Postcards from the Road (My Birthday Trip Part 3)

Getting the cabin for our last night in Yellowstone might have been the smartest decision we made during the entire trip. We were warm and rested on Tuesday, which meant we could properly enjoy Old Faithful.



Another rare treat, about ten minutes before Old Faithful went off, was the Beehive geyser. Old Faithful, I learned, is rare by being so predictable. Most of the geysers in the park go off quite randomly. The information for the Beehive geyser said that it goes off every 8-24 hours (for comparison, Old Faithful can be timed within 10 minutes). We walked right past it, and would have missed the eruption entirely if we'd picked a different vantage point for Old Faithful.

After touring the geysers and other thermal features around Old Faithful, we started to head south. The feeling of leaving the park was a little odd, since we'd packed up the campsite the night before.



After going through the south park entrance, we drove along the John. D. Rockefeller, Jr. Memorial Parkway and into the Grand Tetons National Park. Even though some clouds obscured the very tops of the peaks, these are some crazy impressive mountains. I could not get over the fact that the mountains were still covered in snow.



The husbeast may have gone a little crazy with the camera.


I'm not going to say it wasn't worth it!


We even decided where we'd camp, if we ever came back to stay overnight (this is a habit/quirk that I picked up from my parents). If you're ever driving through the park and only have a few hours like we did, I cannot recommend the visitor center at the Grand Tetons highly enough. It looks like it was all renovated yesterday. There are slick displays about the park's ecology, mountaineering, and history of that entire area (including why the road connecting Yellowstone to the Grand Tetons is named after JDR Jr.). The building itself is beautiful, too.



The drive from the Grand Tetons took us through Jackson, WY and along an equally beautiful stretch of scenery. We popped out above the lovely Swan Valley right around sunset. We paused for one more photo before re-entering civilization.



We decided to spend the night in Idaho Falls so we could get more bread in the morning. Our drive home took another day and a half, taking us through Utah past Salt Lake City and the Bonneville Salt Flats. We spent our last night on the road in Reno, and returned home feeling simultaneously exhausted and rejuvenated.

In preparation for this trip, I read a little John Muir:

"Who publishes the sheet-music of the winds or the music of water written in river-lines?"



"Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life."



Yellowstone was amazing, and I feel so grateful to have the resources to see this part of the country at this point in my life. We knew where our limits were, and by braving some less-than-ideal weather we got to see the park at a really unique time of year. Wildflowers were in bloom, and we saw grizzly cubs and bison calves.



But I think next spring we should try Joshua Tree National Park.

Postcards from the Road (My Birthday Trip Part 2)

When we last left our intrepid heroine and hero, they were sleeping in a little motel in West Yellowstone. Stuffed with tasty barbecue and beer from a local restaurant, neither one slept incredibly well because it was snowing outside. Only little flurries, but still. It was snowing and they knew they were going to be spending the next few nights in a tent.

(I can hear everyone saying in their heads "Okay, enough with the dramatic foreshadowing!" I'll stop. Sorry about that.)

We were also nervous because we were heading into the park without a reserved spot in any specific campground. There were several good reasons for this, but the main one was that we wanted to camp in a smaller, quieter campground i.e., one where they don't allow the really big RVs. Nothing against RVs, but they are loud. All the smaller campgrounds were first-come-first-served, no reservations. So our plan was to get up fairly early to drive straight into the park, so we'd get our pick of campsites. Then we'd set up camp, and go get groceries and start exploring.



When you enter Yellowstone from the west, you drive through the Targhee National Forest. I'm still dying to know if the name is in any way related to the Targhee breed of sheep.

Our fears about the campground filling up were unfounded. We set up camp in the Norris campground, in one of the walk-in sites. A walk-in site might sound like a lot of work, but it really just meant that we carried our gear about 200 feet away from the campground road and got a little closer to the undeveloped part of the campground.



A beautiful little river winds back and forth through a little valley along one edge of Norris. The picture above is what it looked like on the day we arrived. By the end of our trip, the river was swollen with snowmelt and much of this muddy marshy ground would look smooth and glassy with the extra water.



