Mystic Falls

Roman and I went on a 4 mile hike today to Mystic Falls. We had a lot of fun on our adventure. We hardly saw anybody on the trail, and for a while, a red squirrel was following us because Roman was whistling. The falls had geothermic features in them so the water was a lot warmer than we thought.

Fun With Geysers

Today was nice out after all the snow. We were a bit too tired from work to get up the energy for a real hike so we just meandered the Upper Geyser Basin. We stumbled across a Ranger tour so we listened for a while. Apparently due to all the geyser runoff into Fire-hole river, Brown trout have adapted to the 80 degree water, and started spawning in the fall instead of spring.

We also learned that the Belgian spring was named for the Belgian man, who fell in it. There were a couple other springs people fell into as well. We got bored of grass talk and moved on by ourselves. Castle geyser stared erupting. It goes about once a day, but its less predictable than Old Faithful, which was also erupting. Castle erupts for about half an hour, and Old faithful for about 5 min. We have pictures of both at the same time! very exciting.

 Old Faithful

 Old Faithful on the left, Castle on the right

I've got Old Faithful and Castle Geysers in my fists!!!!

Its snowing third day in row and its getting more and more annoying. Em needed some warm clothes so we went to the West Yellowstone to do some Shopping spree. On the way there we go stuck in small bison jam which was interesting because we could see the bison walking in the middle of the road. When we got there we tried to find some shops where we could get some clothes but it was nearly impossible. Em got little bit crabby because "she wanted to give everyone money, but there was not a reason for it". To make it clear, there wasn't a big selection of clothes that she liked or were her size. You could only buy cowboy boots, hats, and souvenir shirts. But then we got some beer and dinner and some candies + we went to the shirt store and we got a hoodies with Yellowstone stuff on them. Question of the day: Where do people who live in West Yellowstone buy normal clothes? or shampoo?

West Thumb lil' hike

We decided that we had enough of local nature and wanted something new. West Thumb was the best solution. First I thought that it will be some kind of rock\mountain shaped like a human thumb but it showed up its a part of lake. If I have to be honest I did not see the shape there. Nature was really pretty, the view of lake and mountains with snow caps on them was really  impressive. Also we got the chance to see an Elk up close. They are BIG! It was kinda cold that day and as we walked on the paths we saw a probably Japanese photographer with his assistant and a model doing some photo shoot.  The girl\model had just a summer dress on her and I could tell she was cold, because I was! and I had my hoodie on. Anyway the main goal of our trip was done, we saw something new.

Snow ?!?

Its been pretty dreary here lately, raining and cold. We haven't gone on any hikes or done anything spectacular this week. Today, while we were working hard it Blizzard all day. It looked crazy out,  I was glad to continue working before we walked home in the storm after dinner.

I wonder what the buffalo think?

oh, I had a run in with a soggy coyote on the way to work. It got really close, but it was just curious. He didn't scare me, but I did put a bit more hustle  into my steps.

Bears.... OH MY!

So at first we were doing short hikes because we were acclimating to the high altitude here. Now we are continuing to do short hikes because of the bears. Most of the cool, longer hikes are closed because the bears are coming out of hibernation and are hungry, and child protecting. I guess its good that no one wants us to get eaten. Here are some videos from the past few days. Our total hiking miles are 9.25 for the week so far. Hopefully we can join the 100 mile club by the end of the season.

Our First Yellowstone Days

We finally got to the Yellowstone, so our long honey moon and adventure can begin. After all those documentaries we watched together I was really excited to see it on my own eyes. Nature here is so pretty and clean, and people here are friendly too. We had a little bit trouble to find the personal office because the map they gave us was not really accurate, and I assumed that when we are in America they would put some signs or something.


Our room needed some changes of furniture set up but it looks good now. Also we can see Old Faithful geyser erupting from our dorm room window! We walked around for a bit and then went to our room to relax after all the trip fun we had. Next day we started working, me at 8 a.m. and Em at 8.30. Working in on of the most famous hotel in the US is really exciting, as a room attendant I have to pay attention to a lot of details. Towels folded the right way, toilet paper has to have the tip on the end, room set up has to be perfect and stuff like that.


