Road Trip--Cruise--Key Largo

 Between not having internet for a time and all the busyness of the end/beginning of the year, I've not had a chance to sit down and tell the travel tales I promised some of you. Well, a little late but here it is.

After several days at home where the temperature never got above zero, we eagerly awaited our departure for points south. The week before Christmas our dining room table was covered once again with all the paraphernalia and clothes we take with us for our snowbirding in Key Largo. Christmas day we returned from church and ate leftover meatloaf from our "Christmas dinner" the day before with our son, Don. (While not a fancy Christmas dinner, it is his favorite meal.) Then it was time to take down all the decorations. We had gone lightly with decorating as we knew what was to come.

In freezing temps, Bob insisted the outside lights come down and he somehow managed it. I put away the little 3' tree with the Christmas bows on it and a little garland I had strung on the mantle along with a few other smaller items. Once that was done, Bob did his magical trick of fitting everything into the SUV. This included his equipment to run his ham radio from Florida and a packed bag for the trip down as well as a suitcase for our planned five day cruise.

The next morning we awoke to sunshine, still cold but sunshine helps. A stop at McDonald's and we were on our way south. The weather held most of the way to Dobson. NC, our first stop, no rain or snow and just a little cloudy in places. Little did we know we were in for a big surprise upon our arrival.

Day Two Traveling Home Despite COVID-19

The Hampton Inn did not have a breakfast buffet but they did offer a carry out bag. Since there was no coffee, we opted to go to the McDonald's we knew was just up the road on our way. We used the mobile app again and were pleased that they carried it out to our car (with gloved hands).

Once we caught up on the morning news and reached the highway, we plugged in our audio book and were off again.

Rest stops were made at places like Love's and Pilot's where we were certain to get inside. Usually they had an attached fast food place either in a drive through or carry out. Our lunch stop was interesting at an Wendy's attached to a gas station. They had squares marked off and numbered that were six feet apart and numbered so you moved up as people left being sure to keep only 10 people in the place at a time.

A good book. A mostly sunny day. It was a pleasant drive with only the reminder of the crisis we were in when we made stops.

Around 3:30 we pulled into our Hampton Inn in Dobson, NC. This night was going to be a little more of a challenge since we didn't have a suite and all the tables and chairs in the lobby area had been removed. We were able to order from our favorite restaurant, The Harvest Grill, and they delivered to the hotel.

We pulled the desk over to the end of the bed and ate there. It was comfy. Dinner was good but way too much to eat. We took our leftovers out to a trash can outside so it wouldn't smell in the room. Since there was not brewed coffee in the hotel, we opted to drive to the McDonald's in town for our decaf nightcap.

On the way back, Bob stopped at the DQ for a sundae. I went into the little convenient store next to it to get something to go with my coffee and commiserated with the lady who seemed a little nervous about having to work with people coming and going. She complained about a lady who had been in and was coughing all over the place.

After Bob filled up on gas again, we spent a comfortable night and we on our way early the next morning--seeking a McDonald's for breakfast and that all important coffee again.

Traveling Home Despite COVID-19

Our first stop three hours after starting home was just north of Fort Lauderdale at a McDonald's. We unfolded ourselves from the car and stretched, our eyes focusing on the message posted on the door. Thankfully as we got closer, we realized we could go in and order for take out as well as use the restroom. We both gave a sigh of relief. Maybe this wouldn't be as bad as we worried about.

Traffic was not as heavy as usual as we traveled but we did notice a lot of trucks and quite a few RVs headed north with various license plates from northern states as well as Canada.

Lunch found us turning off the highway to find another McDonald's. It was connected to a Love's gas station where the restrooms were open. Plenty of soap and water and even hand sanitizer in a dispenser. We were able to order our lunch and take it out to our car to eat.

Bob also filled up the gas tank. I had found some plastic gloves in our condo and took enough for Bob to wear one each time he filled up. Tossing the glove. Using hand sanitizer again and we were on our way.

We made it to the Hampton Inn in Fernadina Beach where we always stay, glad to be able to stay in a familiar place. Familiar but different not only because of the COVID-19 restrictions but also because they were redecorating. Not too much noise but a new carpet smell and wall that made my astigmatism crazy in the halls.