Camping in Yellowstone was significantly different from most of my other camping experiences in a few ways. One was the wildlife, which Yellowstone has in abundance. We saw lots of bison (they were everywhere, and thrice we waited in a traffic jam for a herd to finish crossing the road:



We also saw a few yellow-bellied marmots, including this one who politely posed for us:


We saw elk:


and bears (!):


I'm pretty sure the bears were grizzlies, which is cool because I've never seen them in the wild before. It's hard to tell in the picture, but there's a mama bear and two cubs. We saw them on the warmest day of our trip, and they were pretty much just finding a sunny spot in the meadow for their mid-day nap.

The best wildlife experience we had was on Saturday morning. We woke up a bit late, and were finishing up our morning coffee when two little girls came up the path, squealing "Look, look!" and pointing out towards the river. We both turned just in time to see a fat, sleek river otter jump out of the river, run past the bend, and hop back in where it turned straight. There was no time for either of us to grab a camera. The girls' mom apologized to us for disturbing us, but I told her we wouldn't have seen the otter otherwise. I've never been camping and felt so surrounded by wildlife.

On the first two nights we heard wolves howling to each other.



Another difference was swimming: I can't remember a single childhood camping trip that did not involve swimming in rivers, lakes, or the Pacific Ocean. At Yellowstone in early June the rivers were all too cold (believe me, I checked), and the hot springs are off-limits (you can get burned by extremely hot water). And speaking of hot springs, another aspect of the park that I wasn't used to was the boardwalk-style trails around the thermal features. It made sense after reading the first warning sign about how the ground can be thin and fragile around a boiling hot spring (see aforementioned burn warnings), but this California native has always associated "real hiking" with unpaved trails through dense forest. The boardwalk trails felt a bit like cheating. Yellowstone, I later realized, is an old, and very well-developed and well-maintained park. We saw more than one wheelchair-bound person who was able to enjoy being immersed in nature because of those boardwalk trails.

So we spent the next four days exploring. Friday night was cold, but Saturday morning dawned clear and sunny. We saw the Yellowstone River, hiked along the huge canyon that cuts through the middle of the park, learned how to spot thermal features with our eyes and noses, and marveled at how much difference 1,000 feet of elevation makes. At the lower-elevation points in the park, it really felt like late spring, but one trail we tried to hike was too covered in snowdrifts for us to attempt it (the fact that it's called "Ice Lake" should probably have tipped us off). Originally, I'd thought that we would see if we could rent a canoe and row out on Lake Yellowstone, but that was also not in the cards:



Sunday was definitely the hottest day, but "hottest" just meant that I didn't have to layer leggings under my jeans until the sun went down. Monday was my actual birthday, so we planned for a long (for us) hike and a nice dinner at one of the lodges. The weather looked nice again, although the forecast for Tuesday was not promising. We packed trail mix, hard-boiled eggs, apples, and lots of water, and did a very strenuous (again, for us) climb up to this lovely lake:



After the hike we relaxed with the thought that we wouldn't have to wash dinner dishes in the dark, but we could also smell damp in the air. The weather forecast was a 70% chance of rain. And the lodge was at lower elevation than our campsite, so if it rained there we might get snowed on overnight. Every night so far, I'd worn the following to sleep in: long johns, flannel pj pants, knee-high wool socks, a tank top, a long-sleeved shirt, and a wool sweater. All this inside a sleeping bag rated for 10ºF. The thought of it getting even colder that night... but we're campers! Husbeast is an eagle scout! We've both been camping for as long as we can remember, surely we're not THAT spoiled by California weather, right?

I'll cut to the chase. We woke up to this view from the cabin on Tuesday morning:



We may be spoiled, but damn it felt good to take a hot shower and sleep really soundly that night. Stay tuned for Part 3, the journey home!

Tour in Tahoe

We spent the weekend up at a friend's cabin near South Lake Tahoe, and although I didn't have a very large amount of time to spin, I did get a few things off the bobbins before we left and squeezed in some more spindle time while we were up there.

