My Post-Sabbatical Year(s) in Asia (or wherever): July 15th and 16th: Yellowstone, Grand Tetons, and Colorado

July 15th: Yellowstone:

I found a beautiful camp site last night right on the river, a bit to the northwest of Yellowstone. I had never been to Yellowstone, and have been looking forward to this for a long time. Created in 1872, Yellowstone is the oldest National Park in the world.

I entered at the west entrance, the scenery was picturesque and gentle, unlike the intensity of Glacier National Park.

I was looking forward to a grizzly bear, which I did not see. This guy let me walk right up to him.

The smoke of hot springs

This geyser was very impressive

Hundreds of people waiting for "Old Faithful"

Here she starts

I set my camera for continuous photos

taking one photo every second

for about three minutes - 190 photos in all

This is after about 10 seconds

12 seconds: It stayed like this for about 2 minutes, then slowly relaxed

near the south entrance to the park

The road south took me through Grand Tetons National Park

These lupines are for you, Christy

My late lunch spot - one of the nicest things about traveling and not having a schedule is that there is also no meal schedule. I eat when I am hungry. It seems like such a little thing, but for me, it is significant.

The scenery through the northern part of Wyoming looked much like this - rolling hills, valleys, rivers. And then it got dry, hot, flat and empty - ranch land - a lot of tumbleweed and grasses, cows, 50 miles (80 kilometers) in between towns, long barbed wire fences (I grew up thinking it was called "bob-wire" and thus had an affinity to the thing), few cars (mostly trucks), highway signs like "next passing lane in 8 miles" or town signs that read "Eden - population 220."

July 16th:

After a couple of poor nights of sleep in a row, I decided to call it a day pretty early on the 15th. I found a motel room in a little town in southwest Wyoming and got a good night's sleep.