The streets of Fernadina Beach were all but deserted. We walked around and checked out the restaurants that were open for take out. The Crab Trap offered the best option. We ordered on the phone and walked back to pick it up. Thankfully our room was a suite and we had a nice table to eat on. The food was delicious.

After dinner we walked to our favorite place to get ice cream and each got dessert. Down at the water's edge by the marina we sat down to watch the sunset. The bugs chased us away before we could actually see it set. Never had a bug/mosquito problem there before. Maybe the wind was too calm.

One day down. Two to go. Hopefully it wouldn't get any harder.

DAY TWO

Our Trip Home Despite COVID-19

The Coronavirus began to change life as we knew it while we were enjoying our winter stay in Florida. Thinking it couldn't possibly get much worse, we extended our stay for two more weeks but it was obvious half way through the first week that things were just escalating. We agreed. We needed to get home.

We ate as much of our food supplies as we needed and passed the rest to our neighbors who were staying for another 3-4 weeks. The toilet paper we'd bought as well as tissues and paper towels, we packed in the car. I also packed several boxes of pasta, some soup, cereal, a can of tuna, and a box of dry scallop potatoes. I figures that would help us through if grocery shopping was not an option at first.

I also put together a bag of paper towels and some Clorox/Tilex spray in case we found conditions a little sketchy on some of our stops. We had already made our own hand sanitizer from some aloe we found in our condo and a bottle of Simmer's ear that we used when we couldn't purchase alcohol. The swimmer's ear is 95% alcohol but costs probably twice as much for a little bottle than a whole bottle of alcohol would have.


Leaving early in the morning, we stopped at the McDonald's in Key Largo using our mobile app for the first time. That eliminated exchanging money or a credit card. We were on our way on a beautiful sunny day and anxious about the unknown ahead. One of the biggest concerns--locating restrooms.


We plugged in our audio book and hoped for the best. Just north of Fort Lauderdale, we sought out our first McDonald's for more coffee and of course that restroom stop. Would we be able to go inside or would we have to travel on to find another place?

Mini Road Trip - Off To North Carolina

After a long hiatus from travel, it is starting up again. Our Florida son had the opportunity to enjoy a stay at a beautiful home in the mountains of North Carolina and invited us to join them there for a few days. We broke the long eight hour drive in two, staying overnight in West Virginia. There was no need to arrive so tired that we couldn't enjoy our grandchildren.

Arriving in Waynesville, NC, we spent a few minutes driving around the little downtown area and then followed our GPS to the road that the house was on. The house sits on Eagle's Nest Mountain at about 4500 feet and we knew the road would wind and climb for a while.

As we started up, the GPS said to take a turn on another road. It was a bit contrary to what our son had told us but we thought maybe the name of the road changed as some do or connected back to where we needed to be. In all fairness, it was a long day of driving and we probably weren't reasoning correctly.

The street narrowed quickly as we wound our way up the mountain. Soon it was gravel and no more homes. Then it was ruts. "I don't think this is right," we both said. Thankfully there was a flat spot to turn around and we headed back down. On the main road again, we ignored the GPS and just followed the winding, but paved, road up and up and found the place we were to be.

As we pulled up the driveway, four little people ran out to greet us. They looked very familiar and kept yelling, "Grandma! Grandpa!" Yup, this was the place.

The air smelled fresh and clean as mountain air does. It was a welcome fragrance after a day in the car. Leaves were falling even though many of them had not turned colors yet. It was just the beginning of autumn yet to fully burst into full glory.

Dinner was at a rustic restaurant called Bogart's with several stuffed toy bears laying on the exposed rafters. The sun had set by the time we were done and the chill in the air was a reminder that we were in mountain country. It cools off quickly.

On our way back up the mountain we fessed up about our excursion up the back road. We all speculated that the GPS thought it was a short cut. The only thing that really struck in my mind though was the sign we'd seen on a fence up there, "Beware of Bear." Was that a dog named bear? Or was it meant to be the warning of a real bear? This was after all, mountain country.

Another Road Trip Stop - The Corn Palace

In 1892, the city of Mitchell built its first corn palace as a way to prove to the world that South Dakota had a healthy agricultural climate.The palace was to be a gathering place where city residents and their rural neighbors could enjoy a fall festival with stage entertainment. It would be a celebration to top off the growing season and harvest.

