Hey Guys! I thought I’d hop on and give y’all a quick update on what’s going on! We’re still mooch-docking with my (Jennie’s) parents. We’ll be here until late Spring…if the nomad itch doesn’t get too bad. We don’t usually stay in one place for so long and Guys, the itch to hit the open road is hitting pretty strongly. Adventure is calling!
This year has been incredibly difficult on so many levels…for the entire world. We’ve all had a hard year. Between the whole pandemic thing to the civil unrest to the entire election debacle to another round of eye surgeries… and all of the wildfires… 2020 has been…unexpected. And not in a good way.
We’ve got some traveling in mind for 2021, but I’ll be honest…whether or not we actually go really depends on how things are going. I don’t want to go through another year of constant cancelations, park closures and ever changing quarantine laws. It takes all of the fun out of the whole Nomad life thing. While we still don’t have a clear picture of what our 2021 is going to look like, we do know we’re not done traveling. The world is big and there’s still SO much to see.
Here’s hoping 2021 is better than 2020! Thank you for coming along on this crazy nomad journey we call life.
Happy New Year and Safe Travels…from our family to yours!
See y’all down the road!
“May the blessings of each day be the blessings you need most.”
Hey Guys! Well, in true 2020 style…something went wrong.
We had three weeks left of the 2020 travel loop and Jerl’s right retina started to detach.
We were in the middle of exploring Yellowstone National Park when he started to notice some light tracers…which are the first signs that something isn’t right. Fortunately (I guess) this wasn’t his first experience with a detaching retina, so we knew what to expect and what needed to happen.
We ended up cutting our Yellowstone adventures short by a couple of days and start the long 1300 mile journey back to Missouri. Which…wasn’t our first experience with that either. During the last week of 2017 we were in Phoenix, AZ and had to make a similar trek. You can read about that adventure here if you missed it.
Before I get into the drive back to Missouri…let’s talk foodies from the West Yellowstone area. We found a couple of tasty spots! One was a food truck called Taqueria Malverde…it was really good Mexican food. Big portions, great food and nice people. The other place we found was The Buffalo Bar. We had some great burgers! We highly recommend both of these places if you’re ever in the West Yellowstone area.
There are a few different ways we could have left West Yellowstone and made our way back to Missouri. We decided to head south in Yellowstone National Park to the John D Rockerfeller Jr Memorial Parkway. The day we left was really smoky from all of the wildfires raging in the west.
This route let us drive through Grand Teton National Park one more time…and Guys, we saw eight grizzly bears! Eight!! The first three were hanging out on the road. We think they were juvenile males…possibly siblings. They were so goofy and unimpressed with all of the cars.
Right around the corner we ran into Mama Bear 399 with her four murder minions. Y’all know I wanted to see these bears sooo bad that while we were in Grand Teton earlier in the year, we’d gotten up at 4am to try and get a glimpse of these famous danger floofs. We never saw them during that trip, but Guys!!! We finally saw them! It kind of took some of the sting out of our situation.
To give you an idea of how smoky it was…the picture on the left is what the Tetons looked like when we were there back in early July of this year. I took the picture on the right as we were driving through Grand Teton NP in September this year.
Between the smoke from all of the California and Montana fires and then the smoke blowing up from the many Colorado fires, we saw really smoky skies for the first two days we were driving.
We made it to Missouri late that third day. While it was good to see family, it was still disappointing to miss several National Park Units and anxiety about upcoming eye surgeries was starting to set in.
We got back to Missouri on a Sunday and Jerl had eye surgery that Thursday. Everything went well. He had to lay face down for three weeks while his eye was trying to heal. It wasn’t his first eye surgery experience…and this one seemed to go smoother for him with less pain.
But now what?
We had to cancel the rest of our travel loop for 2020 and figure out what we wanted to do for the winter. With the whole virus thing still an issue plus all of the civil unrest/violence plaguing the country and the upcoming elections…we decided it might be a good idea to stick close to family this winter. Which means…we’re mooch-docking in my (Jennie’s) parent’s driveway until we head out again. We’re not sure when that will be. Like the rest of the world, we’re waiting to see how the whole virus thing plays out and how this coming election ends. By the time this post goes live, we will hopefully know who the next President will be and will have a better idea of what the heck we’re going to do with our 2021. Do we travel more? Do we buy a house and settle down?
Hey Guys! While we were in the West Yellowstone area, we took an afternoon to explore Earthquake Lake Geological Area. A Ranger in one of the National Parks we were visiting told us about this place earlier this year (2020) and it sounded right up our alley. Earthquake Lake is located in Custer Gallatin National Forest and is maintained by the National Forestry. There is a Junior Ranger program, a wonderful museum, and several stops along the lake that have info-signs about that night.
We started our exploration of Earthquake Lake at the visitor center where we learned the whole story of what happened here. You can see the view of Earthquake Lake from the visitor center in the picture above.
