Yellowstone in Pictures

Last week, Jim and Richie flew to Colorado to join me and Jacob at Adam's apartment. On Wednesday, the five of us set off to visit Yellowstone National Park. We had a fabulous time! There were dazzling landscapes & wild animals galore! (Everything except bears. Where were all the bears?) We stayed until Saturday night, then returned to Adam's place for a couple more days of playing tourist out west. Here are some photos from our trip.

 On our way to the park, we stopped at an auto parts store in Wyoming so Jim and Richie could use some special goop to fix a chip in our windshield. A truck traveling in the opposite direction on a two lane highway in Colorado rudely shot some rocks up at our Jeep.

 We arrived last Wednesday evening.

 There were tons of waterfalls throughout the park.

 We hiked a lot. The scenery was stunning everywhere we looked.

 We saw herds of bison.

 Sometimes the bison would walk along the road. This fella caused quite a traffic jam.

 We were only about ten miles from Idaho, so we went to see what the potato-growing state was all about. We also passed the Continental Divide about fifty times on this trip. The roads were very winding.

 Our hotel was in West Yellowstone, Montana. It was a nice, little western town. It was warm during the day, but the temps dipped into the 30s at night.

 I especially liked seeing the geysers in the park. They gurgled and erupted all around us. We were advised to always stay on the walkways because the ground in the area had a "thin crust." We made a lot of pizza jokes.

 Old Faithful lived up to its name.

 On our way back to Michigan, we stopped by Mt. Rushmore. We walked along a trail (a "strenuous" trail with 250 steps, I might add) and found ourselves up close & personal with the presidents.

While cruising past Battle Creek on the drive home, we saw a gazillion hot air balloons. Apparently there was some sort of festival in progress.

Perseid Meteor Shower

Last weekend was the peak of the annual Perseid Meteor Shower. During this event, meteors supposedly appear at a rate of over 60 per hour! I know that the best viewing conditions are away from city lights, and even though I am usually in a well-lit area, I spend time outside each August hoping to catch a glimpse of a meteor. Year after year I am disappointed.

On Sunday night, Jacob and I were on the road traveling from Houston to Fort Collins. We knew that we would be in a perfect location for meteor spotting after the sunset - in rural, pitch black southern Colorado. We were heading north on I-25 from the New Mexico border towards Wyoming from 9 p.m. until 1 a.m. As expected, there were few lights to be found, the sky was clear, and the stars were out. I was beyond excited that I would finally see some Perseids. Probably many. Maybe even one hundred. Our situation could not have been more ideal. I never thought that we would actually see one meteor every minute, but I was confident that we would most likely witness ten or more per hour. We carefully scanned the sky for 260 miles. Guess how many meteors we counted?

Zero.

I have no idea why I have such bad luck when it comes to meteor viewing, but if you ever want to enjoy a meteor shower, do not hang around me. I do hope that someday my luck will change and I will be fortunate enough to catch some Perseids because I sure was dismayed that I missed out on them again this year.

Graceland

On our drive from Michigan to Texas last week, Jacob and I detoured off the freeway in Memphis long enough to visit the home of Elvis Presley. The Graceland admission price included tours of the mansion, an automobile museum, and the King's two private airplanes. The house would certainly not be considered a mansion by today's standards, but Jake and I both had a wonderful time wandering around the 70s inspired rooms while our audio headsets explained everything in detail. I knew that Elvis was buried somewhere on the Graceland estate, yet I was surprised when we were allowed to view his grave. After checking out the 13+ acre property, we were shuttled across the street to see the cars and planes. The automobile collection was funky & interesting and the airplanes were impressive. Overall, Jacob and I really liked our tour of Graceland, and we are both happy that we finally decided to stop in Memphis.

Jacob stood on the front steps of Graceland.

We checked out the King's pool.

The "Lisa Marie."

Welcome to Houston

The Airbus 380 is the world's largest passenger airliner and it has been flying commercially for less than five years. No American airline owns one, so the only time an A380 is in the U.S. is when a foreign company uses this behemoth on a routing between their country and ours. Six airports in the United States have runways that can handle the jumbo jet, and I had heard that Lufthansa German Airlines planned to start using one of their A380s daily between Frankfort and Houston. I had no idea when this service was scheduled to begin until Jim informed me on Wednesday morning that Lufthansa's inaugural A380 flight was going to arrive at IAH that very afternoon and that the airport was hosting an "A380 Houston Party." Luckily, I was in Texas, and I knew that I just had to zip over to the airport to watch the plane land there for the very first time. Jacob agreed to accompany me and we got to the staging area about 40 minutes before the flight was due in. There were thousands of other airplane geeks waiting on the grassy field just north of runway 26 right, which totally surprised Jake, who was sure that there would only be about five or six people there. Naturally, the weather was hot and humid, and we stood around sweating under the blazing Houston sun while listening to a local band play German music. Eventually, the Airbus 380 came into view, the crowd cheered wildly, the wheels touched down, then the aircraft taxied slowly to its gate. It was an impressive sight for me to see, though not quite as exciting for Jacob. I think I may head back over to IAH sometime soon to watch the giant plane land and take off again.

The huge jet has an upper deck that spans the entire length of the aircraft.