In 1905 a second palace was built as the festivities outgrew the old one, only to be followed by a third building built between 1919 and 1921 when the second one proved too small as well. In the 1930s steps were taken to recapture some of the character of the original Corn Palace and minarets and kiosks of Moorish design were added.

Today the Corn Palace is more than just a building where the Corn Palace Festival continues to take place each year in late August. It is also a venue for many other celebrations and some sports events such as high school basketball. But its charm goes way beyond the inside activities.

Each year the Palace is redecorated with naturally colored corn, grains, and native grasses. There are thirteen different colors or shades of corn including green corn. A different theme is chosen each year and the murals are designed around it.The Corn Palace is known around the world as a folk-art wonder on the prairie of South Dakota.

Salvation Mountin

Maybe it's because I was preparing a talk for a ladies' retreat this week that an article caught my eye. My talk includes the mention of Elijah visiting Mt. Horeb, the mountain of God. So when I came across a place called Salvation Mountain, well, I just had to take a look.

Leonard Knight was the creator of Salvation Mountain, the sole creator, and it was pretty much a life long work of his. It was begun in 1984 after he discarded his first idea of how to tell the world about his new found faith and the love of God. He wanted to build a hot air balloon and basically advertise the sinner's prayer so that others could find the peace and joy he had through Jesus.

The balloon never got off the ground and just about the time he was to leave the Niland, California area, he decided to make one last attempt at a monument to God's love. He began building a mountain.

The first attempt collapsed after four years of work. He learned that the sand and cement he was using was not strong enough to support the size his mountain had grown to. It collapsed. He began to make an adobe and straw structure that proved to be successful. The work grew to a height of 50 feet and breadth of 150 feet. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of paint, all of which have been donated, cover the mountain with artwork and scriptures and of course the central message of the sinner's prayer.

The story is fascinating and I will put links to the information I found below. Leonard Knight died at the age of 82 after a stay in a care facility because eventually he was a victim of dementia. All those years though he never faltered in his quest to make known his love of God and the importance of telling others. An organization has now picked up the cause but I think it is more to preserve what has become a beloved piece of folk art. Have a look at the links and if you are ever on a road trip in that area take time to have a look. It's on my list now too.

Salvation Mountain "official site" - has detailed biography and history of the site.

Salvation Mountain Wikipedia

Salvation Mountain FaceBook page

Salvation Mountain, Inc,  - the group working to preserve the mountain

Knowing The Rules Of The Road

There have been several road trips in our travel history and not all of them in the United States. We've driven on the right side and the left side of the road, had to learn to navigate turnabouts, and even experienced the high speeds of the Autobahn in Germany. Generally the car rental place will give you some warning of any rules of the road specific to that country that you might commonly encounter but there are some that are a little weird and likely not to be mentioned.

Take for instance the one in France that says drivers must carry a breathalyzer. This is so you can test yourself before you start the car and drive off if you've been drinking. Sure I can see that working. No impaired judgement there.

Apparently in Spain parking is allowed on the street but what side of the street you park on depends upon what day of the week it is. Reading that one reminded me of the way we were told Beijing was going to relieve the traffic during the Olympics there. Odd numbered license plates were only allowed into the city on odd numbered days. Even numbers on even days. Hopefully that worked.

And on that Autobahn you had better be sure you have a full tank of gas because pulling over to the side because you ran out is considered an unnecessary stop. It could have been avoided. There is no allowance for any unnecessary stopping on the Autobahn. Believe me, you wouldn't want to slow down and stop. Those cars would be on you in an instant.

Now we may think there are some strange driving laws in other countries including the one in Costa Rica that says you can drink while you drive but you can't drive while you're drunk. The truth is we have a few weird ones here in the States. In Kansas you are not allowed to screech your tires. In Montana it's illegal to leave a sheep unescorted in a truck. In Georgia you can spit from a truck but not a car or bus.

The real gem I found though is in Alabama. No matter how well you may know your way around, it is illegal to drive blindfolded.

Mini Road Trip - Henry Ford Museum

The shift in our plans worked well for this trip as evidenced by the gray and much colder weather we awoke to. Our previous day at Greenfield Village had been quite sunny and warm. This day definitely looked like autumn was arriving--maybe even early winter. So off we went to The Henry Ford Museum where we would be nice and warm and out of any foul weather that might happen.

