Our engagement on 11.10.2009

Again, signs of life! I thought it would be a good idea to finally update our blog. It is something that I should have done a few weeks ago but life is still quite hectic in Wien.

We have some big news!! We are now engaged!! I asked the question on a recent trip to the National Park Thayatal on the Austrian/Czech Republic border. Jessi and I went on a normal hiking trip on Sunday, October 11. It was a gloomy day with a normal fall temperature of around 15 C (60 F) but the perfect day for a hike! So we drove from Wien to Hardegg, which is the smallest city (not town or village but city) in Austria, and parked along the River Thaya. After my short visit to the Czech Republic, we hiked for about 4 km along the Thaya. It was a difficult hike because the trail was slippery from the rain the night before and the wet leaves. However, we persevered and saw lots of fall colors and some wildlife. You can look at the pictures if you follow this link:

http://picasaweb.google.com/joelwalker1975/NationalparkThayatal02?feat=email#

After following the Thaya as it made an oxbow, we hiked up to the top of the hill at the neck of the oxbow. It was about 150 feet straight up on a trail that needed some work. However, we had this spectacular view at the top. As we took some pictures, we were joined by a family at this viewpoint. So we decided to have an apple and relax until they left. After they left, I asked Jessi to over to the viewpoint and enjoy the view one last time before we started hiking back to Hardegg. I was very nervous at this point!!

Here was my proposal:
I said "I have two questions to ask you. The first question is: How do I say, in German, will you marry me?"
Jessi responded with: "Willst du mich heiraten?".
Then I asked Jessi: "Willst du mich heiraten?"
Jessi responded: "Yes!"

We haven't set a date but we plan to get married in September or October of 2010. We will have the wedding in Germany. We are very excited and happy too!!

Joel

Sign of life...

Hi everyone, we are still alive over here in Europe and still on vacation. We left Germany on September 14th at 5 am to Vienna. Together with my dad and his partner we drove the 900km to Vienna in two cars with all our stuff. We arrived at our new place at the Krottenbachstrasse 50/3, 1190 Wien, Austria. No, we couldn’t move into the apartment. We can move in on October 1st but our landlord offered us to store our stuff in the basement. My dad and Uli left to their vacation place south of Salzburg and we went to Veronika’s house to stay there till the end of the week.
On the 15th, we got up early. It was the day we were supposed to start working. Instead of going to the construction site called our lab or office, we went to the MA35 building. There we got two numbers, one for Joel to apply for a visa and one for me to register in Austria. After 1.5h we had my registration and Joel is supposed to receive his visa in 2-3 weeks. SUCCESS!!! Afterward, we met with Veronika at the institute and she talked to the human recourse people and we all agreed that it would be best to have us start working on Sept. 30th, when we have an office to work in and Joel has a visa and we have a place to live.
Since we could stay at Veronika’s for some more days, we decided to stay and try to get some things like keys, office equipment or lab chairs organized. Well, on Wednesday we did nothing ‘cause a cold knocked me out and I wasn’t able to do anything. On Thursday we talked to the IT guy and now I am the IT person of the lab. Woohoo.
On Friday we marked all the office equipment we want to have in our office and then we found out that you aren’t allowed to have a cell phone contract until you have lived in Austria for three months. WTF!? Ok, let’s get some ice-cream. It was good but couldn’t beat the chocolate shoppe’s Zanzibar. Back in Weidling, we put the gigantic mattress into our little red Hyundai I30 and drove it to our basement unit.
On Saturday morning we drove back to Germany, without telling anybody there. We stopped at my dad’s in Miehlen and discovered that my dad and Uli extended their vacation for another two days and weren’t back yet. Ok, we went on to Eschbach and found the house of my grandparents empty. My brother came home from work first and asked surprised whether we already got fired. My grandparents came after my brother from a choir fest in the town hall and were happy to see us back “home”. We finally could go to bed.
Sunday we drove to Nassau and had lunch at the restaurant my brother works at. Joel chose the pasta with pesto, because my brother made the pesto the day before. It was really yummy. We walked around till my brother’s lunch break and spend his break with him on the river Lahn. We watched some canoeists going through a lock and got really excited about canoeing. We decided to go canoeing on the Lahn on Tuesday.
On Monday we waited for my dad to get back and meet him. They were as surprised as the rest of my family. They heard that the car makes strange noises when you brake and we decided to get that checked. So that on Tuesday morning we exchanged cars in Miehlen and drive with their car to the put in on the Lahn at Laurenburg. We paddled down the Lahn for 14km to Nassau. On the way we had to go through to locks and had a lunch stop in Obernhof. Today I cooked a vegetarian dish (Risotto with Squash and mushrooms) for lunch. My grandparents were surprised and liked it. Wow, success!