Then after work we went on a short hike around geysers so we can add it to our plan to hike 100 miles throughout the summer. We hiked Outlook point Loop and Geyser Basin Loop.Since I came to Yellowstone I saw these animals:







 Buffalo 
Coyote
Prairie Dogs
Ground Squirrels

chipmunks

Marmot
Bald Eagles

Fake Facts With Roman

 This day on our road trip was Monumental. We woke up in the Black hills at Mount Rushmore. The new  Visitors center is really cool and very patriotic, especially the background music. Working there would be like watching a parade, all the time! The next stop was Crazy Horse. We watched a movie about the guy who designed it, he was crazy! He and his wife had 10 kids so they could help with the mountain carving- now only 7 are involved as adults.

We drove across a lot of desert land to get to Devils Tower. as we were approaching I kept thinking "I climbed that???? what was I thinking?" it was strange to see it again after 9 years. We locked our keys in the car near the ranger station. I guess we both assumed the other had keys. The nice ranger got it unlocked for us soon enough so we could go on our way.

We got to Aunt Linda's house in Bozeman around 10. We were the first to stay in their guest room! I must say, Hotel LindaBob is a really nice place to stay!

South Dakota - Land of Steak

Today after endless hours of waiting for our car to be fixed, Em and I finally hit the road at 5p.m. The feeling of begin able to leave from Mitchell was like Emily said: FREEDOM. Like a bird released from its cage. The road by itself wasn't really scenic. It was 6 hours of nothing. Well, there was something. Cows. Lots of 'em. Then it hit me, I named this state as a land of steak. The countryside started to change after we came to the beginning of the Badlands. It looked very cool! Very different from the rest of the country. Its definitely the coolies thing I saw in this trip so far. Now we are at the Roosevelt Inn, after shower and all comfy and ready to sleep, to gain more energy for more of tomorrows fun! Adventure awaits!

we did all there is to do, yesterday....

So Mitchell is the home of the "worlds only corn palace" and not much else. Since we're stuck here until tomorrow we did not have much to do- so we got creative. This is the fort we built. Its Romans first fort ever so we named it "Romans Palace".

Roman's Palace took up the whole hotel room, and had a sun roof. we watched movies and played on the internet in it. Then, we got hungry and set out to find some food. We walked the whole town yesterday and did not come across a grocery store. We thought Kmart might be a "super kmart" with food and everything. Unfortunately, that assumption was incorrect. This is our very sad, but delicious dinner.

also, we found a dinosaur. Hopefully tomorrow we can get the car fixed quickly and head out to finish our road trip adventure. If not, perhaps we can score a deal on hail damaged cars here in Mitchell.

What do cows do when it hails?

We took off for our adventure this morning at 4am, it was drizzly and foggy from St Paul all the way to Sioux falls. just before we got to our first rest stop (the corn palace in Mitchell) we were confronted by a wall of dark gray and teal colored clouds. I'm a geographer, and I've never seen a storm development like this one. I was driving, and really nervous because I was imagining suddenly having to drive like a storm chaser, except away from the tornado. Fortunately no tornadoes came of this storm, just Golf ball sized hail.

Our timing was impeccable because somehow the hail missed us, I'm still not sure how. All the cars in Mitchell have really bad hail damage, and smashed in windows. After driving under the storm, our car broke down and we had to get a tow. Thank you AAA for the rescue. Now we are stuck in Mitchell, North Dakota until Monday because all the mechanic shops are closed for the weekend.

We did finally get to the corn palace!

But really? What do the cows do when it hails? we passed thousands of them, do they just lay down and moo "ouch" every time they get hit? seriously, if you have any answers I'd like to hear them in the comments :D

Rainy Day Projects

Our last days in Minnesota were rainy and gloomy so we worked on finishing some projects that were long over due to be completed.

This is a quilt I started for Hannah for Christmas out of her old t-shirts. I finally finished it and its in the mail! Merry Christmas Hannah!

These are some pictures I drew at work during my night shift.... I'm so glad do be sleeping at night now!

The Illustration on the right was drawn for my Mom, for the cover of her Healing Touch research book. It has the chakras, and their respective colors on the body?

This awesome piece was drawn by roman, its a face, can you find it?

Roman Dancing :D

http://theuglydance.com/?v=vlqttmplto