Zion NP & Provo

Our trip is winding down now. Darren and I have reached Zion National Park, our last National Park in the Western U. S. Although this park is beautiful, it is getting late in the year and as such is very, very cold. The beginning temperature of our hike to Angels Landing was 1 below zero and maxed out at 22 degrees above zero later in the day. As long as we kept moving we were fine.

The hike to Angels Landing was beautiful and the last half mile was very intense. The path becomes very narrow with sheer cliffs on both sides. The park service installed chain link ropes for hikers to hold on to so they do not fall to their deaths enjoying the outdoors. The hike was well worth the views we enjoyed once we reached our final destination; however, I learned I am not at all interested in mountain climbing.

We also hiked upper and lower Emerald Falls and Hidden Valley while we were in Zion. We were limited to where we could hike on these trails as many had frozen areas with massive icicles. As a result, the park services closed many trials and parts of trails due to the danger these conditions posed. Darren, the man we all know and love, tried very hard to convince me to ignore the closure signs and press forward. However, Tracy’s good sense prevailed (read nagging, paranoia). The excruciating sound of ice cracking as the massive icicles fell certainly helped make my argument. Better luck next time Darren.

We stayed in the little town of Springdale while we visited Zion National Park. We went exploring and found some very unique shops. Alex, we went into this one shop that reminded Darren and I of you. They had outdoor furniture made of metal. One was a chair and ottoman in the shape of a large and small leaf, and the other was a butterfly where the arm rests were the wings. They were really cool. We also visited a ranch that raised buffalo and elk. Very different from our Yellowstone days. They are much better to observe in their own habitat.

We attended a Christmas musical while we stayed in Springdale. The stage was a simple Christmas scene and the cast consisted of 6 people. The show was impressive considering the low cost production. Our favorite musical number was a Christmas song written to the “Raw Hide” melody. Hilarious!!!!!! We liked it so much we bought the CD mostly for that one song.

After Zion we spent a few days in Provo, Utah checking the area out and riding our bikes along the Provo River. Nice area, close to the mountains, lakes, skiing, etc. but more populated than we expected and the drivers were downright rude.

We are now at Darren’s dad and step-mom’s house. We are spending a few days here relaxing and getting re-aquainted with reality. Translated: Tracy has to do all of her Christmas shopping in three days. One hour at the mall and I’m very stressed out. So much for 12 months off and being care free.

Sometime next week we should be back in the Bay Area. We are going to stay at Tracy's parents through Christmas (look out Gibby, Tracy's got a guy in her room!) then head back out and down to Yuma. Hope to see some of you. We are really looking forward to seeing our friends and family!

Cedar City, Valley of Fire, Bryce

We had a lot to be thankful for this year. My Dad and Diane driving down to meet us for Thanksgiving was a wonderful surprise and of course being able to take this trip is something we are very thankful for.

When we got to Valley of Fire it turned out the campground was full. But no problem, the ranger pointed us to some BLM land on top of a Mesa. It turns out there's a number of snowbirds who spend the winter there. No water or electricity but the price is right (free). Moreover it is a relatively warm location, with views of the desert surrounding the mesa (if you like that) and Lake Mead and the town of Overton are about 15 minutes away. When we arrived there were already 30+ RV'ers and a half dozen or so more were arriving daily but it's a big mesa so everyone is far apart from each other. It made me think of a scene out of the movie Independence day after all the city's had been blown up and a bunch of RVer's were hiding out in the desert. The place however was surprisingly clean and orderly for something that is completely unorganized with no central authority.

Anyway we had a great Thanksgiving there. Tracy made a full on traditional dinner: 10lb turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, green beans, biscuits, pie and ice cream, etc. All cooked from scratch, in a motorhome, with no access to water or electricity other than what we carried or generated ourselves. We played games, watched a little TV (actually got two stations out of Salt Lake City), visited around a campfire with neighbors and took some short hike's in the Valley of Fire park. Come Sunday we left for Cedar City and my parents for their home, all a little heavier and having enjoyed each others company.