Arrived in Germany

2 September, 2009 Eschbach, Germany

We made it!!! We arrived in Düsseldorf, Germany on Saturday, August 30! The adventure has shifted to Europe!!! Woohooo!!!! We are now in the land of partial understanding… Jessi understands all the conversations while I understand a word here and there and notice the facial expressions of everyone. I am confident that my German will improve with time.

On Sunday, Jessi and I were met at the airport by Jessi’s uncle, Udo. We drove from the airport to his home in Buschhoven. Along the way I noticed that the city of Köln (Cologne in English) is a huge city while the former capital of West Germany (Bonn) is a relatively small city. I always thought that the capital city of a country is a major metropolis but Bonn didn’t strike me as a big city. This was an assumption that was thrown right out the window. After breakfast, we watched Jessi’s aunt, Isolde, win her singles tennis match at the local club. We then had lunch (about 5 hours after the first breakfast on the airplane and 2 hours after the second breakfast at Jessi’s aunt and uncle’s house) with Udo, Jessi’s father Jochim and partner Uli, and Udo’s son Marcus and his wife Rigat. We had a BBQ that did not involve charcoal but was very good none-the-less! After lunch, I had 3 shots of plum schnapps and proceeded to sleep during the 2 hour drive to Miehlen. After a quick phone call to my parents, we finally made it to Jessi’s grandparent’s house in Eschbach, 56357, which is in Rheinland-Pfalz. We had our last big meal of this never-ending day of eating, and went to sleep around 9 pm. This is where we will stay when we are in Germany.

Monday, 31. August, was a pleasant surprise for Jessi and me. We discovered that Jessi’s brother, Alex, had Monday and Tuesday off this week instead of the normal Tuesday and Wednesday. Alex is starting the second month of a two year training program to become a chef. He works at the restaurant Zur Stadthalle in Nassau, which is about a 20 minute drive from Eschbach (he is also living with his grandparents). On Monday, after a leisurely morning, Alex and Jessi showed me the area during the day. We first stopped in the small village of Roth, where Jessi and Alex grew up, and they were able to show me their old farm. We even got to go into their old home and see their rooms!! It looked like a nice place to grow up. Thereafter we stopped in Katzenelnbogen to go to the bank and buy a present for Jessi’s niece Laura. We also had some yummy yoghurt ice-cream. Next stop was the gymnasium in Diez where Jessi and Alex went to middle and high school. We got there late in the day but were able to walk around inside the building. In this school, the graduating class each year gets to sign a section of the wall with their names. We walked around the school and found Alex’s year, where Alex was known as “chef” but we could not find Jessi’s class. We think that they painted over her year to make space for the newer kids. L After a short walk around the center of Diez, we drove through the Lahn River valley to the town of Nassau, where we had dinner at Zur Stadthalle. I had fresh water fish and a huge salad. The fish I had were three types of fish that swim in the Lahn River. Jessi had noodles and fish while Alex had prawns and salad. As I previously mentioned, the food was quite good!

Tuesday, 1. September, we did more exploring of the local culture. After another leisurely morning and early afternoon, Alex, Jessi and I stopped at Nadja’s farm (Uli’s daughter) and Jessi got to hang out with Laura (Nadja’s five year-old daughter). Laura showed Jessi and I some of the cows on their farm and we got to pet a few of them too. I don’t know if the cows are more familiar with Laura or just less threatened by a child, but Laura had no problem petting the cows while they seemed scared of Jessi and totally frightened by me! Maybe I am a city boy and it is written all over me! After our farm experience, we stopped in Roth at Martina’s and were able to finally check our e-mail. Not everyone has e-mail at home and there are not libraries in every town where you can go and easily check your e-mail for free. It is much different here compared to America. Life happens at a different pace. Upon checking our e-mail, we discovered that we have an appointment at 5:30 pm on Friday, in Vienna, to see the apartment we are most interested in renting. And maybe be able to sign a contract to rent it. It’s a fairly new building that is not too far from the University (10-15 minute bike ride) but I don’t have the address in front of me. We are excited about this opportunity and hope it works out!


