August 4 – Idaho, Montana, and Yellowstone, Wyoming

Today we left Ogden, UT, somewhat early and drove almost all day, trying to get to Yellowstone by evening.

We spent a lot of time driving in Idaho.

And a tiny bit of time driving in Montana.

We saw a bison, just walking on the side of the road.

And we stopped for the Mountain Man Rendezvous (Public Welcome!) to ogle and shop.

Then we made it to Yellowstone! This was a crowning achievement, because we had all agreed back at Arches that although we were tired and a little out of motivation to last two more weeks, we did indeed want very much to see Yellowstone. The Grand Canyon was one thing, but it felt like the two together would be a pair of epic summer coolness.

We paused a few times on our way from the West Entrance to our campground at Grant Village.

First we stopped at Fountain Paint Pot.

(holy crap geyser!)

Then we stopped at Biscuit Basin!

And the last stop before we headed for the campground (around 4:30, predicted eruption 5:23), was Old Faithful.

We were suitably impressed.

August 3 – Arches

Okay, so Arches National Park has some pretty freaky landscape.

We were up early, thank goodness, and we drove all the way to the end of the park, to the Devil’s Garden, for our five mile hike. We left the car, loaded up with water, at 8:30, which was just about perfect to be hiking for serious in this crazy country/land/climate.

According to the guide map, where Arches is now used to be an inland sea (which still exists, actually, see “Great Salt Lake”). The sea evaporated and shrank, leaving behind a whole mess of salt. Over the salt formed a layer of rock, about a mile thick. The salt couldn’t stand up to that kind of weight and pressure, and so it buckled and melted, creating folds in the rock, shoving some up and dropping some down, creating these fins.

The fins were then assaulted by wind and rain and water, and in some places the softer rock broke apart and wore and fell away, leaving the harder rock where it was.

The first arch we met was Landscape Arch, the longest span in America (the world?).

You can see in the picture essentially the history of the arch. On the left, the ground under the arch is soft and sloping and grassy. That’s the older part: the rock that falls away gets ground into a fine, fine sand (which gets into your socks, even if you are wearing sneakers, ask me how I know). On the right, you can see big boulders and chunks of rock. These fell away in 1991, and have yet to be turned into sand and soil.

I think these look like cruise ships.

Next we encountered Wall Arch, which was exactly what it claimed to be.

With it came some nature lace.

Also, we thoroughly satisfied our desire to climb and scramble around on the rocks.

Third was Black Hole Arch (maybe Black Arch).

And Sarah screwed around on the cliff edge.

Onward we hiked, heading for Double O, theoretically the goal of our journey.

We reached it, and were impressed, and sat to rest. I even got to knit (I know, outrageous).

But we saw that people had climbed up and around to look at it from behind, so we followed suit. And yes indeed, ladies and gentlemen, this is what we hiked here for.

Sweet.

By then it was 12:30, so we started back, and made a few detours for some arches we had missed on the way out.

There was lots to sit and look at, so we did that plenty.

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It was hot. We had finished our water bottles and strove onwards back to the parking lot, sweating, panting, and mentally scolding the people just setting out (at 2pm). They thought they were hot already. Ha! Fools.

We lunched at the car, almost too tired to chew, and refilled our many bottles more than once.

Then we drove to spend the night in Ogden, which is north of Salt Lake City.

(taxidermy)

(look! Great Salt Lake! Behind those trees!)

August 2 – Mesa Verde

We spent the night in Cortez, CO, just north of Mesa Verde National Park. We were up in the morning pretty early, and went to find coffee.

Then we drove to the Park. There are a couple of tours you can take of a couple of cliff-house-cities, but since we wanted to make this a half-day excursion and then be onwards to Utah, we decided to take only one: Balcony House.

Balcony House was built in the side of a cliff on Mesa Verde, under the lee of an overhanging ledge, prehistorically hollowed out by a rock-fall. The buildings were built over and around the remaining boulders on the floor of the cave/hollow, and it was really interesting to see the ingenuity of the places chosen for buildings.

The rooms were all low, with window-sized openings for doorways, because the people living there averaged about five feet tall (mom was thrilled).

In the floor were dug multiple round sub-rooms, called kivas, which when in use would have been covered, and therefore walked over, and used for ceremonial and social purposes.

The tour was pretty cool (the tour guide was lame), and we got to see both the North and South Plazas of Balcony House, which would have housed about 40 people. The way we came in, via a ladder, was not the original entrance. Instead we went out through the original entrance, which was a pair of two low tunnels, 18” wide, and about 24” tall, each 6’ long with a small, tall, natural chamber between.

This clearly would have made it pretty easy to defend, having the only way in be a one-at-a-time affair.

After we left Balcony House, we went to look from afar at Cliff Palace, which was the biggest of the cliff dwellings.

Then we took a driving tour of the mesa-top loop, the highlights of which were the Tower house, and the Sun Temple.

(Tower House: tower is 28 feet high, at 4 stories, putting each story around 6.5 feet tall)

We also hiked a short way to Spruce House, which we could tour ourselves, and even go down into a covered kiva.

We had lunch at the bottom of the mesa where we’d left our trailer, and then onwards we went to Utah.

We didn’t drive to Salt Lake City, however, but stayed just outside Arches National Park.