Yosemite

We crossed the California border.  We finally ended    
up in Yosemite.  The next day we saw Upper and Lower falls, El, Capitan, Half Dome, and Bridalveil Fall. We basically drove across half the park.   I now know how to clean trout just ask me.  Then we decided that because about half the park is still closed or flooded out that we would cut the trip short and head towards the red woods.   

Vegas Baby!

Guess where we went next?   LAS-VEGAS!   We camped in the Oasis campground which had a pool, yeah pretty refreshing saying we’ve been in the middle of a desert.  Ok so maybe it’s not the desert you’re probably thinking of with sand more sand and the occasional cactus.   No!  This was dirt with rock structures and sage brush with the occasional sand wash.  The cacti were only 8 inches tall!  So back to Las-Vegas, we walked down the strip for about the whole day.  We saw a water show where they made all these cool formations with water!  Then we saw a pirate vs. sirens show with a moving ship and cannons shooting.  We also saw a miniature volcano erupt with shooting flames!  Then when it got late, we watched Cirque de Soleil’s KA (fire)!  Ka was almost too good for words!  My favorite part about Ka was probably where these 4 people are trying get up a pretty steep slope (around 45 degrees).  Then halfway up the slope they stopped to rest when an arrow (actually an arrow from the floor) hits between the guys legs.  Then spear men jumped from above where we were sitting and on to the floor (which was currently starting to move)!  Then more arrows hit the floor until the floor was covered!  After that the spear men and 4 people started swinging, jumping, and sliding on the arrows!  Yeah, I was pretty envious.  While they were swinging, jumping, and sliding on the arrows the stage was twisting at a 90 degree angle :)!  They kept going like that until they all fell off.  They did a lot of other awesome things that would take about 2 hours for to read.

Las Vegas bird in a water fountian

Siren's Bike at Treasure Island

Siren's Bike at Treasure Island

Mirage Hotel's Volcano Eruption Show

Pirate's ship at Treasure Island

Water Show

ONE BIG POST! Wyoming, Utah and Arizona

Sorry we haven’t had an Internet connection for two weeks.  Yeah, so you’re in for a big post.  So anyway we drove through Wyoming to Devils Tower.  Devils Tower was awesome.  It’s cooler than in all the pictures.  Plus all of the Prairie dogs, they were so cool!   There were like, 50 of them and they were only 5 inches tall. 

Devil's Tower

Campsite at Devil's Tower

Rainbow near Devils Tower - photo by Ryan

Wacko and Yacko - Miniture Fainting Goats at Devils Tower Campground

 

Dot - Pygmi Goat at Devil's Tower Campground

Prairie Dogs at Devil's Tower

Prairie Dogs playing at Devil's Tower

Baby Prairie Dogs at Devil's Tower

   
 After that we moved on to Yellowstone where I discovered Justin’s camper is only 2 or 3 yards from mine!  Then we went out in the back country for some time to look at the Yellowstone canyon.  After that we walked around the Geysers and springs on the board walk and saw a lot of Geysers go off.  They were pretty cool they shot up steaming, boiling water into the air!  Then the next day we went drove around the park we saw some Bison, Elk, Pronghorn, and some Coyote.  Then we looked for wolves for 2 days then finally until we saw the Alpha pair, 1 white the other black (male is the black) then we saw 2 grey yearlings and 1 black pup. 

Waiting on Old Faithful

There she blows!  -Old Faithful

Geyser Basin

Grotto Geyser

Morning Glory Pool

Crows mobbing a Red Tailed Hawk

Old Faithful again from the geyser trail

Castle Geyser

Golden Mantle Squirrel near Old Faithful

Yellow Bellied Marmot near Old Faithful

Buffalo!  Buffalo! and more Buffalo!  -even on the road there are Buffalo!

baby and momma buffalo

lots and lots of bison at Lamar Valley

sneaky coyote at Lamar Valley

Big Elk

Fishing Bridge Campground

Golden Mantle Squirrel in a hidey hole at Tower Falls

Grizzly Bear at Pelican Bay

T

Oh! That itches!