Things to note after only 3 days… In this part of Germany, there are few mosquitoes. Actually, I am not sure if there are any mosquitoes. However, there are millions of big, black, horse flies! They are everywhere! You can’t enjoy a meal without having to share it with 2-10 flies! Additionally, it appears that these flies find me, the foreigner, interesting and exotic. So I am constantly being bugged while everyone around me is unaware of these annoying flies.

It would be difficult for an American to drive in Germany. The road signs are quite different and the traffic rules are slightly different too. I sit there in the car and I have no idea why we stop at certain intersections and drive like maniacs through other intersections. Even after a brief explanation of the road signs and instructions as to which signs are important and which ones are just random signs (if you pay attention in America, you will discover that there are essential road signs and useless or redundant road signs too), I am still confused. I think I would be the worst driver in the world if I had to drive here. Hopefully, this will improve too with time!

It is almost impossible to find an unsecured wireless modem in this area. Jessi and I realized around midnight Tuesday night that we forgot to send an e-mail earlier in the afternoon. We jumped in the car, with my laptop, and drove around the big city of Nastätten – we didn’t even bother looking in the small towns. We found only 1 unsecured account but at least 30 secured wireless accounts. To make it work, we had to hold the computer above the car to maintain the weak connection. If you drove around Madison, Wisconsin or any other American city, I predict that you would find lots of unsecured wireless accounts where you could surf the internet for free. Not here!

One last observation… Although I have been here for 3 days, I am not yet over jet-lag! On Tuesday, I made the mistake of taking a 1-hour nap after lunch followed by an espresso coffee at 4:30 pm and a coke and beer in the evening. This normally wouldn’t bother me but tonight I couldn’t sleep at all and I am writing this blog note at 5:30 in the morning. I think my circadian clock is now stuck on another time zone somewhere else on this planet.

Joel and Jessi

the last days...

Wow, our Europe adventure starts in about 48h when we'll get on a plane to fly to Duesseldorf, Germany. We got to say good-bye to all our Madisonian friends and are in the last steps of getting everything organized, cancel Charter, get forms filled out, get mail forwarded... All that kind of fun stuff. It's looking good though.
It's getting real too and it's coming up pretty soon. So instead of typing this, I should probably do something more related to packing or so.

stay tuned,
Jessi!

the recipes

Hi everyone,

here are the recipes to most of the trips dinners. The tomato sauce and the risotto were homemade too, but without any recipe and you can use any kind of vegetable for the risotto, just about.

Red Pepper Mango Sauce

For 2 – 3 people

1 mango
1 red bell pepper
2 red chilli peppers
1 small can tomato paste
1 can tomatoes
½ onion
2 garlic cloves
salt, pepper, parsley

1. Cut the onion and the garlic and heat them up in olive oil. Add the chilli peppers and the tomato paste.
2. Add the cut mango and the tomatoes.
3. Season with salt, pepper and parsley.



Butternut squash gnocchis

For 4 people

1 small butternut squash, cubed
2 tsp. olive oil
2 cup of flour plus extra
1 cup + extra parmigiano
2 egg yolks
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
4 tsp. butter
5 sage leaves
freshly ground pepper, salt

1. At 350°F roast squash, drizzeled with oil and salt for 35 min, turning once, set aside and let cool
2. Pulse the squash
3. In a bowl, combine the squash puree, flour, Parmigiano, egg yolk and nutmeg.
4. Mix to dough, divide into 10 pieces roll each into a 1-inch thick rope
5. cut 1 inch pieces and throw in boiling water for 5 minutes




Butternut squash curry

For 3 – 4 people

1 small butternut squash, peel and cube into ½” pieces
2 lbs. baking potatoes, cubed
1 tbs olive oil
1 tbs butter
1 small onion, diced and sauteed
1 tbsp. curry powder
½ tbsp. tumeric powder
1 cup orange juice
1 cup veggie stock
1 tsp. salt