We were there as the doors opened at 9:30 AM and entered with a large group of high school kids. I thought at first it was an outing for them but actually there is a school that is within the museum--the Henry Ford Academy. My legs were a little sore as we started out. We had logged over 4 miles walking around the village the day before.

The museum has changed a lot from what we remembered. All for the good of course. There is a lot more emphasis on educational information and not just on industry and cars. Sections of the museum included the Civil War (with the chair Lincoln sat in the night he was shot) and the Civil Rights struggle with the actual bus Rosa Parks sat in when she refused to move to the back.

There is a lot of memorabilia from different eras and you are invited to figure out which era you belong in. With our age, we kind of passed through a lot of them. One of the displays that brought big smiles though was the Oscar Meyer Wiener car. Of course, like It's A Small World, it took a while to get the Oscar Meyer song out of my head.

The most intriguing exhibit was the Dymaxion House designed by Buckminster Fuller back in the 1920s. It wasn't actually built though until around 1945. It was the answer to the need for mass produced, affordable, easily transportable and environmentally efficient housing. The structure, made of lightweight steel, aluminum and plastic, is supported by a central column and is built around it in a circle. Supposedly it maximizes space. Lots of perks inside included an enclosed closet full of shelves that rotated to display your clothes. It was said to withstand a tornado that passed close by where it stood in Wichita, Kansas. There's a good post about it at Yesterland. com. 

Wandering through the Heroes of the Sky area, we came upon the Ford Tri Motor. It has a special place in my heart. When I was young, we spent many weekends at Put In Bay, Ohio, in the winter and the only way to the island was to fly in the Ford Tri Motor from Port Clinton. I wonder now though what my mother must have felt every time we went taking her children on a plane built between 1925 and 1933. I guess back then the plane was only 25-30 years old and lovingly cared for although it shook so much on take off I wonder how it stayed together. There is some talk that the plane will be making a comeback to the island in the summertime.

Among the cars on exhibit is a progressive representation of presidential limousines including the one JFK rode in Dallas. Somehow they don't seem as large in real life.

We wandered through the progression of all kinds of cars and trucks--not just Fords, and then headed for the train section. Bob remembered a huge engine there the last time and he wasn't disappointed, It still sits there. The steam engine was built in 1941 and used for hauling coal in the Allegheny Mountains. It weighs 600 tons and towers above you as you walk past it. I cannot imagine what it must have been like to see it working.

For lunch we enjoyed sandwiched in the Michigan Cafe. There is a hot dog dining area by the Oscar Meyer Wiener car but we didn't want to walk all the way back to it. There is also a diner where we had some great coffee and a couple of glazed donuts recommended by our waitress. She was right. As good as Krispy Kreme.

 As we enjoyed our donuts and coffee, we discussed the possibility of getting in the tour of the Ford Rouge Factory. If we did it this afternoon, we could leave first thing in the morning and get home a little earlier. Besides, we really couldn't think of anything else we wanted to do and the factory tour was said to take about two hours. It was another plan shift. We were getting good at those. Never say we aren't spontaneous.

Mini Road Trip - More of Greenfield Village

Built in 1871 in Dayton, Ohio, the Wright home eventually became a part of Greenfield Village. I didn't get a picture of the front of the house because it was decorated for the Halloween festivities going on during evenings on the weekends. I was fascinated though in the parlor when I saw the painted walls and the wallpapered ceiling.

Susan Wright never got to see her boys fly. Maybe that was a good thing. As a mother, it could have been very scary. Their father, Milton, supported their bike shop and their experiments with flight. Neither boy went to college but their sister, Katharine, did.

The Sarah Jordan Boarding House built in Menlo Park, NJ, in 1870 was one of the first homes ever to be wired for electricity. Perhaps that's because many of the men who worked at Menlo Park stayed in the home run by the widow, her adopted daughter and a maid. Since Bob is always sensitive to booking a Bed & Breakfast with an ensuite bathroom, I couldn't help but chuckle and point out that this place was definitely not ensuite as indicated by the two out buildings in the back yard.



One of the more unique and unusual homes in the village is the Mattox House. It was built around 1880 in Bryan County, Georgia. The family lined the walls of their home with newspapers to insulate against the cool Georgia nights in the winter. Amos Mattox worked a variety of jobs to provide for his family during the depression--shoemaker, farmer, barber and preacher. His wife, Grace, was known to help feed the needy.

