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