1. add squash, potatoes, curry powder and tumeric powder to the onion and sautee till potatoes get brown
2. Deglaze pan with orange juice and veggie stock
3. Simmer for 45 min uncovered
4. salt to taste


Black bean or red bean burgers

For 3 people

1 can of beans, drained
¼ cup fried onions
2 slices multigrain bread crumbled finely
cracker crumbs
salt, pepper, other seasonings

1. mix all the ingredients and form a dough
2. form patties
3. heat up oil in a pan and bake the burgers



Lentil stew

for 2 – 3 people

1 cup lentils
10 oz. tomatoes
½ cup chopped onions
4 stalks of celery with leaves
½ tsp. curry powder
4 cloves garlic
salt and black pepper

1. hydrate lentils for 1 hour
2. in a pan sautee onions and celery, add garlic and curry powder
3. add tomatoes and lentils, cook untill lentils are soft
4. season with salt and pepper


Cottage cheese green bell pepper curry

For 2 – 3 people

200 g cottage cheese
2 green bell peppers, cut into long stripes
4 garlic cloves, crushed
2 tbsp. olive oil
1 tsp. red chili powder
1 tsp. coriander powder
1 tsp. garam masala powder
8 tbsp. tomato puree
salt and sugar to taste

1. Heat the oil and garlic on medium for 2 min, add pepper and fry
2. add the powders, tomato puree, salt and sugar, mix well, cook for 5 min
3. add cottage cheese, mix well

Trip report!

Hi everyone,

we are back from our epic trip out West. Ok, here are the trip details:

First some facts:
4400 miles in 14 days
Hundreds of animals
At least a hundred annoying French tourists
60 - 90F
5 National Parks
2 crazy German girls
1 amazing American Joel

Day 1 (08/01/09):
The first day was kind of boring. We drove through Nebraska and all we saw was corn and soybeans. After 940 miles we spent the night in Greeley, CO in a Comfort Inn to enjoy a bed one last time. We found some food at 10 pm at the Old Chicago down the road and went to bed.

Day 2 (08/02/09):
The next morning I learned something very useful: The difference between gravy and waffle dough. If you put gravy in the waffle maker you DON’T get waffles! Oooops. After the little accident we started heading toward Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP). We got there just a little bit too early to set up our tent so we decided to make use of the afternoon and jumped on the shuttle bus to take us even further uphill to about 9200ft. There we were at Bear Lake. It was a beautiful little lake with a trail all around it. We decided to have lunch on the west shore. So, for the first time we got our pita bread, tubes with peanut butter, nutella, jelly or almond butter and our homemade fruit roll-ups out and had lunch. After lunch we hiked the trail to Emerald lake and realized very soon that hiking at altitude is much slower than hiking in Wisconsin. We made a mile an hour or so – wow. But it was well worth it, the view was amazing. Besides Bear Lake and Emerald Lake we also got to see Nymph Lake, which has lots of yellow water lilies on it and Dream Lake. After the hike, back at the Moraine information centre and our car we saw our first wildlife – lots of elk. We set up our tent and found the first Ziploc bags with dehydrated goodness for dinner: red pepper mango sauce and spaghettis. For me the day ended as it began, with a useful lesson to learn. I got sick of the altitude and had a massive headache and a second meeting with dinner. The take home (or tent) message was: DRINK MORE WATER!!!

Day 3 (08/03/09):
The next day, I did. I drank 5L the second day in RMNP. We had eggs and oatmeal for breakfast and after taking down the tent we drove through the park. Not counting several stops along the way our first stop was at the alluvial fan. We got to see a nice little water fall and stick our hands and toes in the ice-cold glacial water. Back on the road we stopped at every marked viewpoint and had some really amazing views. Then we got to see more elk, first the females and little ones and around the corner the male elk with their impressive antlers. At the Alpine visitors centre, there were some baby marmots, too. Eventually we crossed the Continental Divide for the first time on this trip. We also got to touch the Colorado river at its headwaters. It looks so tiny up there. Excitement was going on when you see lots of cars parked along the road. There must be something to see! And we did get to see some moose. We made it to our second campsite at Granby Lake at the Arapaho Bay Campground just southeast of RMNP. Joel collected firewood and we had a campfire together with our dinner of rice with lentil stew. I was amazed by the bugs, they did not seem to be interested in our blood at all. Maybe the are specialized to only drink pine beetle blood. This bug is destroying all the pine trees in RMNP and surroundings.

