34th Anniversary

FRIDAY.

This past weekend was our anniversary. We decided going to Seattle and Vancouver would be too expensive, so we drove to Jackson and the Grand Tetons.

Motel 6 was the least expensive motel at over $100 per night (ridiculous for a hard bed and a mint-size piece of soap), but then I found The Hostel at Teton Village for $55. For that you get a rustic room in a four-story building, a king-size bed (two twin mattresses made up separately on a piece of king-size plywood in a box), a shower, toilet, a sink, and hear-through walls and ceiling. No TV. No closet. No dresser. There is a TV and fridge in the common area (you have to mark your food or someone will throw it out), but we didn't venture there. I would stay here again for the price. But then, we seldom spend more than sleeping time in hotels. I also got 24 hours of free wi-fi from some hotel in the area.

The weather was perfect: lows near 30 at night with daytime highs in the low 70s and clear skies. But there was a fire burning between the base of Mount Moran and Jackson Lake that filled the valley with smoke. We arrived on Friday afternoon, just as the wind picked up and blew the three-week-old fire that the Park Service had been letting burn naturally, since it was started by lightening, into a roaring blaze that filled the valley with smoke.

We drove to Jackson Lake Lodge via the Teton Park Road past Jenny Lake and Signal Mountain. When we turned to go back to Teton Village, the Park Service had closed the road, so we took the highway from Moran Junction. (Click on this picture. I think it's way cool, with the Tetons in the background, the sun in the middle of the smoke, and sun rays coming off the top of the top of the smoke column.)

Nearing sunset on a smokey mountain range.

SATURDAY

I decided against getting up before sunrise to take pictures and am glad I didn't bother. With the cool, still air in the morning, the smoke just settled on the valley floor. Can you see Grand Teton in the background. Believe me, it's right there, but don't strain your eyes looking for it.

Although the Park Service had been letting the fire burn (there were actually three fires: one at Gros Ventre, this one near Jackson Lake, and another somewhere in the nearby mountains, plus a prescribed burn at the mouth of the Snake River Canyon), the flare-up on Friday afternoon must have prompted action, because the water-dumping helicopters were working full time on Saturday morning. The ranger kicked us out of our parking spot here, so I couldn't get a picture of this helicopter as it took off.

But I did get this picture from the top of Signal Mountain.

One place that didn't have any smoke, especially in the afternoon, when the daily breeze started to blow, was the hike to Phelps Lake on the old Rockefeller JY Ranch property. I love this hike, because the parking lot to the visitor center is small, and the ranger won't let anyone in unless they have a parking spot, which means not very many people on the trail or at the lake. We ate our lunch in the car while we waited for our turn. A lot of people didn't have the patience to wait and drove out. We waited maybe 15 or 20 minutes.

The lake is beautiful and peaceful at the base of this mountain. A guy hiking out with a fishing pole said it's full of fish, too.

The hike is pretty easy, about three miles round trip.

If you know what this bird is, please tell me. I wish I knew more about the flora and fauna.

I do know not to eat these. We learned in Boy Scouts when I was 12 that white berries are always poisonous, red berries are sometimes poisonous, and purple or blue berries are always safe (but I'm not sure I believe the last one completely).

The trail follows the creek up to the lake, and the return loop comes down to the north.

The trail crosses the Moose-Teton Village road, which used to be a wicked dirt road full of potholes with few cars and lots of opportunity to see moose (we also saw a bear here once), but now the dirt is well oiled, and the traffic is almost nonstop. Unless there's a moose. Then its totally stopped.

On Saturday evening we had reservations for the Bar J. The biscuits are in the dutch ovens.

And the ribeye steaks are on the grill.

This fox was born at the Bar J last year in a litter of nine. He stuck around when the others left. This is just outside the Bar J barn.

This is inside the Bar J barn. We staked out our spots on the front side at the aisle end of our assigned table, and I went to the car while Chieko stayed chatting with a couple and their daughter from Blackfoot, who were sitting across from us. When I came back, some newlywed-looking guy was sitting in my spot. He had to sit next to his bride rather than across from her and didn't care that my magazine and wife were already there. We had to move to the other side of the table and trade places with the daughter of the Blackfoot couple. Then I got the guy's fat head in all my pictures. But it was either move or start a fight, which Chieko wouldn't approve.

The wranglers' Hawaiian shirts are due to this being the last night of the season, when the wranglers are looser (if that's possible) and the end-of-season staff plays pranks.

The crooner singing "Only You."

I like going on the last night of the season, because there's a good chance the retired Babe will show up to do his "Buying a Size 6-7/8 Bra" or another cowboy poem.

He also sang along with the wranglers in a tribute to veterans.

