groundspeed

Critters and More Critters

My critters had fun with zoo critters today. This having a zoo pass thing is great when the kids have a day off school.

We were greated by a peacock.

We got to watch a tortoise eat brunch (It was around 10:30am - what other meal could it have been?)

Toby gets just as excited about the tigers and otters and bears as he does watching the same birds he could see in any local pond. Beyond this pic is probably some boring 'ol duck and I think that's super cute.

I came thisclose to getting Blue eaten. A mama can try...

Toby got to ride a zebra.

Kaden battled it out with a fountain.

And Kaden's friend who slept over last night was well entertained.

We watched the Wings Over Water show. We had a stare down with Mardi, the albino alligator. We said hi to Oz, the koala bear with Toby's birthday (but two years older).

Very productive morning.

On the way home we stopped at Chik Fil A. I reminded Blue that he's been calling himself a vegetarian, but he said he wants to be a vegetarian who eats Chik Fil A. We all make our compromises I suppose. (Meanwhile, I ate fruit and fries.) I'd packed plenty of snacks for the zoo so we were able to hold off and not eat lunch till almost 2pm. The beauty of this timing was that the kids had the play area to themselves and we ended up staying almost an hour. After all that fun, I think Toby was asleep before we got out of the parking lot.

Dreher Park Finds

One fun thing about the holidays is that old friends come back into town to see their families, so earlier this week I got to meet up with a high school buddy at Dreher Park.

When we arrived at the playground a group of wood storks attracted Toby much more than the slides. This was a problem as they were as tall as him.

After awhile a busload of day care kids showed up so we loaded back up and drove down the road to the next playground. Here we found, well, in Florida, it can only be described as a mountain.

Toby conquered it.

Final Hike - Quinnebaugh Meadows

We got up at 6 am so we could be out of the cabin by 6:30 in an attempt to be the first on the trail. Ryan said the area where we'd be hiking had a lot of moose and we were hoping to catch some in the early morning.  The drive to the trailhead was the shortest yet, we drove through Red Lodge and turned in the direction of the ski resort.  I'd say we were on the trail by 7am.  

But for all those efforts we never saw a moose on the trail.

Lots of butterflies.  One happy lab with his camping crew.  Three horses on a trail ride.

Moose are cooler.

Still a beautiful hike. There had been a bad burn in the area in 2008. (We saw a ranger and asked about it.) So the first part of the hike looked a lot like this:

But there was still beauty in the shiny black of those trees.

And there was plenty of life around them.

(I started to think of it as the butterfly hike.)

Sometimes the trail brought us close to water.

And sometimes back to the trees

And here are more pictures of Kevin (apparently I was the camera holder on this hike.)

And finally, after 5 miles, we reached the meadow.

This is a popular place to camp and use as a base camp for other day hikes and we ran into a bunch of campers here, but for us it was a lunch and (for Ryan and Kevin) a quick nap destination. It's also the only place we took a picture of all four of us.

A few more taken in this area:

(Ryan climbed up this rock. The rest of us passed.)

And then we hiked the five miles out, got in our car, and after going about five minutes down the road, I said, "Stop! There's a moose."

As it turns out there were two moose.

Perfect.

Hike along Stillwater River to Sioux Charley Lake

But first a restaurant plug: Thursday for breakfast we went into downtown Red Lodge to a cute little restaurant called Cafe Regis which served a lot of organic and vegetarian fair.  It was the kind of place where someone buys one piece of fruit bread and a cup of green tea and calls it breakfast. And then there was our group where both Ryan and Kevin ordered TWO breakfasts and almost everything on the table had meat.  We joked to our server that she'd never seen so many plates set before a table of four in her life. She played along though. When she set down Kevin's plate she said, "Here's your french toast," and then before his next plate, "with your side." (It was a full breakfast plate of eggs, fruit bread toast, and hash browns.

