Time Outs and Awards

We are still alive and kicking here.  It only took us three weeks of being home to go on another road trip.  We went to Baton Rouge in September for my mother's birthday, which turned out to be a lovely celebration.  She was deservedly treated like a queen for the day.  I had not seen my parents since before our road trip this summer and we did our few weeks of safe isolation before we visited them.  It already seems like ages ago!  

It seems we have been living our life in 2 week increments.  Visit someone, then isolate for 2 weeks.  Visit someone else, isolate for 2 weeks.  I have started to call it "time out".   After our visit to Baton Rouge and our 2 weeks of  "time out" we went to California to see our daughter and her husband.  We also surprised her with a mostly virtual surprise baby shower!  Life in the time of Covid.

Baby's first bank account
and a virtual audience on the screen to the left.

Macarons and flowers....a girl's best friends.

Back home for a bit of  "time out" until the next venture outside of our Groundhog Day routine.  Random thought....have you ever noticed how your laundry is a reflection of how you spend your days?  I noticed this the other day as I washed nothing but golf clothes, exercise clothes and biking clothes.  That is our life....walk, ride, golf....oh, and one of us works.  This is the time of year I am happy I live down south where I can play outside most of the year...especially this year!

All that walking and golfing has kept me from finishing the blog post I started two "time outs" ago!  I was planning to wrap up the road trip with some National Park Awards. (because I am going to milk that trip for all its worth!) The categories are custom made for each park because everyone gets a ribbon in the Mahoney National Park Awards Blog.  Sadly, once this goes out into the blogsphere our trip will finally be put to rest and I will be forced to find something else to talk about and photograph.

Largest National Park (that we visited)

Yellowstone National Park

We probably drove 100 miles...in the park!  We also stopped about 30 times!  

                

Best Bike Ride

Zion National Park

I highly recommend riding your bike through the park instead of taking the shuttle bus.  We saw so much and it was at our own pace, which for one of us was much slower than the other.  An e-bike might be a good idea!

Most Photogenic

This one is a real challenge to choose just one!  Can I say all of them?  I think the one that surprised me the most in my photos was Bryce Canyon but the one I took such great delight in photographing was Teton National Park.  You can choose for yourself!

Bryce Canyon National Park

Teton National Park
It took my breath away!

Most Patriotic

Mount Rushmore
So many flags...so many presidents

Most Iconic

Arches National Park

When your hike ends at the sight featured on the license plate in the state of Utah, that's iconic.  The view was worth the hike.

Most Surprising

Zion National Park

I am not sure what I was expecting.  I had not heard much about Zion and had never seen the landscape of southern Utah before so maybe that is what surprised me the most.  The red desert, the mountains, the way the sun lit the mountains up in the morning, the clear blue water in the streams, or the pure majesty of the park.  I mostly rode my bike with my mouth agape looking up in awe.  

It had it all... mountains, streams, trees and wildlife.

Scariest Drive

Mesa Verde with a close second by Flaming Gorge.

Flaming Gorge
The road was so curvy and high with many drop-offs that I had to relieve my vertigo challenged driver on the way there and also got to do the drive out.

Almost 9000 ft. and the drive was narrow and steep but worth it!
Mesa Verde National Park
We took turns doing this drive....

Hottest National Park

No question in either of our minds on this one....Canyonlands National Park.

Add to the 106 degrees the lingering smoke in the air from the wildfires in the west and this was less than an ideal time to visit this park.  I suggest the spring or fall and a time when there are no fires!

Perfect for a hike....it did go up to 106 believe me!

I imagine in better light this is spectacular!  Not bad as it was.

Best Sunrise

Arches National Park
Best and only sunrise....for me!

Best Sunset

The bar for this category has been set very high because sunsets are my true love.  It may surprise you that in 50 days of traveling to so many spectacular locations, fantastic sunsets seemed to allude me.  I was vigilant in my pursuit though, just ask TJ.

The Badlands
This one keeps coming up on my photo reel and makes me sigh.
I love the dust trail behind the car and the contours of the land.

But honestly, the best sunset was from my friend's deck in Park City.

There you have it, the winners of the Mahoney National Park Awards 2020 edition.  Stay tuned for the next installment....some time in the future when we find ourselves with seven weeks of time to drive around and look at stuff.  I do think once you start with the parks you get the bug and find it hard to stop at just 9...or 10.  Ten down, 52 to go!

Stay safe out there!  

What's That Smell? Oh, It's Yellowstone!

 Yellowstone was the first National Park in the United States.  That alone makes it worthy of a visit.  The fact that the north entrance is about 80 miles from Bozeman, MT and was very much on our way to Park City, UT made it a no-brainer to visit.  We could have easily spent several days exploring the park instead of one long day, I guess we will just have to go back.  Yellowstone is HUGE!  It is a daunting feeling to drive through the gate and have so much to see with so little time!  We had to pick and choose the highlights and even that was a hard job because there are so many highlights! We followed the road and stopped at every curious and beautiful spot we saw!

First stop....Mammoth Hot Springs

Limestone poetry in motion...or actually in solid form.

I read about all of this in the handy newspaper they give out at the gate but I still don't understand how they formed and find it amazing that they exist. Please do not give me a quiz about the science, I am only here to marvel!  They look like they were melting and then suddenly froze or if you are hungry it looks like caramel drizzle.  One other interesting thing about Yellowstone is the ever present smell of rotten eggs from hydrogen sulfide.  If there is steam wafting up into the air or something gurgling....it smells/stinks!  

The cool thing, one of the cool things, about Yellowstone is that you can stop and see something like the Mammoth Hot springs and then down the road you come across a lovely river surrounded by lush green grass and trees.  Unexpected!