SUNDAY

On Sunday morning, the smoke wasn't as thick but was still hanging around, so we decided to drive to Yellowstone. But first we had a breakfast burrito at Down on Glen (DOG). If you haven't found this place, you must. I had a spicy meat breakfast burrito, which I highly recommend.

The road construction between Jackson Lake Lodge and Flagg Ranch was still chugging along. This probably slowed us by about 45 minutes.

We had heard there was a fire near West Thumb, but I was a little surprised when we came down the hill to the Grant Village turnoff. Apparently this fire also flared up on Friday afternoon to a pretty good-size burn. We were going to Madison Junction, which was upwind, so this wasn't a big deal to our plans.

We stopped at Old Faithful for lunch, but the cafeteria was closed for the season, so we ate at the Snow Lodge Grill. I'm pretty sure my hamburger had been made from cow lips and innards, grilled in Idaho Falls last spring, frozen, and steamed at the "Grill." The mustard didn't taste too bad, and there was a slice of tomato.

I thought this scene was interesting, because it has trees that were burned in the huge 1988 fire, new trees that filled in over the past 20 years, and this new fire.

Here's another look at a tree that survived the 1988 burn, trees that succumbed to that fire, and the new trees. Three phases of life.

This large bull elk is keeping watch over his harem. There were probably 20 or 30 cows. A young bull was waiting patiently way off to the east of this group.

West Yellowstone has a great stop called the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center. The wolves are fenced into two areas on the west, and the grizzlies are in a large area on the east. These are all animals that were rescued from various places in the United States, including Alaska. I think this is the alpha male in this group.

Twin wolf cubs.

Watching other wolves play in the water.

Two grizzlies are let out into the viewing area at a time and spend about an hour and a half. Between pairs, a girl comes out and hides food, elk bones, and some kind of oil under boulders. This is Illie, who was rescued from Alaska with her brother, Sam, after their mother disappeared and the pair ventured into a fishing village, where they were hand fed human food. Although Illie is smaller than her brother, she is more aggressive and always comes out first. Illie was named for the volcano, Mount Iliamna.

Illie weighs about 800 pounds. Compare this to Yellowstone brown (grizzly) bears, which reach about 350 to 400 pounds. These Alaska coastal bears grow up eating protein- and fat-rich salmon.

I would not like to see this coming over a hill. This is Sam, named for King Salmon, Alaska, his home.

After foraging for a while, Sam took a bath in the pond.

Then he went looking for food again. Sam weighs about 1,050 pounds.

Golden Spike National Historic Site

I'm just about finished reading Nothing Like It in the World, Stephen Ambrose's account of the building of the transcontinental railroad, so today I had to visit the Golden Spike National Historic site. I've been there a couple times, but in the winter, when the trains were in their shed. The engines are supposed to be done for this season, too, since it's after Labor Day, but they were out today. If you want to go, the Park Service is doing a reenactment of the driving of the golden spike at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. each Saturday though October 10 this year. Unfortunately, I didn't know this and showed up about 1:45, just as the people in costume were heading inside. Still, I got to see the trains.


This is the tail end of the reenactment of the driving of the spikes. There were actually four spikes: two gold (from California), one silver (from Nevada), and one iron with copper and gold cladding (from Arizona). After these commemorative spikes were tapped into predrilled holes in a polished wood tie and removed, regular spikes were driven into a standard tie. Leland Stanford, president of the Central Pacific Railroad and governor of California took the first swing and missed. Then Thomas Durant, president of the Union Pacific Railroad took a swing and missed. So an unnamed regular railroad worker actually drove in the real last spike.

This is the 119, a replica of the Union Pacific's engine. The UP was two days late to the ceremony because unpaid workers in Wyoming chained up the train and the company's president until they got paid.

The Jupiter is blowing off steam to clean the sediment and minerals from its pipes. The Central Pacific was supposed to have a fancier engine at the ceremony, but it ran into a tree that Chinese workers had dropped across the tracks in Nevada, their not knowing the train was coming, and the engine had to be replaced by this workhorse.

The UP's 119 was a coal burner, since there was little wood to burn between Omaha and the Wasatch Mountains.

The Central Pacific's Jupiter was a wood burner, since there was plenty of wood in the Sierras.

Because the competition was so intense for each company to finish the most miles of rails, the graders for each company built road bed right past each other. The Union Pacific road bed is on the right and is the one finally used on this section west of Promontory Summit. The Central Pacific graders didn't finish leveling the cutout on the left after the government decided the joining point would be Promontory Summit. The UP had planned to lay track to Wells, and the CP had planned to lay track to Echo in Weber Canyon.


This is as good a place as any for lunch on the West Auto Tour, which is on the Central Pacific road bed.