Cedar City is a small town (maybe 30k permanent residents) but it has a surprising amount of things to do thanks to the university located here and tourism. Cedar is also known as Festival City because it has so many festivals. The Shakespeare festival is the biggest: it has won a Tony award, lasts 9 months long and has up to 7 different plays playing at one time during the height of the season. It is very much like Ashland, though I'm guessing not quite to their level of sophistication. However in addition to the Shakespeare festival, they also hold music festivals, the Utah summer games (an olympic like event), a road biking event ala Tour D'France, and various other festivals. Hence the nickname Festival City. Furthermore they are a 1/2 hour from Cedar Breaks National Monument and Dixie National Forest (lakes, hunting, hiking); 45 minutes from Brianhead ski resort; 1 1/2 hours to Bryce or Zion national parks and you can even make a long day trip to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon if you wish. I would recommend it for a week or longer vacation. It's probably too hard to get to, to make anything much shorter worthwhile. Jeff you should really give it a try sometime in addition to the normal Ashland trip.

There are regional airline affiliates that fly to Cedar from Vegas and Salt Lake but if it were me I would fly into either of those two airports and then rent a car to drive from there. It's about a 3 hour drive from either but you are going to want a car once you get here anyway.

While staying in Cedar City we took a day trip up to Bryce (pretty drive) and did some hiking. Wall street, the most popular hike, was closed due to rock falls but we did get to hike all around that area and it was very beautiful (picture at top is of hoodoo's at Bryce). We also got to meet a great couple while there, Bob and Donna from Minnesota. We hiked and had dinner at Ruby's Inn together (good place to stay if you are in the area). We decided not to park the motorhome at Bryce however as the local RV campgrounds were either closed or they had turned off the water and electricity. A cold storm came through while we were here (apparently lots of snow in Seattle and the midwest suffered through a blizzard with a number of deaths). Even in Cedar City it was in the 20's during the day and single digits at night, much colder than normal for this time of year. Bryce at a few thousand feet higher was well below 0. We just didn't want to subject our motorhome and ourselves to overnight in those temperatures if we didn't have to, especially with no outside electricity.

Cedar City was great, real estate was relatively cheap with some great views but it's high desert. I've decided the desert is a great place to visit and I'd love to come back on vacation for a week or two but I don't want to live there. We've only spent about a month in it so far and already I've had enough.

That being said, next stop Zion! Ugh, more high desert.

Grand Canyon NP

I've been to the Grand Canyon before but it was all new to Tracy. We arrived on a night with no moon so I promptly took her to Bright Angel overlook and said well there you go, trust me there's a big ditch out there, can we leave now? Well at least I found it amusing.

Anyway here is her first real view the next day. This big hole averages 10 miles across, 5,200 ft. deep from the south rim and is over 100 miles long. The north rim is actually 1,000 ft higher but you can't really tell by looking at it. Visually it seems at about the same height.

We walked along the rim for half the day stopping at Bright Angel for some refreshment. While there I saw a brochure for Phantom Ranch, down at the bottom and figured well it can't hurt to ask. Guess what, we were able to make reservations for the next night in the dorm and the night after that in a cabin. People reserve it a year in advance and we were lucky enough to show right after some last minute cancellations. Too cool!!!

This is one of those hikes you want to do in your life if for nothing else than to say you did it.

The next day we hiked down canyon via the Kiabab trail with nothing but our camelbacks full of water and a change of clothes on our back. Phantom Ranch provides the beds, linen, hot showers, soap and towels, breakfast, dinner and various snacks. This is the best way to go, who needs a 40lb pack, let the mules carry what you need.

The Kiabab is 5,200 vertical ft. of continuous steep and very deep steps. No water, no flat parts, just 9 miles of down, down, down and more down. Talk about knee crushers, mine were absolutely killing me the next day. If you ever get a chance to go, get into shape first, then do it. But! take the Bright Angel trail both down and back up, and make sure you have two walking sticks. The Kiabab trail is for the uninformed or masochistic (guess which we were).

You also want to try real hard to get a cabin at Phantom (or pack in a tent if you must). Never stay in the dorm! Getting 4.5 hours of sleep between multiple tough days of hiking doesn't cut it. You see lights out in the dorm is around 10pm but people are stubling around, going to the bathroom, snoring, etc. so it's very hard to get any sleep (even with the earplugs and nighttime tylenol I brought). Even worse, wake up call for the first breakfast is 5am (yes 5am) and many people go straight from breakfast to hiking back up to the rim. So the lights in the dorm are all on, people are getting ready and packing, etc. You will be up and 5am and you will not be able to go back to sleep.

The second day we did a 12 mile hike along the bottom of the canyone to this waterfall and back. The hike is actually prettier, in my opinion, than either the Kiabab or the Bright Angel trail down from the South Rim to Phantom. Moreover, since it does a gradual gain of 1,200 ft. in elevation over it's 6 mile length each way, it's actually pretty easy. It's a good off day between your knee crusher day getting down into the canyon and your exhausting day getting back up.

