Hitting the Outdoors

Over the last couple of weeks we've taken every opportunity to make as much use of the fine weather that we can.


Two weeks ago we went to Denver to catch up with mum and dad who were on their way from their tour of the north east; New York, Washington and Quebec; and going to Las Vegas. It was the Memorial Day long weekend so after seeing them off on the Saturday we drove to Fort Collins and had our first go at white water rafting down the Poudre (Poo-der) river. It was awesome fun; we went 12 miles in an 8 man rubber raft; the river was pretty full from all the melting snow and dam cold (38F) so we were really trying to make sure we didn't fall in. We had a couple of near misses which added to the fun. One of the rafts in our group tipped everyone out; we were glad it wasn't us. When I've worked out how to link a DVD video to the blog I'll be able to show you what a good time we had.

I had to work in Craig in western Colorado the following week so after leaving Fort Collins we went into the Rocky Mountain National Park and for the first time the Trail Ridge Rd was open and we could drive right across the top of the rockies. It's the highest paved road in the world and at one point you are just below 12,200 ft up; it's like being on top of the world. Still quite a bit of snow up there and the weather wasn't great but it was still a great drive to do. I imagine we will do it again over summer and hopefully the weather will be a bit kinder.


Mum and dad arrived back in Gillette on June 1st and I took a weeks holiday and we set off for Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons on Saturday. First stop was place called Thermopolis, evidently the largest hot springs in the world although I imagine a few kiwi's might challenge that. We stayed a very pro american overpriced hotel; god bless 'em, but had a good time looking about the hot springs. We had meal at a place called the Safari Club at the Holiday Inn which had the largest collection of animals heads we've seen anywhere.





On Sunday we arrived in Yellowstone and checked into the Lake Hotel; very 1920's and in keeping with the natural surrounds there was no TV, mobile phone reception or internet.





The hotel was a great place to make our day trips from and it was great to see the differences between summer and winter when we had been there on snow mobiles with Jess. I've included a couple of photo's taken from the same spots so that you get some idea. The first two are from a place called Hayden Valley where we saw a lot of Bison on both visits.




and the next ones are from a bridge over one of the rivers that run through the park.

Hard to believe they are the same spots.

There was lots to see in Yellowstone as usual and I've attached an album of photos to the end of the blog.

After spending 3 nights in the Lake Hotel we took off south for the Grand Teton National Park.



The Grand Tetons are a spectatular mountain range about 30 miles south of Yellowstone and are probably the best scenery we've seen in the US so far.

We had our first night just out of the park at a place called Jackson Hole. It's a very up market ski resort town during winter and a popular holiday spot during summer. We would really like to back again either in summer or winter so we'll see what time we have in the future.



We spent most of our time in the Tetons looking for moose and bear; we were lucky enough to see several moose but we'll have to go back again to continue our search for the bear.



We found lot's of great places to camp and hike around the lakes so hopefully we'll get the time to come back.

Make sure you take the time to have look through the photos in the following album; they are only a sample of the ones we took but they give you a good idea of the scenery and the animals in this part of the world.

Cheers until next time.

Yellowstone and Grand Tetons