There were several buildings dedicated to educational history. A large log cabin, the McGuffey Schoolhouse and a smaller log cabin, the McGuffey birthplace. Yes, that McGuffey. The one who wrote the readers that have been around for 200 years. Across from the log cabins is a brick building, the Scotch Settlement School where Henry Ford sat next to his friend, Edsel Rudiman. Apparently the boys enjoyed playing pranks and eventually John Chapman was hired as teacher and paid an extra $5 a month to keep the boys in line.

What struck me most about visiting the school was what was said in the recorded information that played upon entering the door. The school was where morality was taught as much as the three Rs. How far would that go today? And is that perhaps where we've fallen short as a society? Enough. Climbing down from soapbox now.

There were so many good things to see. I could go on and on. The print shop, the tin smith, the weaver (where they had a version of a "computerized" loom using punch cards), the pottery, the train yard. Another favorite spot was the general store with all sorts of interesting items that would be for sale in the late 19th century and early 1900s. The store was often the only place that had a phone and was available to the public. Of course how many other people had phones? So who would you call?

We were pretty tired but when we discovered, by way of Facebook, that one of the kids we had watched grow up at church was working for Ford and just around the corner, we couldn't resist meeting him for dinner. And of course, the younger folks know the best BBQ places.

Mini Road Trip - Greenfield Village

Of course there is a lot of Henry Ford represented here in the Greenfield Village. His childhood home for one and his early Bagley Avenue workshop where he put together his first gas powered car, the quadricycle. The workshop was actually a coal shed behind the duplex he and his wife, Clara, lived. Ford at the time worked as a powerhouse superintendent at the Edison Illuminating Company a short distance away.

The car was built inside the shed but Ford discovered that it would not fit through the door and had to enlarge the entry in order to take his vehicle outside for a test run. The first building of the company is here at Greenfield Village but only a smaller version of the original. Between 1903 and 1905, Ford assembled his cars at stations from purchased parts. It wasn't until 1913 that he came up with the moving assembly line.

The Mack Avenue plant produced 15 cars a day. The Model A sold for $750. And as it is today, various options were available at an additional cost.

Ford grew up and lived in an era when great innovations were being discovered and produced. He was truly an admirer of Edison and eventually opted to move the Menlo Park building from New Jersey to Michigan. Unfortunately, the building had so badly deteriorated that they had to rely on building plans to reconstruct Edison's workplace. Some of the materials of the original building were used but much of it is newer construction.

The Wright brothers were also among the innovators and inventors that Ford admired. Their cycle shop is one of the more interesting shops in the village. As you move through it, you can see the wind tunnel they built to test their theories of how to get lift for their aircraft. It's all in a glass box and the wind is produced by turning a crank. Once you get it up to speed, the small model wing lifts up from it's resting position.

In the back of the shop is the bare skeleton of the plane they built to fly at Kitty Hawk. The guide in the shop explained that the Wright brothers eventually built in a control for turning the aircraft that involved laying down in a cradle that moved as you moved your hips so that you could bank left or right while still holding the controls to the aircraft's power in your hands.

If you were into motors and huge generators, there was plenty to see. I couldn't help but think of how my father must have been enamored with all that he saw on that visit so many years ago. Dad repaired motors and did electrical wiring.

Of course, looking at some of the motors, I could hear my mother telling the story of how she had to wrap wires around a spindle keeping count of the number of times around on a match book (one match bent down for every 10 times around) and still answer the phone. Once his business got going, she was replaced by several employees and a secretary.

I'm glad. It gave her time to be my mom.

5,326 Miles

Well, we did it! We drove quite a loop through the Midwest. All those miles and at least that many bugs smashed on the front of the car but it was worth it. Our road trip took us west through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, and into Montana to stop at Glacier National Park. Then through Montana to Wyoming for Yellowstone (we may have hit just the cornier of Idaho) and southeast through South Dakota and Nebraska before turning east again through Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and home in Ohio.

Thanks to those who suggested a few stops along the way. We enjoyed Wisconsin Dells and the Mall of America. Glacier was beautiful. Yellowstone's wildlife amazing. Grand Tetons spectacular. Mt. Rushmore monumental.