While on this off day hike we also met Maverick. Tracy's into dirty, old, men so as you can imagine I had some trouble pulling her away from this stud. And yes I must admit he is just a bit more studly than I. You see Maverick is 80 years old. He lives at the South Rim and decided to celebrate his 80th year by trying to do 80 Rim to Rim's in that year. A Rim to Rim is 24 miles from the South Rim to the North Rim, 5,200 ft down and 6,200 up the other side (or vice versa). This nut wanted to do 80 of them in one year! The year of his 80th birthday! Outrageous!

Let me put this another way. 80 Rim to Rim's would be 1,920 miles and almost a million vertical ft. (456,000 vertical ft. down then 456,000 back up) all in one year, for an 80 year old man!

Maverick was nice enough to stop hiking and talk to us a little while, well OK mostly Tracy flirted with him. Turns out he wasn't going to make 80 Rim to Rim's that year. Nope, he had finished number 80 well before the year was up, so he figured what the heck, I'll try for 100! But he wasn't on his 100th Rim to Rim when we met him. Nope this was number 101 and he still had 2 weeks to go before the year was up! He figured he might get in 110 Rim to Rim's. 80 years old, over 100 Rim to Rim's, in one year!!!! I swear this is all true. A physical therapist we met at Phantom told us about him and to keep an eye out, the day before. We got lucky and ran into him while hiking the next day. Talk about older people accomplishing amazing things!!! There's a ghost writer working on a novel about him which you should be able to get on Amazon soon. Proceeds go to a foundation he set up to encourage kids to be more active.

Leaving Maverick to finish his hike, we headed back to Phantom Ranch. That night we got to spend the night in a private cabin, yeah sleep! We had the first dinner seating-- rib eye steak, green beans, corn, baked potato, salad, cornbread, etc. I wolfed down every bite, went back for seconds and it all seemed to dissappear before ever hitting my stomach (remembrance of what it was like when I was 18 years old). Then we went to bed.... fast asleep by 8pm!

The next morning we were up for that 5am breakfast and on the trail heading up as soon as it was light enough, about 7am. It's 12 miles and still that 5,200 vertical feet back up the Bright Angel trail (Bright Angel is longer than Kaibab but also much nicer). The first half up to Indian Garden camp area, where there is water available, isn't too bad; but the second half is mostly switchbacks straight up a 3,000 ft cliff. Regardless, it really is true what they say, going down is harder (or at least more painfull) than going back up. We got to the Rim at 1:15pm; having almost beat the mule's. We made it!!!!

We also got a cool surprise when we got back to our motorhome. My dad and stepmom had left us a message offering to drive 11 hours down to Valley of Fire State Park to meet us for Thanksgiving if we would drive 6 hours up to it. So we did; but that's another story.... :)

Indian Nations

From Durango we headed through the Indian Nations (four corners area) towards the Grand Canyon.

The Indian Nations is huge, desolate and probably the most inhospitable desert country in the US. This is not a good place to run out of gas, or anything else for that matter. No wonder we sent all the indians to reservations here. I can't think of a better way to cause a whole people to wither away and die. Of course lately the laugh is on the US as oil and especially abundant natural gas was discovered in some parts of the Nations, making the Southern Ute Tribe millionaires. My relatives from Europe liked the four corners area because they don't have anything like it. Well some of the red rock formations and desert landscapes are amazing but if you ask me they can have it. Maybe we can trade for part of Italy or something.

We stopped at the Petrified Forest / Painted Desert National Park. It's worth a stop and an afternoon if you are passing by but I wouldn't make a specific trip here. The most interesting thing is the petrified wood.

As you can see most of the wood was cut into rounds.

And here is another picture showing where they split the rounds into quarters. See all the chips?

However this same wood is now actually stone. It was petrified by mineral carrying water seeping into it, hundreds of millions of years before man existed on this planet. Scientists have accurately dated it.

Proof of life on other planets! Aliens on vacation obviously landed there RV at this location way before we even existed and enjoyed a good campfire.

Ye Ha! Durango

Durango is a cowboy town. We spent a full week here taking care of business (escrow closed on our second rental property) and just enjoying the town. The downtown area is all centered on one street, main street, and what a fun street it is. Bars, Restaurants, a new release movie theatre, an artsy movie theatre, a vaudeville theatre, etc. all in one street within walking distance of each other. Fort Lewis college is also here so there's a decent amount of music, art and culture too. More importantly the people here are really friendly and down to earth. This is not Aspen or Vail, its still got the feel of a working persons town.

