Epic Roadtrip Journal: 6/14/11 Yellowstone National Park

The day started fairly cloudy, so I opted to continue sleeping rather than try for sunrise. We woke up and had a quick breakfast (everything we owned was still sopping wet, so we just dealt with it), and started our day of adventures at about 8am. (We pack so much into each day that at this point in the trip it is just starting to be a grind writing in the journal. I was just jotting down what happened just to have it written down so I could go to sleep sooner. WHAT A BABY.)
We drove around towards Prismatic Spring (for the life of me I can never remember that fucking name), stopping at a bunch of places along the way. A lot of geothermal sites, including a few with hot, bubbling mud. I felt like I was in some prehistoric time, and there probably should be dinosaurs walking around all over the place. It was odd that there weren't, so I learned to be happy with just the bubbling mud. Oh, it was the Artist Paintpot area. I'm good at remembering things. We then went to the Fountain Paintpot, where Nadkarni decided to throw litter into the scalding, growing bacteria that form the beautiful red colorful terraces (she accidentally dropped her trail map, but that didn't stop me from giving her shit for it). The geysers, bubbling mud pits, and fumaroles were awesome. One was called Spastic or Spazzing Geyser, I don't know the actual name, but I know that it was apt as SHIT because the geyser was spritzing out water in crazy directions.
We then made it to the Prismatic Spring area. It is a huge, intensely colored pool that Yellowstone is well known for. Seeing it on it's horizontal axis is interesting, because there is a lot of steam coming off (into us, so pictures were basically impossible), and the steam is colored the blue and orange of the actual spring.
After a quick PB+J AND buffalo jerky lunch, Alex, Scott and I started our nearby hike to Fairy Falls. We saw a lone buffalo close by right at the trail head, which I promptly threatened and warned that I was eating it's brethren in jerky form. The hike was really nice: perfect weather through a forest of young, super-green trees (that's a color, right?). The falls were great: about a 200 foot fall where I proceeded to climb up to the base and dance around in the mist. Refreshing AND dangerous - perfect combination.

I'm not sure who invented waterfalls, but you, sir, are a genius

We hiked back and up a hill to get a higher elevation view of the Prismatic Spring. Without exaggeration, it was in the top 5 most beautiful views I've ever experienced. The colors were so vivid and amazing. I had a hard time believing it wasn't a photoshopped poster someone had put in front of me. The bright blue and orange were beyond words... so I'll stop now.

The photos look like absolute shit compared to the real thing. It was mind-blowingly amazing.

We then drove around the southern side of the park toward Yellowstone Lake. There, we stopped at some lookouts we hadn't seen before and basically rocked out to some music and a picturesque drive (but seriously, those two CDs were starting to get pretty old).
Alex, Scott and I took a short hike near the "Lake Thumb" - it was an insane view of the lake and surrounding mountains. We also trudged through snow to see a couple elks REALLY close up. About 15 feet away. They are enormous. I don't understand how these animals are not afraid of us. I mean, I could literally walk up to it, pull a gun out, and shoot it's face off. These things have some serious balls.

"Holy crap he just looked at me!"

But we left the immense valley to continue our drive back to camp, along the gorgeous lake. We saw a HUGE Grizzly bear on the other side of the Yellowstone River. It was immense. I saw it swim partway across the river to an island, hoping against hope that it would come at me and we'd be able to battle, but alas, not this time.
We just finished a foil dinner - ground beef, carrots, and potatoes in foil pouches on a fire. Pretty damn good. I'm amazed I was able to get the fire going with wet wood right next to the snow bank though.
We just got back from our excursion from the Grand Canyon, just near our campground. We saw a bit of sunset at Artist's Point on the south rim (after a fiasco of trying to see it from the north rim, but facing the wrong way). Without fog, the canyon is JUST LOVELY. We saw the sky and clouds change to purple, orange, and red colors as the full moon came up. It was a pretty great evening.
Some notes about Yellowstone in general: unlike other hikes or parks, like hiking near Boston, Yellowstone isn't a monotonous hike with interspersed "holy crap this is an amazing view" locations. Yellowstone, every single moment of it, is "fuuuuuuuuuck this is beautiful and green and amazing and gorgeous and pretty and gorgeous again! I need to look up more synonyms for gorgeous!" Everything, every moment driving, every step while hiking, is just amazing. The smell of the trees, the views, the animals, they all make me think I need to reevaluate my life because the best I have to compare is a grey, overcast drive to shitty Lynn, MA for work every morning. I WANT GRIZZLY BEARS IN MY OFFICE.
Also, we've been doing thorns and roses for each day, and Alex and I had an epiphany together when we decided our overarching "thorn" for the canyon campsite would be "fucking freezing water in the sink." Seriously. The thing I dread the most each day is washing my hands in frigid ice-water.
Due to the fact that I am terrible at remembering things, I just thought of this. Earlier, while driving, we saw a coyote just hanging out in a field. He was waiting above a Pikachu hole (small rodent called a Pika, so I just took the next step in naming it Pikachu). Maybe he got one?