Day 4 (08/04/09):
Tuesday, we drove from Colorado over to Utah. Again crossing the Continental Divide, we drove through the mountains, some awesome canyons into the high desert. The scenery changed completely, no more mountains, lakes or trees, but therefore lots of cool rock formations in all kinds of colors, mainly reds, oranges and browns. We drove along the Colorado river, which now looked a lot more impressive than at out first meeting with it. The drive on UT 128 was great and it took us forever to get to Arches National Park. We set up our tent, freestanding since it was on rock and you aren’t allowed to tow it to anything alive.

Day 5 (08/05/09):
We decided to get up early and do some hiking before the sun would be to bad. So we had breakfast at sunrise, which was really pretty. All the rocks around us changed their color from a dark red into a bright orange. Awesome!!! We drove down the road to devil’s garden and started our hike. All three of us got to see Pine Tree Arch, Tunnel Arch, Partition Arch from the distance and Landscape Arch. Joel decided not to climb up the rocks and rather enjoy a relaxing morning in the shade, while Sandra and I took a closer look at Partition Arch and also Navajo Arch. Then we kept on going and hiked all the way out to Double ‘O’ Arch. After two hours we found Joel still in a nice shady spot on the rocks and started driving around in the air conditioned car J. We went to a winery on the Colorado river and then a coffee shop in Moab, where we started recharging batteries and sent out some facebook messages. On our way back to camp we stopped at the Courtyard Rocks and the windows section of Arches. Back at our campsite we got to fish our tent out of the nearest tree and decided to tow it to the dead tree that was lying around. After another great dinner of vegetable risotto we were happy to go to sleep for a couple hours.

Day 6 (08/06/09):
It really wasn’t much more than just a couple hours or for Sandra even less, because we got up at 3:50 am. Yes, pretty damn early, you’re right. We jumped in our car and drove over to Canyonlands to the Island in the Sky part to watch the sunrise through Mesa Arch. We didn’t calculate in that the sun will have to get over some mountains so we were there probably an hour early. But we got the best spots and pissed off some random people who thought it should be their place. Oh, well! After the absolutely amazing sunrise (I took about 350 pictures of it) we found ourselves a picnic table at the north end and made breakfast. Looking through the day hiker’s guide we choose to climb up Whale Rock and see the whole Northern part of the park from up there. The view was great, but the wind almost blew us off. Heading toward the south end of the Island we stopped at the Green river overlook. The Colorado and the Green River conjunct in Canyonlands. On the southern end is a Grand view point where you get to after a short hike on the white rim. From there we could see all the way south towards the needles part. That’s were we drove to after that. On the way we stopped at Newspaper Rock, a wall of petroglyphs. As we were driving further toward the Needles, we had to stop along the road for a cowboy with his herd crossing the street. Finally at the South entrance of Canyonlands we went for a short hike and did the Cove Spring loop trail, which I thought was really cool. You got to see some old cowboy stuff, some pictographs, a cove spring and after climbing up two wooden ladders you have an amazing view. After that we drove on a cool dirt road out to a view point of the Needles at the bottom of Elephant Rock and also stopped at the north end and the Wooden Shoe Arch view point. Afterward we drove back to Arches, where we found our tent again upside down, but at least it was dry inside. Yes, it rained in the desert.

Day 7 (08/07/09):
On our last morning in Arches we split up. We drove to the Delicate Arch trailhead and walked all together to the Wolfe’s Ranch and then to the petroglyphs nearby. From there on Sandra was on her own climbing up to Delicate Arch. Instead, Joel and I went to see Sand Dune Arch and from the distance Broken Arch, which isn’t really broken. Anyway, we also went to see Skyline Arch from nearby. After that we drove back to Delicate Arch, but to the viewpoint area and hiked up to the second view point. From there we had a really good view of the arch and the canyon between the arch and the viewpoint.
Reunited with Sandra we visited the last arch on our list: Double Arch. It’s a really nice one in the windows area. By 1 pm we were ready for more driving and went on the way to Salt Lake City. In the town of Green River we stopped to buy some lunch. Apparently they grow lots of watermelons in Green River and sell them on every corner. So sure enough we got a 12 pound watermelon and we ATE it between the three of us. Stuffed and hydrated we drove along UT-6 up to I-15 into South Salt Lake City. We found the house where Joel’s friends Patrice and Rob live with their daughter Claire. To not shock us with too much civilization they hired someone to knock over a telephone pole, so that there wasn’t any electricity the whole evening. Rob and Joel went to get some pizza, while the girls played and chatted in Claire’s room. We had a candlelight pizza dinner, talked and had a great evening.