Oh! Hi!

Lamar Valley - lookin' for wolves!

Lower Falls

Lower Falls

Red Fox at night

The boys at Roosevelt Lodge

Tower Falls

Uncle Tom's Trail at Lower Falls - man there was about a million steps back up!

Mountain Bluebird

Raven in flight

Alpha Female Wolf - You wouldn't believe how long it took to get this picture!

Those fuzzy little dots are actually the Canyon Wolf Pack lead by the black 712M male and the white alpha female.  Three pups (one grey and two black) are behind the alpha female, and one grey yearling is just in front of the black alpha male.  (We think!)  Many thanks to Joan and Mike who were kind enough to let us see the wolves up close in their viewing scope!

  Then we passed through the Grand Tetons and into Utah.  We drove to Salt Lake City to meet my dad’s friend Rives (RE-VS) from college for the first time.  My dad has not seen Rives for about 20 years.  We spent the night at his house. The next morning we said our farewells and headed out to Arches National Park.   

Grand Tetons

White Mules Ear

Grizzly Attack!  (OK, maybe we were in the Visitor's Center!)

Wolf

Elk Herd - The town of Jackson, in the Grand Tetons, is the winter home for many Elk Herds.

Worlds Longest Elk Antler Arch in Afton,WY.  Well OK then!

Another, not so long, Elk Antler Arch

Dad likes the bear!

Even the parking lots are gorgeous here!

After a long drive to Arches we rested and woke up the next morning to go on the Fiery Furnace Tour.  For the next two days after the Fiery Furnace Tour we hiked around looking at petroglyphs and Native American Indian rock art.   On the final day at Arches, we hiked to Delicate Arch, Double o Arch and Landscape Arch.  My favorite arch was “Double O Arch” because it looked like a figure 8 and if you looked through it.  When the sunset arrived it was like looking through a pair of sideways binoculars.  I also like the fact that you could climb through one hole and out the other.   

I forgot the name of this Bridge inside of Fiery Furnace, but it was the first Arch/Bridge that we saw on the Fiery Furnace Tour.

Crawl Through Arch - Me first!

Ryan inside Crawl Thru Arch

Inside the Fiery Furnace

Inside the Fiery Furnace

Skull Arch inside Fiery Furnace

Exploring the world of potholes with Ranger Jon.  Did you say that you saw a Water Bear?

Campsite at Devil's Garden in Arches National Park

Campsite at Devil's Garden in Arches National Park.  Can you say awesome?

The next set of petroglyphs are from a location near the golf course in Moab.

The figure in the left is known as the Moab Man

Can you see the "sleigh and 8 reindeer"?  See even the ancient people knew about Santa Claus!

Chipmunk in the Juniper Tree in our campsite

Whiptail Lizard - We saw tons of these guys running around Arches!

The next set of petroglyphs are from Moonflower Canyon just outside of Moab.

There is lots of graffiti at this site :(

Can you see the "staircase" left by the ancient people in this picture?

Here it is!  This picture was taken by pointing the camera up through the crack in the rocks.  Somebody has removed the bottom few set of rungs on the ladder, or else we would have tried to climb it ourselves!

A little further down Moonflower Canyon

The next 6 pics are from the "Birthing Rock," even further down Moonflower Canyon.

Have you ever played "Where's Waldo?"  Well, how about "Where's the Jeep?"

There they are!  They were across Moonflower Canyon from us.   Those are some serious Jeeps!

...We've got more pictures to be uploaded here later...phew! This takes a long time!...Check back in a few days!

Then we left to go to the Grand Canyon.  Quite honestly, I was really disappointed in the Grand Canyon.  It looked like a big ditch.  Me-Maw thought it looked like a giant strip mine.  We did not get to hike down in and camp in the canyon because my mom got sick :(  I don't think the desert likes her.  Maybe it would have looked better if we could have gone below the rim.