This guy is SO INTENSE

Also, whenever Alex yawns, we all lose "the game." It is terrible. He just learned about The Game, and now we all have associated yawning with The Game. Shit.

Epic Roadtrip Journal: 6/13/11 Yellowstone National Park

We slept amidst enormous snowbanks, on pavement, in 32 degree weather. HEROIC.
Scott and I got up around 5am to see the sunrise, but to no avail. The clouds thwarted our plans yet again. But we drove around all the views of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. Fog blocked most of the good views, and when I say fog, I of course mean clouds, because we are over 8000 feet up. Still great views, and we'll be back when it's nicer out.
We hung out at Inspiration Point, Artist's Point, and then saw an amazing angle of the Lower Falls - it was insane. I ran out onto some dangerous ledges to see some amazing higher-up views, as I am wont to do. It was a great way to start the day.

What is wrong with me?

Now, almost as if my life were a comedy, I'm sitting at our picnic table, COMPLETELY surrounded by snow, eating a bagel dipped in cream cheese (fuck knives) and fruit snacks, writing in this journal. We stuck some beer in the snow wall for later tonight.
And now I just climbed on top of the 4 foot wall of snow to go pee. And knock over a dead tree. It was difficult to push it over in the snow, but I managed. I'm basically a lumberjack, but my only tools are my BARE HANDS.
Some thoughts I have of Yellowstone so far: everything smells like rotten eggs. There are so many sulfur-spewing geothermal areas that the sulfur just gets everywhere. I don't think I'll be eating eggs for a while (and I HAVEN'T yet). Another thing is that there are awesome wild animals all over the place. Bison, bears, elk, marmots. They are just ALL OVER. It is really cool. Also, there is only ONE radio station. And it's fairly shitty. The radio just seeks all the way back around to the one station. They had a "rasta-hour" or something. It sucked. So we've been sticking with the 2 CDs that I brought: it's getting... tiring. Lastly, the water at our campsite's bathroom is so cold that you need to dry your hands in the middle of washing them just to prevent them from going numb.
Anyway, after breakfast we went to the Tower Falls area. We saw our first black bear, up a hill, somewhat far away. It was really cool to watch though. We checked out the falls, which were impressive, but I liked Lower Falls better. We then took off most of our warm clothes, because the weather became really nice. This included stripping down to my boxers in a crowded parking lot and not giving a SHIT.
On our way to our next destination, Mammoth Hot Springs, we drove by two black bears, one of which was super close to the road. I managed to get up really close for pictures; at one point it walked up to me, eating grass, about 15 feet away. I opted not to fight it, because it wasn't very big, so I'll wait for a Grizzly. Also, it was adorbs.

Holy crap he's LOOKING RIGHT AT ME. Please don't eat me.

At Mammoth, we saw quite a few thermal hot springs which created really colorful pools with insane bacteria that can apparently survive in temperatures that would scald my face off. They were really cool looking - we basically walked along the boardwalk directly above one-billion degree water (slight exaggeration). I was particularly fond of Canary Spring ("particularly fold of?" What am I, 70?), because it looked like what I imagine bears fighting each other would look like: pure awesome.

Hot Springs are one to two trillion degrees. Give or take.

