Montpelier, ID to Wells, Nevada

Upon leaving Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons, we were very disappointed to have not seen a moose, but we saw one today – in Utah, of all places.  It was neat and totally unexpected!

We drove along part of the Oregon Trail Scenic Byway on our way to the Golden Spike National Historic Site in Promontory, Utah.  We decided to stop there because Grant loves trains and the history around them.  We got there just in time for the reenactment of the Golden Spike ceremony which was to complete the joining of the railroad tracks from the Atlantic to the Pacific. 

The Jupiter locomotive was already in place.  We saw the 119 locomotive come up, then they re-enacted the ceremony.  This was an important event because once the trains could run all the way across the country, the cost to get across the country went from taking 6 months and about $1000 to taking about a week and only $70.  The original ceremony was delayed by 2 days, from May 8 1869 to May 10, because the president of one of the railroads was kidnapped by his workers after failing to pay them for 60 days.  We learned that there were actually four special ceremonial spikes (two gold, one silver, and one gold and silver) that were not actually hammered into the ties, but that the actual final spike driven in was a real spike.  They even reenacted the telegraph messages sent during the original ceremony.

The United States flag flying at the ceremony only had 20 stars, even though there were 37 states at the time.  This was because the only flag available was a flag left over from the civil war when the country was divided.  The trains almost looked like toys, they were so elaborately painted.  These highly ornamental and decorative features were typical of everything, including trains, during the Victorian era.  It was interesting to see the different styles of railroad ties and compare those from the east to those from the west placed by 2 different companies.

As we drove across the state of Utah, we traveled on Interstate 80, past the Great Salt Lake, then the salt flats, and then the Bonneville Speedway, where they test high speed vehicles.

Yellowstone to Grand Tetons to Montpelier, ID

When we got up this morning, it was 30 degrees outside and we noticed the water in the hose was frozen when we unhooked it from the trailer.  We left Yellowstone today to drive through Grand Tetons National Park.  The Grand Tetons, with their tall, craggy mountain tops, are a very different look from the Yellowstone Mountains.  We caught one last picture of a waterfall as we left Yellowstone!

It was interesting to learn how the Tetons came to be a national park.  The mountains were declared a National Park very early on, but the valley around them was getting very developed.  John D. Rockefeller visited the area in 1926 and was dismayed by this, so he bought up much of the valley at the base of the mountains with the goal of donating them to the park system.  He offered them to congress, but because of political fighting, the donation was not accepted until about 10 years later, after Rockefeller threatened to sell the area.  The President declared the valley a National Monument (Monuments only need the President’s decree, but National Parks need votes from Congress) because he wanted to protect the area, and Congress tried to stop that as well.  Eventually the donation was accepted and thankfully we have the Grand Tetons National Park with mountains and valleys.

We stopped to look into the Teton Lodge because we heard about the view of the Range from inside it.  Rockefeller had the Teton Lodge designed so that the windows in the main room would have the best  view of the Teton Range.  It is a breathtaking view.  While we were there, people from the Teton Wildlife Refuge brought some birds to talk about them.  They brought a rescued Red Tailed Hawk and a Great Horned Owl.  The Kestrel Falcon they also brought was one of the handler’s hawks (she is a registered falconry hunter).  The Red Tailed Hawk became a little nervous and tried to escape, while weighing only 3 ½ lbs, she managed to drag her very heavy platform about 5 feet.

We stopped by Jenny Lake in the Tetons with a beautiful view of the mountains across the lake and we visited Menor’s Ferry where they have a replica of the ferry used to transport people and their belonging across the Snake River.  People on foot received free passage, because Menor believed if they could not afford a horse, they would be unable to afford the fare and he wanted people to be able to cross and help settle the area.

As we left the park, we stopped at the Chapel of the Transfiguration.  It had a view of the range through its window to equal the view at the Teton Lodge.

We had to take another picture of the Antler arches in Jackson, WY as we drove through.  We got to our campground at a reasonable hour and had a campfire and S’mores for dessert, the first time we were able to stop for the day before 7pm in about 5 days.