One "must stop" was the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. The sign said the lower falls was 1/4 mile away, I am not sure I believe them.  After viewing the canyon and the water falls from one viewpoint, TJ and I saw a path that lead to the lower viewpoint.  He decided to pass on the hike and go fetch our car, that we had to park quite a ways down the road.  I wanted to hike to the lower falls viewpoint.  We decided to meet at the upper parking lot at an appointed time.  I was about halfway down the path, enjoying my downhill hike when it occurred to me that the hike back up was going to be VERY steep!  I kept walking...and walking...and walking.  There were so many switchbacks!  The deeper I got the more I realized there was no way I was going to be back up to the top at the appointed hour.  Oh well.  The view was lovely!  I enjoyed it, took a few pictures, drank some water and prepared for the uphill climb.  I could look up to my end point and I must say it was a bit daunting!

The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

The lovely water fall and if you look at the bottom left,
you can see that boardwalk to the lower falls.
Looks easy enough!

Going down! One switchback at a time.

Still going down and realizing these stairs will be a lot harder going up!

Needless to say, TJ had to wait a bit longer for my little expedition.  By now, we were both hungry!  The National Parks were all open but all of the facilities in them were not open.  This was early in our road trip so we were still novices at the whole Covid National Park touring thing.  We did do a bit of research just to make sure there would be somewhere inside the park where we could get lunch.  Lucky for us there was.  It was EMPTY...we were also very late for lunch.  We sped through, ordered something edible and grabbed a table outside (where most of the meals on this trip were consumed).  I sat and looked around and could imagine in non-Covid times this place would have been buzzing!  There would have been people everywhere, no tables to be found and long lines to get anything!  This made me a bit happy and a lot sad.  Yes, we lucked out wherever we went as far as crowds were concerned. Yellowstone was one of the most crowded parks we visited and even it seemed to be running at 30%.   On the flip side, think about all of the families who did not take that long awaited vacation and the workers who are not working because there is no one to feed or the venders that are not selling anything because there is no one to buy their goods.  For us, this was a blessing.  We were on a trip that we had not planned to take.  We were thrilled to have this park to ourselves and to not have to stand in long lines wasting time that could be spent seeing the beauty around us.  But still, it was a bit sad.

 

The lunch break was much needed, especially since there were "real" bathrooms available.  National park bathrooms are a whole other blog post...suffice it to say indoor plumbing is a luxury.  I had seen pictures of some turquoise pools of water and really wanted to see them.  We found the Porcelain Basin!  The color of the water was unreal and yes, it smells!  This place continued to amaze me with its many colors!

I loved the boardwalks through the basins.

Some of the science if you are into that kinda thing!

Nature's thermometer up close.

Our goal was to be at Old Faithful for the 5:30 ish "show" but soon realized it may have to be the 6:30 show.  The problem getting from one place to another in Yellowstone is that no matter how you try, you cannot resist stopping to see the view or to watch the wildlife because you never know if or when you will pass this way again.  We stopped a lot!  

We stopped for mountains

We stopped for bison

We stopped for steamy springs

We stopped for bubbling pools of stinky mud

We watched the clock and kept driving.  One thing that TJ had considered doing was riding his bike across the continental divide and down to Old Faithful.  It was a good idea...for about a minute.  As we climbed the mountain and arrived at the Continental Divide the thermometer on our car read 48 degrees.  We were not dressed for 48 degrees!  He did insist riding across the divide anyway...even if it was just for the photo op!  So...we took the bike off the rack, he rode across, posed for a few pictures, loaded the bike back onto the rack and carried on.  He had stopped about a thousand times throughout the day for me so turnabout if fair play.  

Proof!

A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

Old Faithful was close to where we would be exiting the park for the day.  We did not want to miss anything before we left but we also did not want to miss the big show.  As luck would have it, our day began with sunny skies but as we approached the big show it got cloudy, cold and a bit drizzly.  

But first...let's stop and look at this lovely river!

 

Look at those antlers!!

It was time for the grand finale to our day in Yellowstone... Old Faithful.  We gathered with the other people, wearing our masks, holding our umbrella and keeping our distance.  We waited.  There were a few minor eruptions to keep us  interested and on the edge of our bench.  We put on our jackets and have found that a mask also helps keep you warm.  I am very glad we got to see Old Faithful.  I am disappointed to say it does not photograph well against a gray and cloudy sky.  The video will have to do.

As soon as "the show" was over we headed out of the park.  We were only distracted by one more sight.  The Grand Prismatic Springs was on my checklist all day.  We just happened to pass right by it on our way out.  One more stop!  One more stinky walk.  One more miracle of nature.

I only wish I had a drone to see this from above!

 

We finally decided it was time to leave.  Unfortunately, so did almost everyone else in the park.  The road through Yellowstone is a two lane road.  There had been an accident a mile or two ahead and traffic was at a standstill.  It took us an hour to drive two or three miles.  After a day of taking our time, stopping at every overlook and enjoying the leisure pace of our day we were ready to be on the road only to have to sit in traffic.  If the view had been across a field at some beautiful mountains maybe I would have been in a better mood.  Nope....just trees....on both sides of the road...for three miles.  We finally got on the road and drove to Idaho Falls, Idaho.  A quick 2 hour drive.  We totally bit off more than we could chew here.  We were beat and hungry and it was late at night.  Nothing was open!  After a day of sensory overload, our dinner consisted of the complimentary frozen Stauffer's Lasagna the hotel provided and we microwaved in the room.  It left a lovely odor in the room for the night.  The glamour of life on the road was becoming a reality.  At least the wine was good.

So, just like Yellowstone this blog post is full of scenic stops and very long.  At least you can't smell it!