Our hangout was Diamond Belle's, a saloon right out of gunsmoke. Long mahogany bar top, naked lady portrait on the wall, server and bartender wearing old western outfits (wo ho), real cowboys hanging around having a beer, singer playing a guitar or piano at night, etc. It was part of the Strater Hotel, again authentic old west complete with outfits, where we ended up spending the night one night (a beer turned into another.....). In additon to the Bar, the Strater has a high end restaurant, a second appetizer, drinks and music bar with a more upscale theme and the vaudeville theatre.

The town is surrounded by national forest-- great 4x4, mountain biking, hiking, fishing, etc. -- ranches, farms and purgatory ski resort (renamed Durango Mountain Resort recently) is about a half hour from downtown. The animas river with whitewater rafting and a kayak challenge course runs right through the town. We really liked the area and would recommend a vacation here to anyone. If you do, try real hard to get rooms at the Strater. You will not be sorry.

We also decided this was probably not the place to settle down. We really liked it but it is surrounded by purple sage. If it was bugging my and Tracy's allergies this much in the fall, it would be totally miserable when it is pollenating season.

Still I would come back here for a week vacation in a second.



Oh yeah, while we were here we also went to Mesa Verde National Park. The tour of the ancient Cliff Dweller homes was great. Well worth the trip.

Moab: Canyonlands & Arches NP

We are in Moab, Utah right now. Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park surround the tourist town of Moab. This is the place if you like to mountain bike and four wheel drive in the backcountry. Come in the Spring or Fall, there are less people, temps 60-75 during the day, 35-40 at night and there is still no rain. Temps during summer days are 100+, sometimes as high as 115, no thank you!

Anyway the Colorado and Green rivers meet near here. It is high (5000ft+) desert with beautiful and sometimes creepy red rock formations.

We got here about 2pm but decided to head up into Arches for a hike anyway. We went on the hike to Delicate Arch, the most photographed natural arch in the world and pretty much the signature hike for the park. Seeing Delicate at sunset is pretty cool as it really brings out the different shades of red in the rock and sky.

It’s kind of hard to describe the different rock formations in the area: natural arches made of red stone, towers that just stick up out of nowhere, long fins of rock with narrow slot canyons in between, rock bowls of various shades of red, flat mesa’s that all of a sudden end in 1000ft+ drops of sheer red cliff walls. All carved by water and erosion; especially weird when you consider it rarely rains here.

The next day, our first full day here, we did most of the hikes in Arches NP. It was kind of a Natural Arches day kind of like we had a geyser day in Yellowstone. We saw at least 12 major arches, all of which our motor home and most houses could easily fit under. The biggest, landscape arch, is over 380’ long. Picture an arch of rock only 6ft thick, a hundred feet up in the air which a football field can fit under. They say this arch could fall any day or continue it’s existence another 100 years, no one knows.

My favorite part of Arches however wasn’t an Arch. The hike from Landscape Arch to Double O Arch takes you across some very pretty terrain. One part, my favorite, is where you are actually hiking on top of a rock fin the flat part of which is maybe 4ft wide and hundreds of feet down. It traverses the end of a valley with numerous colorful fins jutting up. Kind of scary the first time you do it (we were already used to it by the time we made the return leg) and absolutely gorgeous!

Having spent two days hiking around Arches, we had seen most of what there is to see. We spent the next day in Canyonlands which is much bigger. Canyonlands is divided into three main areas by the Colorado and Green rivers which meet in the Park: Canyonlands, the Maze and the Needles. The Maze is an appropriately named area of a bunch of intersecting slot canyons between 1000ft sheer fins of rock. It is the place where that guy got his arm pinned between a bolder and the rocks walls of the canyon. He eventually had to self amputate it off above the elbow it order to get free then walk many miles to get out of the area. I read the book and it is an amazing story of what people can do when the only other choice is death.

Anyway we drove around the Canyonlands area stopping at and taking short hikes to various overview area’s. Canyonlands is all about the canyons. It is a high mesa plateau (7000ft?) where you walk to the edge at various points and check out the beautiful rock walled canyons below. Picture standing on a gigantic table. Rock walls go straight down 1000ft on all sides to another table like area. This larger table below then drops down another 1000ft+ straight down to the valleys below. You can see for hundreds of miles in all directions and the landscape just looks like a bunch of flat levels with huge gashed out valleys cut into them.