Holy shit, I completely forgot driving to Cascade Falls! We did so freaking much today! It was another waterfall, it was cool,we saw a bald eagle: pretty standard.
Anyway, after Mammoth Hot Springs, where we saw a giant rock that looked like a dick, and a huge growing rock formation that looked like Jumbo, Scott and I went for a short hike near Mammoth. We heard there was a fresh carcass there, so we were hoping to see some more bears (because 3 isn't enough?). I literally was hiking with my drawn pocket knife. Unfortunately, no bears, but we managed to see some spectacular views, a dead elk carcass, a cool river/walking bridge, and another bald eagle. We got really close to this one; it flew directly over our heads. I tried to chase it up to the branch it was perched on, but oh wait, they can fly, so it left.
Skipping ahead, it started to rain pretty hard when we were at Norris Geyser Basin, so we had to cut that part short a bit. I swear, I had to change my hot weather/cold weather/rainy clothes more times today than I usually have to in a month. We were too discouraged to try to build a fire in the rain, so we bought some quick food at the general store near our campsite and ate in the car. We also had the beer we had stored in the snow at our site.

Scott and I are STOKED! jk we're not that stoked because it is pouring out.

I continued to drink delicious beer in the HOT SHOWER that I took. Scott and I managed to cheers our shower beers above the barrier to our showers. The shower itself was stupendous. I should start bathing less so that I get that amazing feeling more often. For only $3.25, my soul was rejuvenated and my bones were warmed. AND my growing B.O./sulfur smell was eliminated (keepin it classy). We then finished the night with a long game of hearts (I don't want to talk about the outcome) in the tent, hiding from the rain. And now I'm pooped, so I shall sleep.

Epic Roadtrip Journal: 6/12/11 Grand Tetons/Yellowstone National Parks

Writing from Grand Tetons:
It rained all night, and it is still drizzling now, and my fingers are numb writing this, but who gives a fuck; I'm in one of the most beautiful places in the world (sweet attitude brah!). No stargazing, sunset, or sunrise due to cloud cover, but it honestly doesn't matter. I passed out right when I got in the tent last night. I barely made it into my sleeping bag.
This morning, I got up before everyone else and walked down to the lake (Jenny Lake, where we camped at). It was preposterously amazing, even with clouds covering the mountains. Shit's getting tranquil up in here. Then I saw another moose. Holy shit. I was, I kid you not, about 10 feet away from it. No exaggeration. I took some amazing pictures (including one of myself on a timer), stalked it a bit, and then went to have a bagel-y breakfast.

Am I doing it right?

Writing from Yellowstone:
After breakfast, Scott, Alex, and I went for a short hike around String Lake toward Paintbrush Canyon. It was a really pleasant hike made better by the fact that we didn't see another person the entire time. The mountains were covered by clouds, but the awesome pine trees and snow covered mountain slopes were still gorgeous. Stomping through virgin snow in the middle of June is probably one of the top things you can do in life. We got to a mini hill, where Scott suggested we trail blaze up the hillside. Alex then had the incredible idea to sled down on our asses. It was I who recommended we do it again. It was a blast, even if our asses got soaking wet. Then we ran/slid down the snowy slopes and made it back to camp pretty quickly.

Soaking wet pants are TOTALLY worth it

After breaking down the tent, we drove to the Colter Bay area for a quick, easy little hike by Jackson Lake. It was a nice way to say our goodbyes to the Grand Tetons. We then drove along the Rockefeller Parkway into Yellowstone. There was a crapload of snow and everything was beautiful. Yep, that's how I'd sum up the entire park so far. We crossed the Continental Divide (where water flow changes direction from one side of the continent to the other) like 3 times and drove the zig-zag mountainous road through a lot of the southern portion of the park. I probably had about 10 mini freakout sessions due to everything being so epic.
Our first main stop was Old Faithful, which is a geyser (no shit) that goes off every 90-130 minutes or something. Whatever, I'm not a stopwatch. Our timing was incredibly fortuitous, because it blew it's load RIGHT AS WE ARRIVED. Perfect timing. It was a really fantastic sight to behold: boiling water launched up about 130 feet. We then took a long walk around a lot of the other geysers, hot springs, and other geothermal sites. Oh wait, that's the ENTIRE PARK. Everywhere you drive there is sulfur-y, acrid, smelly steam coming off the ground, or some thermal vent or hot spring. It is unbelievable. Anyway, we saw about 20 geysers, including Beehive Geyser, which is WAY better than Old Faithful. The blast is actually taller and you can stand way closer. The nozzle is also smaller, so the water rockets out of the opening like it's on crack or something (I'm pretty sure that's not possible). It only goes off once or twice in a day, so we were super lucky to be there. Granted, my warm weather clothes got soaking wet with boiling sulfur-water (I took them off when it got warmer out, and when the geyser went off, it shifted directions and sprayed Nads, Scott, and Alex, who forgot that my shirts were right next to them in their insane panic to get away from the steam), but hopefully they will dry by tomorrow morning... (spoiler alert: they didn't.)