Day 8 (08/08/09):
We left the door to the bedroom open and after Claire got up the cat escaped downstairs, where it was quiet and discovered that it can sleep very well on or between our heads. Eventually we got out of bed and after a revitalizing shower we had an awesome breakfast and then drove up to Park City to visit the Olympic Park museum and the ski jumping hills. The museum was nice and Sandra and I remembered all the cool Nordic Combined and the crazy team jumping results from 2002. Of course, we took the chair lift up to the top of the jumps. Unfortunately there was no training scheduled, but therefore we got to go down the hill on zip lines. Great fun! We met up with Patrice, Rob and Claire again and had lunch in the Wasatch Brew Pub in downtown Park City. I bought some long sleeping pants there for the cold nights in Yellowstone – smart move.
Afterwards we all went to the centre of Salt Lake City, the Mormon temple. We took the tour and didn’t fill out any cards with addresses of our friends. I found it really impressive how they painted all the benches, that where made of pine wood so that they look like oak and all the post, yes pine wood too, to look like marble. We also stopped at the capitol building and saw the great salt lake from up there. Back at our home for the weekend we had another fun night talking and recharging batteries for the second week of the trip.

Day 9 (08/09/09):
We got up early and all went to the service at Rob’s church. Way cooler than any Lutheran church I have been to in Germany. They have a live band and a projector in the church. Some teens got to tell their stories from summer camp and the visitors got introduced, yes we got that honor too. I liked that kind of service. Thanks, Rob! And thanks again both Patrice and Rob for letting us stay at your place.
After a breakfast at the Village Inn down the street, we drove through Idaho into Wyoming and the Grand Teton National Park. The only place where we couldn’t reserve a campsite ahead of time, so we ended up with a really nice site on the Grand Ventre campground in the Southern part of the park. We discovered that there is a lot of wildlife in the park. We saw our first bison and some elk and a moose with a baby. We drove along the Jenny Lake loop and watched the sunset behind the mountains.

Day 10 (08/10/09):
We took our time in the morning, which tuned out to be perfect timing as we drove from the campground towards the main road and the bison just came over the ridge down to a little stream right next to the road. Wow, they were really close and we did got away before they started crossing the street, with some awesome pictures on our memory cards of course. On our way to Yellowstone we first went to Jenny Lake again, took the boat across and hiked to Hidden Falls. Back on the road we did the drive up to signal mountain as the rangers suggested. With a nice view over the river valley we had lunch up there. A group of bikers came and told us that they’d just seen a black bear eating some berries down the road. With some hope we drove down and parked the car where the bear had been spotted before. He was hiding in some bushes and eating berries, but then he started moving closer and closer towards us as the crowd on the street kept growing. He was within 50ft or so and we got some really nice shots. What an exciting day! And we haven’t gotten to Yellowstone yet. We stopped at the dam and again at the Northern end of Jackson lake to take some more pictures of the mountains. Finally in Yellowstone we stopped at Lewis Falls and then walked through the West Thumb Geyser Basin and also around the Mud Volcano. On the way to the campground we past Yellowstone Lake and drove along the Yellowstone River. We got our campsite, no. D83 at the Canyon campground and set up the tent, made dinner and got smoked in our own campfire. A great and exciting day was over and turned into a pretty cold night.

Day 11 (08/11/09):
We headed out to drive the Southern loop of the park, the loop with all the thermal features. To many to see all of them, as we discovered. Before, we drove past the Cascade Falls. Our first stop was the Norris Geyser Basin, where we hiked the back loop and got to see the Steamboat Geyser in action. Next on the map was the Artist paintpots, where we only briefly stopped and looked at. After waiting in the road construction between Norris and Madison for 30min we drove through the Firehole River canyon, a great place to swim. We didn’t go, but lots of other people were in the water or getting ready to go. We drove past the Lower Geyser Basin and stopped at Midway Geyser Basin to see the Grand Prismatic Spring – Joel’s favorite feature in the park, as hundreds of pictures document. Well, I wasn’t better I think… and it is really pretty!!! From there we went straight to our last stop for the day – Old Faithful. As we were waiting for it to have it’s eruption, just down the road Castle Geyser had a 30min long double eruption. Oh, well! We got to see Old Faithful and Castle from the distance before we drove back to the campground.