It’s almost noon, time to head out. Next stop Durango.

Grand Junction area

After leaving Fort Collins we headed down through Denver and then across 70 to the Grand Junction Area.

Highway 70 between Denver and Grand Junction is a testament to engineering skill, particularly the stretch from the Eisenhower tunnel through Glenwood Canyon. The Eisenhower tunnel is at 11,400 ft. and is drilled for about a mile straight through the base of a rock mountain. The Glenwood Canyon portion which follows is a very pretty, steep, narrow canyon with the Colorado River running through it. The 15 miles or so of highway that goes through it might as well be one long bridge as it is effectively attached to the rock cliff on one side or the other the whole way.

First stop was Glenwood springs at the end of Glenwood Canyon. This is a nice tourist town with a famous hot springs hotel and equidistant between Aspen and Vail ski resorts. It is also a place where people start off on backcountry horseback riding trips, whitewater rafting trips on the Colorado and various other fun pursuits. While there we went on a hike up to hanging lake, a pretty little lake that appears to just hang on the edge of a valley. Kind of like a natural infinity pool.

The next day we went on a 28 mile bike ride up Glenwood Canyon and back. It’s pretty cool they have a paved bike path the whole way from Glenwood Springs up to the end of Glenwood Canyon separate and slightly below the highway. It is from this bike path that you can appreciate what an engineering feat the highway really is. This was our favorite bike ride so far, even including the long ride on the beach we did in Oregon.

We then left Glenwood Springs and did a short one hour drive down to Parachute where my Uncle Bill lives. Bill retired in Parachute and was a great host! I’ve never gotten to know Uncle Bill much because he always lived in Colorado. So it was a special treat to be able to spend a few days with him. We really enjoyed the time we spent talking around the kitchen table, playing bocce ball on the court he built in his backyard, playing chess and the trip we took up to Grand Mesa one day. I think Bill may have thrown a couple of those games to encourage his nephew to return. It was a great visit, I hope to be able to do it again.

After leaving Uncle Bill’s we again traveled a short hour down to Grand Junction. Grand Junction got it’s name from the Colorado river which runs through it, originally called the Grand.

This town is somewhere to seriously consider if you are thinking of making a real estate investment. It is growing thanks to a heavy influx of retiree’s (prices are still cheap and healthcare is top notch). Additionally natural gas wells which are in the area have recently been developed and it is where people go for major services from all of eastern Colorado and Western Utah. People from hundreds of miles around come to Grand Junction for healthcare, significant purchases, etc. Additionally there is a college, Mesa College, which gains university status next year (this always encourages local business development) and the oil companies are starting development of facilities to extract oil from the extensive oil shale deposits in the area. They say there may be as much oil in the oil shale as there is in all of Saudi Arabia; however, it is much more expensive to extract. Thus development depends on price remaining high over the long term. In my opinion, on a % basis, real estate prices will do better here than in most area’s of the country over the next 5-10 years.

Grand Junction also borders the Colorado National Monument which is a bunch of red rock bluffs and formations cut into a Mesa. The monument is a harsh and beautiful area well worth a visit. We went hiking in Monument Canyon for a day. If you ask me the only reason this hasn’t been designated a national park is that it is relatively small (compared to Yellowstone, Yosemite, etc.) and that it’s name is non-descriptive and stupid. They should call it Redrock National Park or something similar.

Anyway we liked Glenwood Springs, Parachute and Grand Junction in that order but we liked Fort Collins, Couer D’alene and Anacortes even more. I would choose to live here over the Bay Area but Tracy probably wouldn’t and there didn’t seem to be any work in my field anyway. Few company headquarters are located here and almost no high tech. Most businesses are of the more stable type and don’t require a lot of financial modeling and planning. (pictures to be posted later when we have a better internet connection).

Fort Collins, CO area

From the Grand Tetons we traveled down and over through Wyoming to Fort Collins, CO. This was a long 8 hour drive through some desolate and ugly high desert. I mean there is nothing there, no water to speak of, no trees, no interesting colored rock formations, interesting towns … nothing. If you ever get a chance to drive through eastern and southern Wyoming, pass.

