb down a hill and back up.


Sunset over the lake.

Sunday update

I changed some settings this morning, like enabling pings, for those of you reading this via a reader. I also changed the time zone from Sydney to Central Time, even though we're really in Mountain Time.

Montana

There is a bear in the creek, between the tree that looks like an aspen and the two short spruces. At least, it's a rock that moves. There were many fishermen in this river as well.


A moose. There were two females in the bushes behind him.


The stream outside the sapphire hunting place. We found 5.58 carats of cuttable sapphires. The largest was 2 carats.

There are wildfires in these mountains. The smoke looks like clouds from far away, and like fog from close up. There are "incident bases" all along the route we took to get to Missoula for the night. They launch helicopters and trucks from them. The helicopters deliver both water to the fire, and firemen in parachutes -- smoke jumpers. This fire has been raging for a week.

Hill AFB Air Museum

The boys under a B-1.




Commanders Andrew and Connor prepare for rescue operation.






They had a paper airplane contest. If it had been for distance, Andrew would have walked (flown) away with the win. As it was, the contest was for duration, so he didn't.






Commander Connor prepares for take off.





The other simulator they enjoyed was the jet fighter. Sorry the picture is rotated. I can't figure out how to change it just now.



Andrew in front of a stealthed B-2.


This is a C-47, based on a DC-3, my favorite plane.


The B-1 again. Can't get it entirely in the shot.