Day 12 (08/12/09):
We got up around sunrise and drove down to Hayden Valley to watch for some wildlife. We saw a bison near the road, lots of birds and some elk in the distance as the morning fog rose. Thereafter, we stopped at artist point where you have a great view of the Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River. We also stopped at Uncle Tom’s trailhead to see Upper Falls.
After having our usual oatmeal breakfast and eggs that came with green bell peppers this morning – woohoo, something different, we travelled to Tower Falls and then towards Mammoth village. We also stopped at the petrified tree. On our way west we ran into a big traffic jam, caused by a little black bear. You can’t imagine how stupid people are and how close they got to the bear, not having any clue that there could be a mama bear around. The ranger came and got people moving away. It was awesome to watch. At the Mammoth Hot Springs we hiked around the features and then drove around the upper loop. I started getting really tired and so we didn’t stop at Norris to hike some more, instead we went back to our campground, where Joel and Sandra went to the visitor’s center and the gift shop and I took a nap in the tent. After a yummy risotto dinner we watched some of the shooting stars since it was the peak day of the meteor shower from our campsite through the trees.

Day 13 (08/13/09):
Time for us to leave Yellowstone. As we were heading toward the north east entrance or exit, we saw cars accumulated on the road. Excitement! We had yet to see a grizzly bear and we got lucky. It showed up and we could take a some pictures of it from a safe distance. Wow, that was really cool. Now, what’s next? Bison was and then through a binocular we also got to see a black wolf. It was to far away to take pictures of, but still we saw it.
From there we drove on WY-212 over the Beartooth pass into Montana. It was a really awesome drive and we got to touch some snow. I was falling asleep after we got over the mountain while Joel and Sandra made crazy driving moves to take pictures of a licence plate from Saskatchewan. Sandra started taking pictures of the different state’s licence plates on the trip, which might be useful to have for her as an English teacher in Germany.
We made it to I-90 and I got to drive through Wyoming after we stopped at the Memorial of the battle at Little Big Horn. It was interesting to see a very pro American version of what happened, especially if you watch the movie they show.
On our way through Eastern Wyoming we saw some Pronghorn antelopes and way more deer than you wanna see along the side of the road. With the help of Big John we found our campground in Western South Dakota. And after accidentally throwing the first batch of spaghettis into the fire pit we had our backup pack of spaghettis with mango pepper sauce. Yummy.

Day 14 (08/14/09):
We got up, took the tent down and drove over to Mount Rushmore and then to the Crazy Horse Memorial. It’s pretty impressive how they build this gigantic monument into the rock. It was also good to see that there were lots of people there even though it was a rainy day. Yeah, really, it rained for the first time on this trip on us. Pretty amazing if you think about it. Anyway, we ate lunch at Crazy Horse and started our long drive back toward Madison. We only stopped for dinner in Western Minnesota and arrived in Middleton at 4am.

Day 15 (08/15/09):
After sleeping in we had a nice breakfast with liquid milk, fresh fruit, cheese and yoghurt. It’s amazing how much you appreciate those things after two weeks of dried eggs and instant oat meal. We then drove south to see Cave of the Mounds and had some ice-cream back in Madison. In the evening we saved all our 9492 pictures on the hard drive and had dinner at the Africana restaurant. The next day we drove Sandra to Chicago to send her back home to Germany loaded with all our camping gear in a huge bag. Thanks again for joining us and helping us move our stuff over this way. It was a great adventure and definitely a trip of a lifetime. Now, we are curious which adventures Europe has to offer. We’ll find out soon, as we are going to leave the States in a week.

Jessi

back from the road trip

Hi guys,

sorry, we are pretty busy, but the good news is here are some pictures for you to see of our big trip. There are 500 selected pictures on the slideshow of our 9500 we took. Have fun watching. The detailed report will follow soon. So keep checking the blog :)

Jessi