Once we got to Fort Collins though everything changed. This is a really nice mid sized town. The population is about 120k. It has many miles of dedicated bike paths along rivers, old train right of ways, etc. and quite a few parks. It has a major college, University of Colorado, which means it also has a good selection of restaurants, theatre’s, music, etc. It is also right up next to the Front range, foothills of the Rocky Mountains, so a reservoir for fishing and waterskiing is 15 minutes from the town center. Rocky Mountain National Park is about 1 hour away and Steamboat about 2 hours. To top it all off while it does have four seasons, over 70% of the time (more than the bay area) it is sunny. This is because it lies in the rain shadow of the Rockies. One day while we were there it snowed, and just like they said, the next day it was sunny and the snow melted away.

This is Tracy’s favorite place so far and while I didn’t like it any better than Anacortes or Coeur D’Alene, I liked it very much. There is even a little high tech here: HP and LSI logic have facilities nearby. This is looking a lot like our favorite place to settle down. I even applied for a Sales Finance position at HP, but didn’t get a call.

In total we spent a full week in the Fort Collins area. A great agent spent a couple days showing us around and looking at real estate. We went up to Rocky Mountain National Park one day. We biked along the Poudre River one day. (If you automatically pronounce it French you are a dude. Its Poodr, as in, “Howdy Poodr, whatcha doin? Ya ever get that persnickitde horse of yourn to settle down?”). We also went to the movies, dinner, worked out at a local Gym, took care of some shopping and other chores and other general city type stuff.

By the time we left, I felt I had gotten a pretty good feel for Fort Collins and I liked it. I tell you, I was really hoping I would get that call from HP.

Big Tits!

Sorry guys, no naked pictures of Tracy, I'm refering to the Grand Tetons.

I'm at the library in Jackson (as in Jackson Hole for you ski buffs) right now. Jackson Hole refer's to the valley (or hole) first settled by a guy named Jackson. It is one great place. I thought I'd found "the place" until I checked out real estate prices. The Bay Area is actually cheap compared to Jackson Hole. It's one of those communities like Aspen where a few million is the minimum entry price.

For those who haven't been here (I remember Kalim got to go here for an all CAL during college) Jackson Hole is a big flat valley with the Grand Tetons jutting straight up on the side... very, very, steep, dramatic and beautiful. The town of Jackson has all you could want: theatre, movies, music, good hospital and library, lots of great restaurants, etc. and great hiking, biking, skiing, kayaking, rafting, fishing, and beautiful scenery surrounds you everywhere. Unfortunately others figured this out long ago and there is no such thing as a home under $1 million.

We went on two great hikes here.

The first was around Jenny lake, to the falls, then up to inspiration point for a view of the lake, valley and surrounding mountains, then up cascade canyon. As you can tell from the picture, it had snowed the day before. Grand Teton is right there, I mean right there as in goes straight up thousands of feet about a football field length from the trail. During the summer you probably get to see mountain climbers scaling the Tetons while you are on this hike. This has to be one of the most beautiful of all the hikes we have been on. A definate A+.


The second hike we made a loop around the north side of Two Oceans Lake up to another inspiration point (popular name around here) then around the southern end of Maggy Lake and back to the car at Two Oceans. 13+ miles and 800+ ft elevation gain total yesterday so today we decided to take a down day.

We are doing chores, including this blog, today and probably dinner and a movie tonight (the Friday night date night tradition is still going strong for us). Hope everyone is doing well. We haven't decided wether to head down the western side of the rockies and Utah next or the eastern side and Colorado or spend one more week north checking out Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse, etc. I'm thinking of skipping Rushmore (it's notheast a couple hundred miles) and instead dropping down into Fort Collins, Colorado. Probably time to start heading south. Also I just got the message that Dave is getting married on the 22nd (lots of notice, Dave) so I'm going to try and get a flight out of Denver or Salt Lake or somewhere; hope to see some of you there.

Craters of the Moon

After Yellowstone we headed down to Idaho Falls to check it out. Nice town and your housing dollar goes a lot farther than a lot of other places we have been to. It's mostly a farming community but also has a fair amount of engineers due mostly to the Idaho nuclear research facility that is located here.

While there we spent a day on a side trip to the Craters of the Moon national monument. It's very aptly named as this is one weird, stark landscape created by unique volcanic action. It's not something I would make a special trip for but is worthwhile if your are in the area. Well I guess that means within 100 miles of the area since there's really no reason anyone would be much closer than that.








They are opening a Starbucks on this spot next year.














Tracy, what, where are you going? Don't leave me here!













These are called tree molds. They are left when lava surrounded a tree. The water in the tree cooled the lava enough to leave the imprint of the bark. The imprint, ridges and all are solid rock.