Yellowstone – Geysers, Geysers, and more Geysers

After the waterfall and canyon views of yesterday, today was very different.   We spent the entire day visiting the Geysers and other geothermal activity in Yellowstone.  One docent told us the geothermal activity at Yellowstone alone is larger than the sum of all the geothermal activity in all the other places in the world, by a good margin.

We saw our first geysers of the day up close at West Thumb Geyser Basin.  We particularly wanted to see the Fishing Cone Geyser.  Apparently there used to be an activity at Yellowstone called “Hook and Cook”.  Visitors would catch fish from the Lake and then cook them in a geyser that was right there on the shoreline.  There was an old picture of someone in a cook’s hat and apron standing on the edge of a geyser with a fishing pole, so he could dip the fish in the geyser immediately after he caught it.  The water in the deepest point of a geyser pool can exceed 199 degrees Fahrenheit!  Sandy loves the blue of the pools at the geysers – this is where the water is the hottest.  At this same location, we saw a bunch of geese in and around one of the pools.  One of them was even drinking from it.  Many animals frequent the geyser areas in the winter.  We saw lots of animal prints in the very soft ground around many of the geysers.  Also, the lake freezes over in the winter, but because there are hot springs in the lake, there are holes in the ice.  In the winter, otters jump in and out of the holes, catching fish from hole to hole.

On our way to Old Faithful, the most well-known geyser of the park, we stopped at the beautiful Kepler Cascades.  It was so pretty – we were very glad we stopped.  Old Faithful was scheduled to erupt shortly after we got there, so we sat and waited for it.  Grant took more than 50 pictures of it!  Then, we toured the other geysers around Old Faithful.  We got to several of them within minutes of their only eruption of the day.  A couple of them regularly reach heights taller than Old Faithful’s 106 – 184 feet.  However, Old Faithful is still the most predictable and frequent of the big geysers in Yellowstone.  We got to Grand Geyser just as it was starting to erupt.  It erupted steadily for more than 12 minutes and can sometimes   reach 200 feet.  There seemed to be almost one large and 2 little geysers erupting as part of Grand.  After Grand, we raced to Daisy because it was predicted to erupt in the next half hour.  It erupted right on time.  The Grotto Geyser, which only averages a height of 15 feet, was probably our favorite for shape.  It was interesting even when it was not erupting.  When it erupts, the eruption lasts for 1 ½ to 15 hours!!!  While Janine was still taking pictures at Grotto, everyone else noticed that the little Sawmill Geyser was erupting.  When she got there, she probably took 20 pictures, trying to catch the eruption on film – the geyser had decided to be camera-shy!  On our way back, we noticed two tall geysers erupting at the same time, Old Faithful and Beehive Geyser, which erupts only once or twice daily to about 150 to 200 feet.  It looked like Beehive was taller than Old Faithful.

Next we went to Old Faithful Inn.  This is one of Sandy’s favorite Inns.  We watched Old Faithful erupt while sitting on the upper deck.  Then, we were just in time to take a tour of the Inn.  Most of the early visitors to the park were very wealthy people.  They paid about $40 for a 5 day all inclusive tour of the park.  This was at a time when $2.50 was an average day’s wage.  They would travel by train to the northern, most accessible entrance of the park, then ride a stage all around the park.  When they would get to the Old Faithful area, they could only stay there about half a day because there was no lodging available in the area.  They complained about that, so the railroad (who arranged the tours) arranged to have an Inn built in the area.  The architect designed the Inn to look as much as possible like it grew there.  Much of the exposed wood inside and out was lodgepole pine cut about 5 miles from where the Inn was built.   There is even what looks like a treehouse way up in the top – they call it the crow’s nest.  We all loved the use of tree limbs in their natural form all over the inside and outside of the inn.  The architect came back in later years, even, and designed 2 additions to expand the lodging capabilities of the inn.  You can stay in one of the original 90 room, for about $96 per night.  The price is that low because the rooms do not have bathrooms in them.

When we left the Old Faithful area, it was very late, so we raced to see a couple more geyser areas before it got dark and also found another beautiful waterfall in the park.  Today was again a very long day, but we pushed to see everything we could because it was our last day in Yellowstone.