On August 17, 1959 most of the campgrounds around Madison Canyon were packed. The Rock Creek, Cabin Creek, and Beaver Creek Campgrounds were all popular camping destinations because they were right next to the Madison River that meandered it’s way through the canyon. It’s estimated there were around 250 people in the canyon that night…all of them had just gone to bed or were getting ready to.
Just before midnight, one of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded in the Rocky Mountains, measuring 7.5 on the Richter scale, struck in the nearby Hebgen Lake. The earthquake triggered an enormous landslide that crashed down and sent 80 million tons of rock sliding down the mountain, through the canyon and back up the other side all in a matter of 20 seconds.
This earthquake was felt in eight states and Canada. Visitors in Yellowstone said that Old Faithful “wouldn’t shut off”. According to the NPS, this earthquake altered the average interval between Old Faithful eruptions by ten or so minutes.
In 20 seconds, a massive wall of splintered trees, busted up rocks, mud and huge boulders slid from the south side of the canyon…swept through the peaceful campgrounds, and continued up the other side of the canyon wall and plugged up the river. Families were separated as they fled for their lives, people were trapped within the wreckage and debris and Hebgen Lake started to slosh so badly that a wall of water swept through the area.
This boulder is one of the many that crashed through the canyon that night. Geologist who have worked to piece together the story of that night believe that boulders like this basically…surfed on the landslide that was acting more like water than land to come to rest on the other side of the canyon. They think that because of the undisturbed moss on the boulder. In just twenty seconds this six million ton boulder traveled about half a mile.
It was a long night for the campers. They went through not one, but three major events. First was the earthquake, then the massive landslide…and then they had to find their way to high ground as the flooding began. On top of all of that…a storm started rolling through the area.
By 1AM groups of survivors started making their way to what is now called Refuge Point where a couple of nurses who happened to be camping started taking care of the injured.
Three sections of the highway had been lost to the devastation so no one could drive out of the area. Those that didn’t make it to Refuge Point spent the long night huddled on the rocks…waiting for help…hoping to make it to the morning.
Rescuers raced in to help, but it wasn’t until the morning that they realized the scope of what had happened. Around noon the next day Forest Service Smokejumpers started arriving with rescue gear while helicopters started evacuating people. When it was all said and done…19 people had been buried in the landslide (their bodies were never found)…a total of 28 people lost their lives that night.
Today you can visit Refuge Point and hike down to see the remnants of a few cabins that’s now called Ghost Village.
Some Parks change you…the story of Earthquake Lake will stay with us forever.
We highly recommend visiting Earthquake Lake and learning about the night that changed so much for so many.
In the next post I’ll give you an update on our drive back to Missouri and what our winter plans might look like.
Hey Guys! We spent almost two weeks in West Yellowstone, MT so we could explore Yellowstone National Park. This is a park that everyone seems to compare all other parks to. We were both excited and a little… weary about exploring this park. We don’t have the best track record when it comes to enjoying the super popular parks. We’re not fans of overly crowded areas plus sometimes we’ve heard the hype and built it up so much in our minds that the park doesn’t have a chance to live up to our high expectations.
Yellowstone National Park is not only our Nation’s very first National Park it’s also the world’s very first National Park. When people find out we’re on a National Park Tour there are two parks they always ask about…Yellowstone and Glacier. And they were usually shocked when we told them that we hadn’t been to either park yet but had plans to…eventually.
At the heart of Yellowstone National Park sits the remnants of a supervolcano. This supervolcano last erupted somewhere around 631,000 years ago and now is the power behind all of Yellowstone’s hydrothermal features. You see signs everywhere warning about the fragile crust and the heat of the water. Another words…stick to the trails! Even with all of the signs, we saw people getting off the trails. This not only puts them in danger of falling through the thin crust and getting burned by the boiling water that’s sitting just under the surface of the crust…but it also damages fragile ecosystems that will take years to recover.
We liked to get into the park early in the morning. Not only were we avoiding the major crowds by getting out early, it was also easier to see where all the geysers were. It looked so otherworldly looking out over the land and seeing so many steam columns coming up from the various hydrothermal geysers, hot springs, steam vents and mud pots.
When you ask most people what first comes to mind when they think of Yellowstone National Park, more often than not they’re going to say Old Faithful. We spent almost an hour waiting for the famous geyser to do it’s thing. The park has tons of benches around the viewing area so people can sit and wait. It was…ok. I mean, I’m glad we saw it…but once was enough.
Old Faithful was first documented in 1870 and is one of Yellowstone’s more predictable geysers erupting about every 90 minutes. So, what’s a geyser? Basically, a geyser is a hot spring that has a narrow space somewhere in its “plumbing” system where steam and water will escape as pressure builds up. When pressure reaches a critical temp and the water bubbles harder…the geyser expels water and steam until the pressure in the plumbing has dropped again.
Old Faithful might be the most well known geyser in the Upper Geyser Basin, but it’s definitely not the only one. There are 150 different geysers, hot springs and steam vents found along a boardwalk trail. Honestly, I enjoyed the boardwalk trail more than Old Faithful. But that’s just me.