We also saw 6 or 7 buffalo RIGHT NEXT TO the walkway, so close that I could literally touch them if I wanted, and they didn't give a shit about ANYTHING. There were 3 tiny baby bison with them, and they were adorbs.
Scott and I ran to a lookout (literally ran) that overlooked the entire geothermal area, which was a really interesting perspective. We came down, saw a few more geysers (oh, at this point I'm apparently underwhelmed by the FANTASTIC MAJESTY THAT IS A GEOTHERMAL EVENT), saw Old Faithful go off again,and then saw the CUTEST black and brown puppy that I have ever seen in my entire life. Without superlative, that puppy was the best. So yeah - saw Old Faithful go off 3 times from different angles, saw a buffalo family, saw a shitload of geysers, saw the cutest puppy in the history of the Universe: great stop at Old Faithful Village.
We then drove to Canyon Village, where we are currently camping. We stopped at a few notable views, were amazed by the green awesome trees (LOOK AT ALL THE GWEEEEEN), and rocked out to Queen whilst driving some fun roads. But the best was having a HERD of buffalo cross the street all around our car. There were probably 60-70 bison. They stopped traffic for about 45 minutes, but it was absolutely worth it. I got great pictures and it was a quintessential Yellowstone adventure. Some of them were fucking enormous. I think my adrenaline was going nonstop (however, my adrenaline going nonstop is not an abnormal event).

We kept yelling at the buffalo from the car: "CROSS IN FRONT OF US, WE WANT TO LOOK AT YOU."

We then had to deal with some incompetent, over 60-year-old campground people at our campsite, but after an hour-long fiasco of changing our snow-covered site to a site where we could AT LEAST set up our tent on the pavement next to the road (there was also an unnecessary amount of highlighting on our site map by the campground guy who didn't know how to use a computer). (WOW. I really toned down the intense frustration here. Dealing with those people was seriously the worst. In fact, I literally just filled out a survey for customer satisfaction. I gave them the worst possible score in every category. WE COULDN'T EVEN FIND OUR FIREPIT in the 3 feet of snow that covered our campsite). It is a shitty location, but at least our tent isn't DIRECTLY on snow. There is seriously about 2-3 feet of snow everywhere; I think it might be a cold stay...

One benefit to having a wall of snow around our picnic table is that we have a place to keep the beer cold

We had noms at the Canyon Village Lodge, where I had some Wyoming beer and Bison ravioli. Pretty damn good. Now I'm lying on pavement in our tent, freezing cold, starting to smell, and super tired and dirty - it was a great day.
Some notable moments were when Nadkarns coined the term "Hagstag," a clever play on the twatter phrase hashtag. I rofl'd. Another is when we had just left our snow covered campsite for dinner. We had just finished eating and Alex goes "should we buy some more ice?" (Nadkarns needs ice for cooling her newly healing knee). I simply responded "shut up," assuming he was being a jackass talking about how COMPLETELY COVERED our campsite is with snow. He apparently had forgotten. I hadn't.

Epic Roadtrip Journal: 6/11/11 Grand Tetons National Park

Continuing to day 2 of the roadtrip. Holy shit, I have no idea if it should be roadtrip or road trip, and I keep flip-flopping. THIS IS SLIGHTLY ANNOYING TO ME.