Some surprises along the way included the Mammoth dig at Hot Springs, SD and the Buffalo Bill home/ranch at North Platte, NE. And of course meeting folks along the way is always entertaining. For instance, there was the park ranger in Yellowstone who gave his whole program talk with a toothpick stuck in the corner of his mouth and never once lost it. He was a wealth of information though.

Here are just a few of the things that impressed me about this area of the country as we drove.

• Acres of sunflowers in ND. Wish we'd been there to see them in early bloom.
• So many cattle and horses grazing in fields.
• The Black Hills of South Dakota as the sun set.
• Corn fields, their tasseled tops golden in the sunshine.
• Bales and rolls of hay dotting the harvested fields.
• So much farmland! Praise God for farmers!
• And miles and miles between the next McDonald's cup of coffee.

This was a good lesson in geography but even more so in learning about what a wonderful area of the country this is.

Road Trip 2015 - Onward Through Grand Teton

The day we set out to leave the Yellowstone area the sun was shining brightly. After so many days of cloudy, rainy and even snowy weather, I had some mixed emotions about leaving it behind. I'd seen enough elks and bison but the one picture I really wanted to capture was a good shot of Old Faithful against a blue sky.

To get to our next destination we had to drive past the interchange where Old Faithful is. There is actually an interchange there sort of like a freeway exit and entrance because of the heavy traffic that would obviously be there in the busy season. As we approached I asked Bob if we could give it one more try. We'd drive to the information center and see what time was posted and try to catch it before we left.

As we neared the area my heart sank. I'd seen Old Faithful go off twice the day before and I was pretty sure that all the steam in the sky was from it erupting as we drove into the parking lot. Sure enough the sign on the door indicated we had just missed it! We circled around and headed south for Grand Teton National Park.

Once we passed out of Yellowstone, we were in the John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Memorial Parkway. It connects Yellowstone and Grand Teton and commemorates the contributions to conservation by Rockefeller on behalf of the National Park System. At Headwaters Lodge at Flagg Ranch, we stopped and got a cup of coffee (a nice way of saying it was time for a restroom),

Jackson Lake Lodge lobby.

Relieved and getting over my disappointment about Old Faithful, I began to realize that we had passed into a more mountainous area and it was getting more beautiful by the minute. When we reached Jackson Lake Lodge, we stopped for lunch. The lodge was amazing and the scenery was breathtaking out the window of the dining room.

I knew we had quite a few miles to go ahead of us but I really wanted to linger. How had we missed planning more time here? We should have spent the night if for no other reason than to spend some time sitting in a chair and drinking in the fresh air and the view of the majestic mountains around us.

Our view for lunch

Reluctantly we pressed on but now I was truly wishing we'd not planned in so much detail. Perhaps the idea of just striking out and looking for places to stay along the way would have been better. But then I remembered that infamous trip to Niagara Falls where we were forced to sleep in the car one night. . .

Road Trip 2015 - Yellowstone's Hot Spots

A good part of Yellowstone National Park sits in the middle of a caldera, a basin formed by the collapse of a volcano, that is approximately 30 by 45 miles wide. It is suggested that the last explosion of the volcano was around 600,000 years ago which caused the central part of the volcano to collapse. While there is no lava flowing above ground, there is quite a thermal boiling pot below the surface of Yellowstone obviously heated by some hot molten substance even further down.

While New Zealand and Iceland are noted for their hot springs and geysers, Yellowstone claims to have more of them--10,000 thermal features of which over 300 are geysers. They are scattered all through the park but usually can be seen in groupings around areas where the hot water has found its way to the surface. The largest areas are the Norris Geyser Basin, the Mammoth Hot Springs and of course the Geyser Basin where Old Faithful can be found.

When we first met with a ranger to get an idea of how to get around the park and what to see, the ranger tapped Bob's finger and said, "This is not a thermometer. Do not test to see how hot the water is." And yet, every so often you would see someone do it. Some of the thermal features can actually get hotter than the boiling point.

Hot springs are the most common. They are pools of water that give off a lot of steam especially on those days that the temperature dropped. The hot water rises to the surface gets cooled a bit sinks, reheats and rises again.

Terraced Mammoth Hot Springs

Mudpots are places where the acidic content of the water breaks down the rock and soil forming mud and the water bubbles up through it. Unfortunately there had been so much rain and snow the day that we visited the mudpots area that they weren't burping as nicely as we saw in New Zealand.

