Category: National Parks and Monuments

  • ^^^The inlaid wooden map that gives the Map Room in Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel its name. The Carolinas were very much on my mind. Saturday was another day of perfect weather. We left Mammoth Hot Springs Terrace behind and drove north to Gardiner, Montana, for coffee and breakfast at the Two Bit Saloon and to…

  • On Friday, Judy joined us again and guided us to the areas where wildlife is most often spotted. We drove to the Lamar Valley where wolf watchers scan the meadows for members of the packs that were re-introduced there years ago. Judy spotted a wolf and aimed her spotting scope at it so we could…

  • I guess that I thought Old Faithful would be one solitary nature soul surrounded by humans looking at their phones. In a way, it was, but it was one feature in a large field of thermal pools, geysers, and bubbling springs called the Upper Geyser Basin. While we waited for it to erupt, Judy and…

  • Judy met us for coffee and we got on the road reasonably early for us. First we drove up to the top of Mammoth Hot Springs Terrace where a good photographer obliged us to take photos of the three of us. This is the lookout over the top of the terraces. You can see the…

  • We eased out of Driggs after breakfast and a handmade doughnut at Yeti’s Post and a quick visit to the kind folks at Teton Arts Council. Instead of going back through the parks, we chose highways 33 and 32 to enjoy the flowing hay and wheat fields and small towns in the Teton Valley on…

  • ^^^Overlooking Jackson Hole from the Teton Pass ^^^The view of the Tetons from the “other” side in Driggs, Idaho, near our AirBNB. We didn’t really have an agenda on Monday so we went looking for a late breakfast and ended up eating at Barrels and Bins, a natural foods grocery in Driggs, which reminded me…

  • Craters of the Moon NM blew us away! I knew it was volcanic in origin, but I did not expect it to look like it did. As we drove up the highway, the landscape gave way to rows of jagged black rock. It looked like some giant had plowed a field there. Across the road…

  • We sidetracked over to Jerome, Idaho to visit a very ugly part of our nation’s history: Minidoka National Historic Site. I don’t know about these days, but I never learned about the U.S. Japanese internment camps in history class. Racism is ingrained in our culture in both major political parties. Not many of the buildings…

  • I’m taking a personal day to recharge after a particularly sweet and inspiring art retreat weekend with members of Tapestry Weavers South at Epworth-by-the-Sea on St. Simons Island. It is a lovely venue and the price was very reasonable for three nights and all meals. We were lucky that even though most of the Southeast…

  • That morning we went to Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument and saw the petrified stumps of ancient redwood trees. We walked the trails a little. They were gentle. It was a gorgeous day. We were disappointed that we couldn’t pick up fossils, but I guess that’s why it is protected with national monument status. There…