Vacationing at Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks

Entrance Sign

In August we take a week's driving vacation, and most of the time it is visiting a state we have never been to, or a national park.  We visited Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks many years ago, and loved them so much we decided to go back for a visit.

Bison Herd

We have seen more wildlife at Yellowstone than at any other national park we have visited.  Herds of bison and elk can be seen in many of the open meadow areas of the park. You can also see black and grizzly bears, moose, pronghorn, wolves, big horn sheep and mule deer.

Old Faithful Geyser

There are many geysers in the park, but the most famous is Old Faithful, called that because it has a fairly regular daily eruption schedule.  The eruption can last for 5 minutes and can expel 8,400 gallons of boiling water and reach a height of 180 feet.

Terraces

At Mammoth Hot Springs area of the park you can see terraces of different colors that form from the 50  underground hot springs that seep through the surface carrying carbonic acid and dissolved limestone  that when it is exposed to air is deposited as travertine. 

Mud Volcano

This is a photo of a boiling mud pot called mud volcano because in1873 it violently erupted 30 feet high and wide covering trees with mud. It has been much tamer since, just bubbling and boiling. Sulfuric acid is formed from the hydrogen sulfide deep in the earth here and dissolves the surface soils around it. The sulfur makes this a mud pot rather than a hot spring, and gives off that infamous aroma.

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River

The present appearance of the canyon dates from about 10,000 years ago at the end of the last glaciation.  It is 20 miles long, and up to 1,200 feet deep. There are falls. The upper falls are 109 feet, and the lower falls are 308 feet.

Entrance sign

We also visited Grand Teton national park which is right next to Yellowstone national park.

Teton Range

Ten million years ago the Teton Range rose abruptly from massive earthquakes along the Teton fault.  Erosion from glaciers sculpted the landscape.

Teton Glacier

In this photo the white spot in the center is what remains of Teton glacier. The Teton peak in this photo tops out at 13,775 feet.  Many of the mountain range peaks are over 12,000 feet.

Jenny Lake

Jenny Lake is as clear and beautiful as it was when we visited many years ago.  It is one of the most visited spots in the park.

Teton Range

The mountains seem as dramatic and stark to me as they were years ago.  Grand Teton park has much of the same wildlife as Yellowstone park (bison, moose, elk).  Yellowstone is much much larger and has all the exciting geysers, boiling lakes and mud pots, while Grand Teton has such beauty in the stark mountains, sagebrush flats and valley meadows.  The big difference I noticed this visit is that it is much more crowded at both parks, and with repairs delayed because of budget cuts, parts of the park are in disrepair.

Remembering 9/11

Plane Hitting the Second Tower

 

So Many memories come seeping into my consciousness on this 24th anniversary of the bombing of the twin towers in New York City.  As many people do, I remember exactly where I was on the morning of September11, 2001.  I had just arrived with two other women for a garden club board meeting at a member's house.  As we walked in, the TV was on and others already there asked if we'd heard what had happened.  The first plane had struck the world trade center building.  We all sat down to watch the news, riveted to the TV. We forgot about the meeting.  We watched in horror as the second plane struck.  Many members, including myself immediately got on cell phones to contact loved ones.  My son was on a plane to New York City that morning.

Pentagon  Burning After Being Struck by a Plane

Then the Pentagon building  was struck. At that time I lived in Virginia, 13 miles from the Pentagon.  Three people who lived in my neighborhood who worked at the Pentagon died that morning.

Pentagon 9/11 Memorial

As time passed, my garden club, in its own way, helped members heal and bring some closure to the emotions and shock of that day. We had as speakers at one of our meetings, the architects that had been chosen to build the 9/11 memorial at the Pentagon. The architects discussed the design, explained why paper bark maple trees were chosen to be planted throughout the memorial, and told us about the grasses, black-eyed susans, echinacea, and sage that would be planted around the perimeter.  They talked about how each victim would be memorialized by a stainless steel bench over a shallow basin of circulating water.

Pentagon 9/11 Memorial Lighted at Night

At another meeting, my garden club had as a speaker a women whose husband had died in the Pentagon on 9/11.  She explained how getting up every morning and going out to her garden to sit and then to work had saved her sanity and helped her process grief.  That garden saved her life, she said.

Our gardens bestow satisfaction, joy, exercise, good food, and beauty.  But, as I and other fellow gardeners know, they also bring peace.