Fumeroles or steam vents are the hottest features. They often sound like a tea kettle steaming only with out the whistle. They hiss and throw out a lot of steam.

Travertine Terraces are fascinating--especially the huge one at Mammoth Spring. The terraced deposits are from water rising through the limestone carrying large amounts of calcium carbonate. When it is deposited, it forms travertine, the chalky substance you see in the picture. It all looks like something a landscaper may have created for a focal point with a fountain in the yard of a mansion.

Geysers are hot springs with smaller escape hatches through which the hot water escapes. The heat builds up deep in the earth causing the water to boil but because of the weight of the water above the hot water, pressure builds. Eventually the bubbles in the hot water cause the water above it to push out of the opening in the earth causing an explosion of water as if someone had turned on a fireman's hose and aimed it into the air.

We waited until our third day in the park to go to Old Faithful. The first two days were cloudy and rainy and sometimes snowy. Old Faithful was one of the must-sees for me so I wanted a good day. Unfortunately it was clouded over every time we saw it go off. They estimate it will erupt every 60 to 90 minutes. Each time it does, the rangers calculate the next predicted time with a give or take of ten minutes. Old Faithful was within two minutes either side of the predicted time each time we watched it.

Each thermal feature has its own palette of colors that are amazing. There are actually microorganisms that survive quite nicely in the hot water and lend their colors to the water and the deposits and rocks around the features.

There are lots of warnings everywhere about staying on the boardwalks and not stepping onto the areas surrounding the features mainly because they could be very hot or fragile. In one area we found lots of people had lost some very nice hats in a few gusts of wind and had to leave them behind. It explained the ranger we saw though with a long pole that had a claw on the end of it.

Tip of the day: Hold on to your hat!

Road Trip 2015 - Yellowstone National Park, The Bison

First of all, no matter how many times you sing "where the buffalo roam," it does not make it true. As we listened to a park ranger explain (all the while a toothpick perched in the corner of his mouth) there are no buffalo in the U.S. Nope. There are water buffalo and cape buffalo in other parts of the world but what is known as the American buffalo is really a bison. He seemed to know his stuff. I'll take his word for it.

Our first close encounter with wildlife was with the bison. We were driving along and I caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of my eye and yelled for Bob to stop. Good thing there was no one behind us! He backed up a bit and there, standing so still on the crest of a small hill that I thought maybe it was a statue, was a huge bison. He slowly looked us over and then went back to sleeping or daydreaming or whatever it was we'd distracted him from.

Now if nothing else had happened, I would have been content with that close encounter but later, it got up close and personal! We rounded a curve and had to slow suddenly because there were a few bison on the road. The more we inched forward the more bison seemed to appear until we were surrounded. I rolled the window down cautiously. I'd had a bison stick his head in the window at a drive-thru animal safari once and the slobber was atrocious. Of course then the bison knew there was food. These guys and gals just were lumbering on to find a grazing spot.

We were thrilled obviously and within the next couple of days would find ourselves up close and personal several other times. One morning we drove down a side road where there were several large herds of bison and took some great pictures there.

At the end of one day, as we were exiting one of the other areas of interest where we'd stopped, Bob had to stop the car because the bison were leading a string of cars down the street. He stopped and got out of the car to take a video. The bison were actually beginning to run. I happened to turn and look in the other direction when I realized that there was a group of bison running through the field and straight at our car. I yelled for Bob to get back in and just as he did, the bison seemed to put on the brakes, look startled that we were there and then the group split and went around us. My heart didn't stop but it sure did pound! It was repeatedly pointed out through rangers and signs that bison can run up to 30 mph.

We saw dry bison and wet bison. Big old bison and young calves trotting beside their moms. Bison standing. Bison walking. Bison running. Bison laying in the grazing areas. Bison crossing the road and meandering down the middle of it. If you go to Yellowstone and you don't see any bison you probably have your eyes closed. There are said to be about 5,000 in the park that roam freely and just in case you don't believe that they can be dangerous, the NPS has a video on their website to warn you.

The most dangerous thing we saw was a photographer who was so engrossed in taking pictures of a large elk that he didn't realize a bison was walking right down the path beside him. Thankfully he pulled his tripod up and backed away and let the one ton bison with the horns pass by.

Through My Lens - Along The Way