These got wound off and washed last night:



Here we have two singles yarns: the Ripe Olives Merino/Mohair from Hello Yarn, and 2 ounces of Dew BFL from Tactile Fiber Arts. They're both going to remain singles, so we've got 6 ounces of fiber to cross off the list! Since I've finished one spindle project, this got started up in the woods:



It's the 3.4 ounce batt from Aunt Janet's fiber mill, and I'm doing an airy, low-twist lumpy bumpy singles that will probably get navajo-plied for some bulk. No project in mind yet, it will depend on how rough the finished and washed yarn is. It was lots of fun to spin this out on the deck in the warm sunshine, and compare the greeny-blue of the fiber to the green of the pines and the blue of the sky. We had a great time hanging out with friends surrounded by nature. Some highlights:









Today I have lots of chores and unpacking to take care of, and it's officially a rest day for the Tour. However, I'm hoping to get at least one bobbin of Pigeonroof singles done so I can stay on target. I may need to convert one of my spinning projects from wheel to spindle so that I have enough to keep me spinning every day of the tour even when I'm not at home.

Our Trip to Humboldt

Two weekends ago, we went camping at Humboldt Redwoods State Park for my birthday. This year my birthday fell at about the halfway point between the end of the spring semester and the beginning of the summer session (a 6-week intensive). Last year we were in Germany for my birthday, so I knew I wouldn't be able to top that this year. I knew I wanted to relax during the short break between classes, so we booked a campsite at the Hidden Springs Campground for five days and four nights. Here's where we parked the car:



Then, you have to walk down a short path to the campsite.



It was very secluded, and you literally couldn't see the road or your camping neighbors to either side. The whole space was about 20 feet lower than the road.



We had a fabulous time hiking, cooking, and swimming in the Eel River:





There is nothing quite like sandwiches, chips, hard-boiled eggs, apples, and a couple of beers next to a serene river on a hot (but not too hot!) day. What a blast. I never realized how much I use knitting as a stress-reliever until now. I hardly knit at all (and not for want of projects: I took along the rainbow socks and Halcyon). We sat around and read books, made s'mores after dinner, and the significant other got to play with fire and engineer a rain flap for our picnic table. It was threatening rain on Friday night, but it cleared up later and we didn't really need it. It's hard to imagine that our governor is considering closing something like 80% of the state parks (and rather a silly idea, since increased fees could keep the parks open and patrolled, and closures would actually mean a loss of income for the state, not a net gain).

I was sad that the trip had to end, but it was so lovely to return to birthday wishes (both on Ravelry and in person)! The area was idyllic, and we will certainly be returning.

Here's the Redwoods!

Whew! I'm off to the faire in a few minutes, and since Monday is my first day of classes and the significant other returns on Tuesday, I decided I should get a post out while I can before the week starts. I'm still chugging along on my Pomatomus socks (still in the leg of the second one) and the Honeybee stole (just got into the Bee Swarm section on the second half). I took both projects with me on the camping trip, and ended up knitting on the stole much more than the socks. I must have temporarily lost my mind or something, taking a huge lace project like this out into nature.



My favorite thing to do this week was sit with my feet in the Big Sur river, knitting on my stole, and listening to Frankenstein via Craftlit. I could have seriously dropped the whole thing in the water at any point, but I didn't really care. It never got quite hot enough to fully swim in the river, but having your feet in the water while sitting half in the shade, half in the sun was just about perfect. I had a great time getting to see my parents again, hiking around, and just enjoying the woods.



Our campsite was warmish but the beach was chilly. When my dad, sister and I hiked to a lookout point, we could see why:



The marine layer would retreat every morning just over the ridge beyond our campground, but it hung out over the ocean for the entire day. You can just see a little bit of the sea underneath the clouds in that picture, and lots of blue sky above. It wasn't too cold to stop us from poking around on the rocks for a few minutes.





We were all a little worried that the recent wildfires would be a big downer, because the park was closed for awhile this summer and just reopened a few weeks ago. They'd basically closed off all the trails on one side of the Big Sur river in our campground, so we did most of our hiking at Andrew Molera State Park. You could see the burned areas on the side of the hills every time you look off in the distance. The trees were red and the ground an ashy white. We had clear air and could go in the river, so it was still a fun camping trip even though the fires are scary to think about.



On our last morning we had some really fantastic pastries at the Big Sur Bakery before breaking camp. This place was awesome, and I bet they sell out of their croissants, rolls, and quiche every morning. Good coffee, crisp morning air, great scenery. Oh, and a spirit garden next door with people-sized elevated nests. I love it!



In other news, Prudence is moving on. I got her for free, and she doesn't really fulfill any of my spinning needs that aren't taken care of with my Ladybug. I have a good friend who I learned how to spin with, and she will be giving it a good home in the other half of California. Now I just have to figure out how to ship the darn thing!