We started our morning by waking up at 4:30am in Salt Lake and I started driving through the incredible mountains toward Grand Teton. Our drive, about 6 hours total, was our first grand adventure. We drove in and out of Wyoming, driving along the western border of the state. We cut back into Utah and into Idaho sporadically - it was super hilarious because I was really excited and awake and screaming with intensity while everyone else was napping. It was a fun drive to say the least. We actually ended up in the MIDDLE of a cattle herding. WE WERE ACTUALLY COWBOYS! Cowboys were riding around on horses by our car as cattle swarmed around us on the highway. It was truly epic. Hysterical moments include a bunch of cows shitting/pissing right in front of our car, on calf FACE PLANTING in front of us, and me saying "I think we're helping!" to one of the cowboys (cowgirl actually). Apparently we should have driven right through with no regard for the cow/horse/herding dogs' well-being. It was a fun little adventure.

Hahaha look at how excited I am

We later had a superb breakfast at "Bubba's BBQ" (how could we not?!) - great biscuits, gravy, bacon, etc. Our last stop before the park was to go to an Avis at the Jackson airport to replace our faulty GPS. It was giving us shit all morning.

So when we finally drove into the park and passed by the entrance sign, the hill next to us abruptly ended and the Tetons suddenly came into view and they were INSANE. Seriously, every time I looked at them I was in awe, because they are among the most beautiful things I've ever seen. I was literally screaming at the top of my lungs. I must have looked like a crazy person. I mention it later in the journal, but this moment is among my favorite on the trip. It was just so "THIS ROAD TRIP IS GOING TO BE AWESOME STARTINGGGGGG... NOW." It was a perfect way to start the trip: me screaming from excitement from the awesome and intense view that was shoved in my face.

I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the extreme awesomeness of these freaking mountains.

After calming down and setting up our tent, we decided to go for a hike to the Hidden Falls and Inspiration Point (how can you pass up a place called "Inspiration Point?" It basically says "this view is going to be awesome. come look or you are an idiot."), on the other side of Lake Jenny (we were camped at Lake Jenny: right at the foot of most of the Teton mountains). Alex, Scott and I hiked around the lake while Nadkarni, still not 100% from ACL surgery, opted to take the boat shuttle over. We came across some chipmonks and marmots and eventually, after hiking through a ton of snow (IN JUNE), we came to the Hidden Falls. They were really amazing, but at this point, the immensity (hahaha I just tried using the word "immenseness" and learned that it actually isn't a word at all. Fail.) of the Grand Teton mountains might already have me overwhelmed.

Alex and Nads went back down to take the boat over, so Scott and I decided to hang back and bushwack our way to Inspiration Point (the bridges to get to it were closed. Pffftt, like that would stop us). It was fairly easy actually, so we took our standard "jumping" pictures amidst an awesome view. Yes, I managed to pull a hip flexor jumping. We then made our way back down, where we saw a MOOSE right next to the trail. I found it and warned everyone behind us on the trail to stfu as I excitedly took as many pictures as physically possible. It LOOKED at me! It was amazing. That was the highlight of my day - the first moose I've ever seen in the wild. Possibly the first moose I've ever seen. I'm not sure how I managed to extract myself from that situation without shitting my pants.

OMG MOOSE!

Making it back to the campground, I figured it was immediately time for another adventure (obviously). So I hustled everyone into the car for a lovely scenic drive. We saw some caribou (I actually think it turned out to be elk. We saw about a billion elk in Yellowstone, so it's not all that crazy) as we stopped at a few overlooks, including a stop over Lake Jenny. I walked into the water for a bit, but it was 42 degrees F, so my feet were numb for a while.

That water is so fucking cold

Regardless, we continued on to drive to the summit of Signal Mountain. It was a gorgeous, spectacular view of the Teton mountains and the nearly unending valley on our other side. We even saw some buffalo! (It was really far away, so it doesn't count in my book). Then we took a few graphic photos consisting of a lake that definitely, definitely looked like a penis, and drove back down the mountain. However! We saw a GRIZZLY BEAR on the ride back down. Just for a moment, and the pictures we took aren't great, but it was an enormous bear. It fled down the mountainside before I was able to leap out of the car to give murderous chase. My adrenaline was going like crazy. We saw more huge caribou (most likely elk), but whatever. Grizzly Bear! Holy freaking crap. It was the real deal. Fuck.

Penis Lake. If that's not it's actual name, it should be.