After this we had an hour's drive to our trailhead. On this day we hiked along the Stillwater River to Sioux Charley Lake. The highlight of this hike ended up being when Ryan and Kevin decided to swim in the 40 degree (or so) Sioux Charley Lake, Kevin stripping down to his boxers, to do so.  (I deliberated a swim as well until I stick my feet in. NO THANK YOU!) 

The hike starts off in a canyon with cliff-wall to one side and not-so-still water to the other.



 

There were a few waterfalls along the way as well. Walking next to a waterfall, understanding the weight and power of water through its sound, not something you can get from a coffee table book of nature photography.

After a few miles the trail turns into the woods. Here we saw a deer and fawn and, according to some hikers in front of us, just missed a black bear.

The trail also provided snacks!  (Except after our huge breakfast who could eat?)

The woods opened up to a look-out point of the lake.

Then on down to the lake, and, for half our crew, IN the lake.

I mean it was beautiful and all...

But after only a few minutes Kevin admitted that his body was tingling and getting numb. Is it just me or does he look worried in this pic?

He should have.  He had a hard time getting out. He says it was because of the rocks but I think it was because he couldn't feel his feet!

One Day in Yellowstone

This Wednesday my big plans are to get my oil changed and buy Kaden a new backpack. Last Wednesday my plans were to hike to Yellowstone's Trout Lake and see as much wildlife as possible.

Such is life.

We drove the whole Beartooth Highway to the Northeast entrance of Yellowstone.  The theme of the drive was marmots.  Everywhere. Marmots. Baby marmots. Big fat beaver looking marmots.  Spry marmots. Gray marmots. We watched a lot of marmots scurry over boulders and across the highway. (But didn't hit any!) 

It took about two hours to get into Yellowstone but who cares?! It's a beautiful drive!

The thing to do in Yellowstone is to drive slowly and look at animals.  There are lots of animals.  That National Park could offer a money-back guarantee if you don't see animals and they'd never lose money. But first we had a short hike planned to Trout Lake and the only animals we saw on that hike were of the aquatic kind.

This is Trout Lake. You've got to love the perfect reflection of the mountain in the water.

Then came the great parade of animals...

Herds of Bison far away

Bison hanging out with Pronghorns

Bison up close to the road

Photo ops with bison

Getting the idea? Lots of bison.

But then. Oh wow, hello National Geographic. We come up on about two dozen cars pulled over and saw dozens of people standing up on a hill looking through scopes across the street aways.

We were slowly driving looking for our place to pull off and join the hill-side viewing party when Ryan and I saw movement that we realized was a wolf. It was a long way off but whitish running up a blackish slope so it was clear what we were seeing.

Twelve years ago I spent my entire summer at Denali National Park in Alaska and not once did I see a wolf. If you knew me back when I was a teenager and had been to my bedroom, you'd know it had a very outside feel - dark green carpet, a leafy vegetationy bed spread and on every wall numerous Nature Company posters of wolves.  (Whatever happened to The Nature Company? I loved that store.) Also, in my teen years I swore off red meat for about two years because I'd read that cattle ranchers killed wolves.  

And now I've seen a live wolf!


So we parked and climbed the hill and got the story... On Monday this she-wolf downed an elk, but then a grizzly moved in and took over the kill. On Wednesday the bear was still eating and the wolf was still hanging out for when the bear would get its fill and take a nap.

And now our friend Ryan has seen a grizzly! (I'd seen a few of those already in Denali.) Which was super exciting for him because he hadn't in all his previous Montana area hikes and it was a bucket-list kinda thing for him.

You can't really see the elk, but you could totally see it through a scope. That bear would rip away and shake his head around. So incredible.

(But the poor wolf.)

And even when we weren't seeing animals the views held their own.

Finally we made our way to the Tower Falls Overlook.


And from there to the Lower Falls Overlook which provided the best view of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.

Then we did a little walking at the Brink of the Lower Falls Trail. And yes, it takes you right to the brink of the Lower Falls.

And another perfect view of the canyon.

From there we headed off to find another trailhead. It was a barely marked thing where we just had to pull off the side of the road. It took us .6 miles to Little Gibbon Falls.

