Wonderful Visit With Diva (John's Sister - Martha)

Moose, WY (70's, mostly blue skies, chilly at night)

Carol, Martha, and John

John and Martha (overlooking Jackson Hole)

We had a great visit with John's sister, Martha (affectionately known as Diva), for ten days. She traveled from Sao Paolo Brazil to visit us and to attend a conference in Virginia afterwards.

Her visit started with fireworks and followed with lots of fun touring the Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks, hiking, river rafting and even a hootenanny.

We really enjoyed the 4th of July parade in downtown Jackson.  It's always fun to attend these parades as we travel across the country.  New to us this time was seeing rafts in parades and lots of cowboys.  

Non-marching band

Pretty cowgirl princesses

Local cowboy dinner show

On the days we worked at GTA, Martha attended several interpretive talks led by the National Park rangers.  She especially enjoyed the ranger led hike at Laurence D. Rockefeller.  Each morning she drove us to work and had our jeep to explore the area and sometimes met us for lunch.  

Over the holiday weekend we drove the motorhome up to Flagg Ranch and stayed for two nights so we could be closer to Yellowstone and give the diesel engine of our motorhome some exercise.  It's a very nice campground with a friendly staff and nice restaurant.   We spent one evening at Colter Bay and attended an interesting talk about the stars led by ranger who has been doing this program for over 40 years. Afterwards we were able to look through two telescopes into the night sky.  Pretty cool!

Colter Bay

Oxbow Bend

 Our trip to Yellowstone was extensive.  John did a great job of planning a great overview for Martha.  It's one BIG park but we were able to see some of the more popular highlights.  

Lehardys Falls

Beautiful Yellowstone Lake

Old Faithful at sunset

Martha and I enjoyed watching this bubbling geyser located near the rushing river. The short video below demonstrates its uniqueness.

Old Faithful Inn (in the distance)

Elk

Wildlife was abundant and the highlight of the day was seeing a mother and her two twin cubs playing in the wildflowers.  

Buffalo

Mama Black Bear and her twin cubs

Artist's Point is a must stop in Yellowstone and we were blessed with perfect weather. We started our trip early in the morning and managed to avoid most of the crazy crowds.

Artist Point

Lower Falls 

Tower Fall

Lamar Valley

Mammoth

We returned to our campground and spend the last few days enjoying the beautiful scenery and our time together.  John and Martha had a fun time on a float trip with the outfitter Lewis and Clark.  They got rained on at the end and were rather chilly but still really enjoyed the trip.

John enjoying the Snake River Float Trip

Snake River

On Monday before Martha left we attended a local favorite called the Hootenanny @ Dornan's.  This Monday night tradition has been happening for over 50 years and anyone is welcome to play a two song set. John Denver at one time  performed here and it's one of our favorite things to do.  Martha said it just like a slice of Americana.

All and all it was a great visit.  Martha hopes to return next winter when we are back at Ding Darling. Thanks so much for visiting us! It was very special and we sure did enjoy sharing our "front yard" with you.

Upper Geyser Basin Trail (Old Faithful area) at Yellowstone National Park

Yellowstone National Park (52 degrees, chilly, rain in the afternoon

May visit on left, current visit on right (what a dramatic change)

Last weekend we went with our friends Al and Karen to spend some time in the Old Faithful area of Yellowstone National Park. John and I had visited Yellowstone in early May.  You can see in the picture above how different this park looks now since spring has finally arrived. It was Al & Karen's first visit and since we are all here until October we thought the best way to enjoy this magnificent park was to concentrate on one area at a time.  The Old Faithful area is the most popular and certainly unique and weird.  We choose the Upper Basin Geyser Trail since it goes by many geysers (approximately six miles roundtrip).

Upper Geyser Basin Trial

Our first stop was the Visitor Center to find out when some of the predictable geysers were scheduled to go off to help us plan our route.  Old Faithful was due to erupt shortly so we headed out to the Observation Point Trail to observe the eruption 300 feet above. It gave us a wonderful panoramic view of the geysers and Old Faithful. What a great start!

Old Faithful erupting below

Click video below to watch Old Faithful erupt

Afterwards we accidentally headed up to the Solitary Geyser. Although this was not our original intention it was a very cool geyser which erupts about every five minutes.  It became a geyser by accident when in 1915 a diversion channel was built to take water to a nearby resort.  It was never used for this purpose and the channel was removed, however, it continues to entertain us to this day.  

Solitary Geyser eruption

We then headed back down to the boardwalk and left the solitude of the forest. There were lots of boiling pots along the boardwalk which were fun to observe. Plus, there were a lot of strange smells.

Castle Geyser

We passed the area where the Grand Geyser erupts.  It was not scheduled until later in the evening and several folks said it was well worth seeing.  However, it can only be predicted within three hours of eruption and you might have to wait a long time to see it.  So, maybe on another visit we'll check it out. Note how the trees are all dead surrounding the area where it erupts.  

Grand Geyser area

Check out the reflection in this pool

The Sawmill Geyser was very fascinating and actively boiling.  There were several in this area all going at the same time.

Sawmill Geyser

Daisy Geyser erupted in the distance while we were on the boardwalk.  Check out the video below. She erupts about every two hours.

Click on video below to see all the action

The Grotto Geyser has not erupted since 2010, however, it was bubbling and carrying on quite a bit.  I was sure it might go off at anytime. :)

Probably the most famous thermal feature in this area in the Morning Glory Pool.   Karen had purchased "The Photographer's Guide to Yellowstone" by Joseph Lang which gave us some great tips for photographing this area.  The key is sunlight which brings out some of the amazing features. We waited for the sun to come out in this area and were surprised by the difference in the appearance of this pool.  

We left the boardwalk and continued towards Biscuit Basin to check out the Gem Pool area.  This is a less traveled area and a very pretty trail with some scenic overlooks.

John, Al, & Karen

Below is another example of how sunlight changed dramatically the appearance of this pool  

It was about time for the Riverside Geyser to erupt so we headed back and waited and waited and waited.  After about an hour past the estimated eruption the sky started to turn dark and thunder clouds appeared.   With the first crash of lightening we decided to leave and of coarse only then did it decide to erupt.  This geyser can cause a pretty rainbow across the water during sunny weather but even without it this was a spectacular one to watch.  

Click on the video below to see the eruption

The lightening and threat of thunderstorms made the last one and half miles go by very quickly. We did not get very wet but certainly got a good work out.  Afterwards we had a nice dinner at the cafeteria and headed home after a very amazing day.  We really enjoy hiking with Al and Karen. More trips are planned in the future so be sure to check back.