This is called Chinamen's Arch (or something like that) on the East Auto Tour. It was created by Lake Bonneville but is now used to commemorate the more than 11,000 Chinese workers on the Central Pacific Railroad. The Union Pacific hired mostly Irish immigrants, who, when they were building roadbed alongside the Chinese, threw dirt and axe handles at the Chinese and set off explosives that caused injuries. The Chinese ignored the Irish until the explosions, when they set off their own explosives that buried some Irish alive. And that was the end of the fighting between the two sets of graders.


Near Golden Spike National Historic Site is ATK (formerly Thiokol), which makes rocket engines for the military and NASA. This is a Minuteman rocket.


This is a reusable solid fuel booster for the Space Shuttle.


I think this corn near Corinne should make Jamie and Brian feel at home when they decide to move back here.

Mesa Verde

Last October Randy and I were planning to go to Mesa Verde for a couple days, but a snow storm sent us to Las Vegas. So this year we tried the Mesa Verde trip again.

This time the weather held out for the most part. This dwelling was built 800 or so years ago by Native Americans who abandoned this area due to a drought and whose ancestors are the current-day Pueblos in southern New Mexico and elsewhere. That's according to this year's crop of Park Service guides. Other years you might hear that no one knows where the inhabitants went or why. This is the Cliff Palace.

This is the cliff sitter. We ate our picnic lunch near here.

The Cliff Palace at sunset from across the canyon.

A kiva is a large round hole in the ground with a wooden-beam-and-adobe roof that has a single hole in the center for entering and exiting. Kivas may have been used for religious ceremonies, community activities, and sleeping. Your guess is as good as anyone's. This kiva is at the Balcony House complex.

The Spruce Tree House complex is near the visitor center and is the only structure that you can tour any time of year. It's also relatively easy to get to, being in the bottom of a canyon rather than a cliff high up on the canyon wall. The guided tours to Cliff Palace and Balcony House close in October. Another area closes after Labor Day, so we didn't go there.

Getting to and out of the Balcony House requires climbing some ladders straight up the side of the cliff (not really that scary) and squeezing through this tunnel. With water getting scarce due to a long drought around 1280 and with the Balcony House having a seep spring, these protected entrances and exits may have been designed to keep the other Pueblos out of the Balcony's water supply.

We saw several deer, a coyote running along the road (I didn't have my camera ready, but I got a picture out the driver's window with Randy's camera--I'll add it when I get it from Randy)...

We saw some wild turkeys at the Spruce Tree House...

A flock of turkey buzzards...

And a lot of late-season bees gathering the last of the nectar (with legs packed with pollen).

At night we were treated to a lightening display that lasted quite a while but then turned into a wicked hail and rain storm on top of us. Luckily we had just gotten into the car when it hit.

We also got a great view of the Milky Way. I always forget how beautiful the sky is at night where there aren't a lot of city lights.

We stayed at the National 9 Sand Canyon Inn (not my picture) because it was the cheapest place I could find in Cortez ($50). The room had a new air conditioner, a broken window latch (we cut up a hanger and used that as a window lock), ample black sticky splotches in the carpet, and painted-over mildew on the bathroom ceiling. The sheets were clean and the TV had a ton of cable channels.

The next day we drove to Durango and spent a couple hours at the Trimble hot springs resort (not my picture) in the hot and hotter pools, lawn chairs, sauna, and Olympic-size swimming pool.

Then we stopped for lunch at Serious Texas Barbecue. I ate a brisket sandwich and Randy ordered a pulled-pork sandwich. STB makes a great vinegar-based BBQ sauce. I was skeptical at first, because I don't care for eastern North Carolina BBQ, which is vinegar based. But this one was sweet with a little tomato, and who know what else. It was so good I bought a small bottle to take home.

We sat on the bluff above the city for a while and then watched the last train on the narrow-gauge Durango-Silverton Railway come in. The ride to Silverton is a great experience, but it costs $80 each so we skipped it this time.

This phone booth is near the train station.

On Wednesday, we headed home, but we had to stop at the Adobe Milling store for some Anasazi beans. Anasazi beans are a lot like pinto beans, but they don't produce as much gas, or so they tell us. Unfortunately, this year was wet and cool and the Anasazi beans have't been harvested yet. They are dried on the vine. So I bought a 50-pound sack of pinto beans for our food storage.

We couldn't go through Green River without stopping for some melons. I picked out a honeydew and a cantaloupe and told the lady at the stand that my wife likes one and I like the other. So she also sold me a melon that is a cross, a honeyloupe or cantadew or something like that. I also picked up a real watermelon (one with real seeds). Chieko and I decided this is the best-tasting watermelon we've had this year. All the melons were really good.

I can't pass Provo without stopping at Tommy's for a chili cheese dog.