Anyway, we made it back to camp to put some warm clothes on (it is freezing as I write this now! I've got a winter hat, sweatshirt, and gloves on!), start a fire, and begin making dinner. We had baked beans (duh), canned vegetables, and bratwurst (yep. Two bratwurst nights in a row. Deal with it). We also enjoyed some fantastic Utah beers. That basically brings me to right now. I grabbed the food up on my frisbee/plate, looked at the mountains during a cloudy sunset (still awesome), and am about to partake in some much needed sleep.

Epic Roadtrip Journal: 6/10/11 Salt Lake City

Ok, similar for other posts, I'm going to transcribe my written journal of the epic road trip to the INTERWEBS. I'm going to break it up into pieces, because apparently we did a shitload of stuff, and if I put it all in one post everybody's head would explode and I would break the internet. Anything in italics is an added thought; everything else is the original journal. Enjoy! Or don't. I really don't care how you choose to react to these words, just as long as more than just my followers in China read this.

6/10/11 Friday - Boston

I'm sitting in the Boston airport right now, thoroughly pumped about the epic adventure I'm about to take. I'm waiting for Scott to arrive at the moment; we have window/aisle seats in the same row (turns out Scott decided to show up exactly 30 seconds before we were boarding). I REALLY hope there isn't anyone in the middle: otherwise this flight could get awkward. Oh man, I hope I sleep on this flight. Something tells me I'm not going to get that much rest on this trip. Because fuck sleeping. It's adventure time.

I'm not 100% amped though. I just got a great text from Michelle, and I'm realizing that I'm really going to miss people in Boston. I'll see them in a couple weeks though, so I'm not TOO disappointed. it's good to know that I have people that I'm this close with in my life.

Salt Lake City

After a short layover in Dallas (read: a Tex-Mex FEAST), Scott and I made it to Salt Lake. The flight was incredible, because the snow covered mountains are enormous and surround the lake and the city. I feel kind of bad that Nads and Alex won't be able to see how gorgeous it is. We plan on leaving at fuck o'clock in the morning for the Grand Tetons tomorrow, but maybe the Sun will be rising in time to see it? (in retrospect, not really a concern. While the Utah mountains were awesome, they were basically a joke compared to the mountains we saw in the Grand Tetons, Yellowstone, and Olympic National Parks).

We picked up our rental car - a Ford Expedition. I'm not sure if you've ever seen/driven a Ford Expedition, but I'm not sure my license legally covers a vehicle that size. I think I need "tank" checked off or something. It is a beast. In fact, we named it "Beast." We look BALLER. We checked into our hotel, jumped on the beds (obviously), and then immediately drove over to Temple Square to see the Mormon Tabernacle.

It was fairly spectacular, but a bit awkward as we were easily the worst dressed people there (hiking boots vs. white button-ups? what?) and we weren't getting married (seriously, does every Mormon teenager in Utah get married there?). AND I guarantee everyone thought Scott and I were gay together. But everyone was super-polite and friendly and didn't care that we are heathens who don't believe their interesting religion.

Wait, am I pretending to be Amish or Mormon? I can't tell.

We definitely stood out. The first thing anyone said to us was "where are you guys coming from?" Oh you can tell I'm not from Utah? One hilarious conversation was when we told a girl that we were coming from Boston. She responded "oh, have you seen the Mormon church there? I've heard it is beautiful!" My response was just "nooooooooo..." and then we kind of shuffled away.

Then we bought 800 lbs worth of noms for the next few days at Walmart. At least we're kinda prepared now?

Lastly, we went to Squatter's Brew Pub, recommended by none other than Pete Rock. Great beers and Bratwurst. And Scott finally found his keychain! So now I'm readying for bed. Scott is going to pick Nads and X up from the airport since I am driving at some God forsaken hour tomorrow morning. Ugh.

Going out west tomorrow. BRB.

In less than 24 hours I will literally be on a flying machine hurtling in the air at 500 mph towards Salt Lake City. I am so amped right now.  In less than one week I will be fighting a Grizzly Bear.

It is fairly difficult to focus at work today because I'm super pumped and my stomach is all rumbly like it's made out of tectonic plates and dild-... vibra-... shake weights. Instead of focusing on things like turbine temperatures, like I'm supposed to, all I can concentrate on is calculating the amount of pepto bismal I should take right now so that I don't unleash semi-digested liquid fortune cookies (read: my breakfast) all over my keyboard and monitor. I'm thinking it's somewhere around a quarter of a bottle.