The Grand Coulee Dam & Spokane, WA

Well, there are so many shots of Glacier National Park, that I'm still working through them, however, I have finished working on shots of the Northwest so let's get them up here!

After staying in Glacier National for a night we headed back to Missoula, MT and then on to Seattle, WA. That's a heck of a long drive though, so we decided to stay in Spokane, WA on the way. Then we figured we may as well hit the Grand Coulee Dam on our way out of Spokane the next day.

First we had to drive through a bit of Montana and through the top of Idaho.



This is the entire town of Haugan, MT, I believe:



We did not get any potatoes:




We made it Spokane, Washington, no problem. It's a very pretty little city.







Another beautiful carousel, who knew that so many cities had one?



They have a gondola that's not really worth doing, I would say.



Now, would you believe that Spokane, WA has a hotel that is considered to be one of the world's finest and certainly most ornately and lavishly appointed? Well it does, the incredible Davenport Hotel. Check this baby out.





Every surface is encrusted with decoration and carvings:



Infinite mirrors:



The lobby:



Before leaving the next morning we hit up Frank's Diner, which is in an old railroad car and is awesome. If you go, get the biscuits and sausage gravy, they do them AWESOME here!



The Grand Coulee Dam is a biggun'. Here's what Wikipedia says about it: "Grand Coulee Dam is a hydroelectric gravity dam on the Columbia River in the U.S. state of Washington. In the United States, it is the largest electric power producing facility and the largest concrete structure. It is the fourth largest producer of hydroelectricity in the world...The Grand Coulee Dam is almost a mile long at 5223 feet (1586 m). The spillway is 1,650 feet(503 m) wide. At 550 feet (168 m), it is taller than the Great Pyramid of Giza; all the pyramids at Giza could fit within its base. Its hydraulic height of 380 feet (115 m) is more than twice that of Niagara Falls. There is enough concrete to build a four-foot wide, four-inch deep sidewalk twice around the equator." It was built between 1933-1944, as one of Franklin D. Roosevelt's public works program. Check it out --





It's a huge dam, but not super interesting to look at...plus the car was smelling like it was burning oil so I was anxious to move on and get to Seattle. The Grand Coulee is seriously in the middle of NOWHERE and in case something happened to the car that's not where I wanted to be stuck.



On to Seattle!

Animals of Yellowstone National Park

Amazing. It's like being on a safari. Check it out.

Coyote:



Bison:





This was the first Bison we saw and he just happened to be on the other side of a gushing geyser!



This guy was sleeping by the side of the road.



We had to pull over for all kinds of animals that were in the road. I entered the park in the pitch dark and almost cruised into an entire herd of Elk, no crap. Here's an assertive little goat --



I love this one of him, one of my favorite YNP shots.



And another bison. There were LOTS of bison.



Can you spot the Mule Deer? At least, that's what I think they are. These pics were taken with my lens at 200mm and then cropped way in, they were pretty far away. It's blurry, but if you look closely, you'll see a baby trying to get a little milkin' teet action in the second shot below.







Little chipmunks and squirrels were everywhere.



A herd of people watching a herd of bison.






I was gored moments after photographing this sign. Just kidding.



No, seriously...we did pet them...ok, not really.





FYI we weren't quite as close as we look in these pics. What...you think I'm stupid? ;)

Some Elk with their young, resting by Mammoth Hot Springs.







Of course, there were some interesting bugs, even though the weather was freezing.





We caught a few Mountain Goats right as we were leaving the park.





Please go to YNP if you have the chance. It's truly spectacular for so many reasons, the animals being just one.

We really wanted to see a moose and we never did...oh well, I guess we'll just have to go back as soon as can be arranged!

Day 3 at Yellowstone National Park

On day 3 at YNP we headed north from the Grand Canyon area, stopped by Tower Falls and hoofed all about Mammoth Hot Springs before finally exiting the park from the North Entrance and heading to Missoula to sleep the night.

Here's that map again so you have an idea of where we were:




When we got up in the morning, it was freezing. I believe that the Canyon area is at a much higher elevation than the area of the park we were in previously. Regardless, there was frost on the trees and a little snow on the ground. Keep in mind that a few weeks earlier we had been snorkeling in Key West...



Carson..."Nature Girl." Haven't seen that shirt again since, ha.



Here's a little random geothermal activity a few miles off.



Here is some of the amazing landscape around the Tower Falls area.







The Tower Falls itself was apparently not impressive enough to get a pic uploaded to Flickr by me, hmmm. I'll have to look into that. Anyway, we moved on to the Mammoth Hot Springs area, which is another amazing spot complete with boardwalks for easy hiking about. Mammoth is different from the other geothermal areas in Yellowstone in that there are no geysers, however, the water that is coming out of the springs contains massive amounts of calcium, which cover everything around springs in white calcium rock and build up and up creating a massive white hill.

Here's the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel with one of the typical National Park tour vehicles you see everywhere up here (and at Glacier).





Seriously, that IS a Mammoth Hot Spring...



Minerva Terrace, a famous feature -





Complete with colorful pools of super hot water, colorful bacteria & algae, and tons of calcium at the top of the Mammoth Hot Springs.







Every day in Yellowstone was amazing. I could have stayed for a week and never ceased being awed by what I experienced. I WILL go back to check out the rest of the popular spots there, and then I'll hike into a bit of the easier back country, too. But for this trip, three days in Yellowstone was all we had. We made the best of it and brought out memories that we'll keep forever. Carson was totally blown away, not that I wasn't, but I had seen pictures and had big expectations whereas she had none. It was just amazing.

To everyone who hasn't been: Go there go there go there!!