Even with the whole covid virus thing happening there were still tons of people at Yellowstone during our visit.
So many people. Everywhere.
We were told by one of the volunteers that the NPS had, for some reason, cut the Ranger numbers down to a quarter of what they usually were. I believe it. We hardly ever saw a Ranger out. We did see tons of people treating the park like their own personal playground. We saw someone moving a fence so they could park there. It was crazy.
Yellowstone is home to close to 10,000 hydrothermal features… that’s over half of the total hydrothermal features found worldwide. All of those hydrothermal features are evidence that the Yellowstone volcano is still very much alive and active.
They’re called thermophilic communities. Bacterial microbes from thick structures and mats…communities made of a descendant of an ancient bacterium called Thermocrinis. The colors and shapes of the communities depend on the types of microbes, pH, and temperature of the water. Mats can be as thin as a single piece of paper or as thick as a 600 page book. Cyanobacteria form columns or pedestals. These communities are made up of layers and can be a mix of thermophilic microbes.
Another hydrothermal feature you can find in Yellowstone National Park is called a mudpot.
A what?
A mudpot is exactly what it sounds like. A bubbling stinky mud pool. A mudpot forms when a hot spring is very acidic and has a limited water supply which causes the rock around it to dissolve into a thick slurry type substance. While I don’t love the smell…I do love the different colors and formations you can find in the area.
The Grand Canyon section of Yellowstone has several overlooks where you can get a good look at the Upper and Lower falls of the Yellowstone River. I wasn’t expecting canyons like this in Yellowstone. The canyon is just over 20 miles long and has some really pretty colors along the walls of the canyon.
Mammoth Hot Spring Terraces are constantly changing shapes and colors as hot springs go dormant and then suddenly come back to life. Hot water combined with dissolved limestone bubbles up to the surface and over time builds steps and terraces that can be different colors based on the temperature of the water.
We spent a couple of hours exploring the different terraces of Mammoth Hot Springs. We got there early one morning and beat the crowd. I’d read that it’s a popular spot and to get a parking spot you need to get there before 10am. We were finishing up as the crowds started to descend and people were circling the parking lots trying to find a spot.
“For the benefit and enjoyment of the people.” President Roosevelt was visiting Yellowstone National Park in 1903 during construction of the north entrance arch and was asked to lay the cornerstone. The arch was then called the Roosevelt Arch. We drove all the way up to the north entrance just to see the Roosevelt Arch. I saw a picture of this arch in a textbook in elementary school and decided I would one day go see it. Seeing the arch in person after having it on my “bucket list” for so many years was amazing. The northern entrance was the first and main entrance into the park.
Yellowstone NP protects over 2.2 million acres of land. To give you some size perspective…that is larger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined. There are five entrances that will get you into the park and get you to the Grand Loop Road which is the way to get around the park. The loop road looks more like a figure eight and is about 142 miles long. We did it in two very full days. On day one we did the bottom half and then the next day we did the top half.
The main loop road might only be142 miles long but there are 300 miles of paved roads in the park that will take you off the beaten path.
If Old Faithful is the first thing people think of when you mention Yellowstone, Grand Prismatic is the second. This is what I really wanted to see. We tried to see it three times while we were in the park, but never made it there before the crush of people. Our last day in the park we went super early to beat the crowds…but…it was smoky from nearby wildfires and it was cold, so steam blocked most of the view. I really wanted to see those bright vibrant colors…but I have to admit, I’m not mad at the softer pastel morning lighting that we got.
We drove to both Lamar and Hayden Valleys to see the bison herds. Yellowstone NP is the only place in the United States where bison have continuously lived since prehistoric times. The herds here are the largest found on public lands. We saw so many bison and they pretty much go wherever they want to go…whenever they want to. We got to Yellowstone right as bison rut was starting. The bison bulls were pretty aggressive with each other and anyone else they felt might get in their way or challenge them. Including cars on the road. One bison charged a car and busted a tire. I guess he was tired of the paparazzi taking pictures. ;-p
Bison and elk roadblocks were a frequent thing. We also saw tourons trying to get killed by two ton bison bulls as they were taking pictures of it. I can’t believe we didn’t see anyone get hurt. It was close a few times though.
We saw tons of bison, loads of elk…pronghorn antelope, dragonflies galore…but no wolves or bears. We did see a bear print on a hike…but no actual bears.
We enjoyed our time in Yellowstone National Park. I’m not sure it made our top ten list. I mean…Yellowstone is definitely the most colorful and smelliest NP we’ve been to…but Guys, you can only look at so many geysers and hot springs before they kind of all start looking the same. I hate to say that…but I like to keep it real with y’all. While we totally appreciate the history of Yellowstone National Park and love the history/story this park is preserving…we probably won’t go back any time soon.
Our Yellowstone visit was cut short by two days when Jerl’s retina detached in his right eye. If you’ve been with us for a while, you’ll know that he’s had two other detachments (both in his left eye) so… we knew what to expect and headed back to Missouri three weeks before schedule. I’ll tell you more about that in the next post.