To get there we walked through a meadow surrounded by hillsides. (Kinda had a sitting duck feel.) We passed fresh bear scat and an area where it looked as though something had been rolling in the grass. This, and the knowledge that a bear attacked a group of four and killed a guy earlier this summer, made me feel my place in the food chain.  But it was pretty!

From there we drove off to see thermals. We'd all done the Old Faithful thing on previous visits to the park, so there wasn't any interest in that, but we figured we should still catch a glimpse of some aspect of this unique Yellowstone landscape as part of our experience, so we headed off to the Artists' Paintpots where signs warned you stepping off the trail could result in being boiled to death. (Or something like that.)

The landscape was a hot mess.



But no worries. There were boardwalks to keep tourists from burning up their feet.

From there we headed towards Mammoth Hot Springs and took a quick look around.

In this area of the park we passed heards of elk and then saw this single gal hanging out by a parking lot.

Then it was out the north gate. The sign on the right reads, "Created by Act of Congress March 1, 1872." 

Because ever so often even congress can get it right.

We ended our day by stopping in Roscoe for its famous Grizzly Bar burgers. Apparently a little too famous. On a Wednesday night in Nowheresville Montana (The back of the restaurant t-shirts asked, "Where the hell is Roscoe?") we were asked if we had a reservation. We didn't. We grabbed our jackets and sat outside. It had been a long day and we all needed that free-range Montana beef.

Hike to Beauty Lake

Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday of last week we went on day hikes in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness in southern Montana.  Each was an in 'an out hike between 6 and 10 miles and each had a unique physical landscape in spite of being part of the same area and range.

Here's what we did and saw on hike #1:

Tuesday at Beauty Lake

On Tuesday, to break us in softly, Ryan chose a flat "kiddie hike" off the Beartooth Highway. We realized he meant it when we started off and passed two dads hiking with three kids all eight and under (we asked). The kids were even carrying their full body weight's worth in their packs.  

I can't remember the name of the lake where we were supposed to go. (Maybe Becker Lake?) I only know that we missed our turn-off and ended up going to Beauty Lake. Going to Beauty Lake meant we traveled a little further and ended up with a short area of steep elevation which got my thighs burning!

Equipped with head nets and hiking poles, we hiked through boulder and wild-flower littered terrain.


With excellent hiking partners. 

But man! They could set a brisk pace. :-)

We didn't end up needing the head nets until we stopped. The mosquitoes left you alone while you were moving but when we lunched at Beauty Lake they were brutal.  It was a quick lunch!  But a quick lunch with a great view!

When we started off the weather was gray and it got a little drizzly.

But by the time we were playing around the stream running into Beauty Lake the sky blued up nicely.

We passed multiple alpine lakes,

saw a little snow,

and didn't run into anything that could eat us. 

Yup, a perfect introduction to the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness.

So... We went to Montana.

Kevin and I knew we were taking a kid-less 10th anniversary trip. Even if grandparents couldn't watch kids we'd have boarded 'em at a dog kennel or something. It was non negotiable that we get AWAY.  

What can I say? Blue has made it a stressful and kinda sucky year.

(Amazing how one week in Montana can turn around a girl's perspective.)

Why Montana? Well, partly because we didn't think we could afford Costa Rica and once that was crossed off the list we went many weeks without a plan until one day Kevin was talking to our friend Ryan who used to live in Montana and after that phone call Kevin announced, "We're going with the Tuckers to Montana for our anniversary trip."  

I like the Tuckers.  I like Montana.  So I didn't have to think about it.  That was the plan.

Beyond those two pieces of information, I was clueless. 

Ryan sent photocopies from a guidebook of the hike's he'd planned for us.  I skimmed them to make sure nothing said "2,000 feet ascent in one mile" or "32 mile day hike" but beyond that I didn't pay attention to anything. Zip. I bought a few new sports bras and jog/walked for 2 miles 4 days a week the month before we left. That was my prep for the trip. Oh - I did go to the website of the cabin where we stayed but didn't pay attention to WHERE in Montana it was located.  (And that Montana. Kinda big.)

It was a great cabin with a hot tub where we soaked our sore muscles each night and watched for shooting stars. With hummingbird feeders along the back porch...

Deer everywhere...

And black bears rumored to be in the area. We finally saw a mama and her cub one evening when we were coming back from an ice cream run.

It was in Red Lodge.

And Red Lodge is the town at the beginning of the Bear Tooth Highway.

See that little triangular rock jutting up in the mountains?  It's the bear tooth.

The Bear Tooth Highway connects Red Lodge, Montana and its mountains and hiking to Yellowstone, Wyoming and its mountains and hiking. Which we took advantage of one of the days...

But even without that connection it's gorgeous. (I see why people say it's better than Glacier.)

And we got into that gorgeousness...

covering about 27 miles of it on foot over four days. (And hundreds of miles by car. Thank you, Bear Tooth Highway for your 68 mile part of that.)

Oh and we were there when the wildflowers were in bloom.

Couldn't have asked for a better trip.

But First a Stop in NOLA

On Sunday (August 7th) Kevin and I arrived at the Tampa airport and as we walked through the door he said, "You do know we're not going to Montana today, right?"

Um, actually, no. I didn't know that.

If I'd wanted to piece together the fact that Kevin had planned a night in New Orleans en route to Montana I could have.  A few months back he'd asked me: If I could spend one day in any US city where would I want to go? I said New Orleans. I'd been once when I was fifteen and we were supposed to go on an all-day date with another couple when we lived in Texas (via plane owned by the other couple) but the weather that day changed the plan and we were never able to reschedule. I'd considered Austin, a city I can't believe we never visited when we lived in Texas (cut us a little slack - it's a big state), but pretty much New Orleans was sill the clear front runner. (I like to eat.) I knew there was a reason for this question, but... I didn't put any thought into it.  

Also, the day before we left, my mother-in-law asked if we had any stops before New Orleans and I was like, why would be be stopping in New Orleans? Our layover was probably in Denver or something.  (It was in Minneapolis.) Didn't even consider why she would have said that.

But to New Orleans we went... with no plans other than a dinner reservation at Arnaud's. We checked into our French Quarter hotel and then we walked. We had lunch at Stanley's off Jackson square.

Listened to a little jazz at the Satchmo Summerfest:

And in general enjoyed the sights and sounds of the French Quarter:

Let's look at this particular sight a little closer:

(Yup. All that stuff was glued to a car.)

In the afternoon we went back to the hotel, a hotel with a fantastic roof top view...

(Me and the Mississippi River)

...where we got ready for our dinner date.

Why did I happen to have a dress and heels packed for a Montana hiking trip? I knew we had a dinner date that night, and I'd been instructed to pack a dress, I'd just thought that date was in Montana.  (I figured I'd be overdressed for Montana, but being overdressed doesn't bother me.)

After dinner we walked back to Jackson Square for a little beignet dessert at the obligatory Cafe Du Monde stop.

And then it was up bright and early for a 6am flight where we really did go to Montana! 

Flashin' Back

The first time Kevin and I went to Montana was in 2000. We were dating and on a six week road trip all over the U.S. where we mostly visited national parks. 

Sorry I didn't track down the negatives and convert them to digital.  I was too busy getting ready for our SECOND trip to Montana.

We've been in Montana this whole week. :-) 

We rented a cabin with another couple, friends from NC who lived in Montana and therefor were put in charge of oh... everything.

And the kids stayed in Florida. 

This was our tenth anniversary present to each other. Much better than something made from tin or aluminum, dontcha think?

Better pictures coming soon.

Swamp Milkweed

I like that something with the words "swamp" and "weed" in its name can be so beautiful.

Toby and I spent a little time at the NC Botanical Garden at Chapel Hill yesterday morning before flying out. I'll write more about our trip if I ever recover, but I'll warn you in advance it's a story that involves a lot of poop in a lot of places, so for now let's just look at the pretty milkweed, shall we?