Day 38...HOME

The weather did not look good but the forecast for Tahoe was good in the morning with storm in the evening and night. We decided to just drive home. We took highway 50 and stopped at Carson city , Nevada. It is the state capital and has the necessary state building, the museum and the old town and of course the casinos.

State building and the Casino next to each other


We walked around the old town a little. Museums were closed and we were in a hurry to drive on. But, we did see the interesting tit bit about Pony Express. The mail riders ( pony express) delivered mail for a year without missing a schedule and losing only one letter and one rider killed by Indians.

Once we got to the Sierras, we started feeling at home already. Tahoe was beautiful as always. In the bay area we were greeted with the familiar commute traffic on the freeways. I have to admit this was the worst traffic we had seen in last six weeks. But, the weather is perfect and it is HOME.

Just arrived.

It has been a wonderful journey. I learned a lot about the country, the people and most of all about myself. I want to thank the friends and family : Ektare, Leona, Jim , Becky who hosted us so graciously and Smita, Anupam ,Shalini and rest of you who supported us every day by coming along on the virtual journey. Without you , it would not have been such fun.

Good night and keep i ntouch. We are home ,so come for a visit and let's plan more journeys together.

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Day 37 ..Truck stop...Elko , Nevada

Morning started in Idaho Falls. On Chris's recommendation we had coffee and Muffin at Villa Cafe on Park Street in down town. It was excellent and we found out the cafe is voted the best cafe in Idaho. Since we were there, we looked around and found this interesting waterfall right i n the down town. Idaho falls is a Small town but seem to have an nice family friendly down town.

Water Fall and the temple in the down town Idaho Falls.


Then we drove to Crater of the Moons National Park. It is 11,000 square miles of volcanic lava eruptions complete with lave tubes, caves, cinder cones, rope lavas and big blobs of lave and lava in all sizes and shapes. It turns out there have been eight eruptions in last 12,000 years , last one being 2000 years ago. Few facts: 1) Apollo Astronauts trained here for the moon mission. 2) It is the biggest lava flow sight on the continents in the world. ( I think , they are excluding Hawaii) . It is the most accessible lave field. 3) There has been eruptions every 2000 years and , the hot spot in Yellow Stone is ready to erupt any time.


Lava cinder cone.
Life is beginning to take hold after 2000 years.

In the afternoon, we drove to Twin falls, Idaho on the way to our tonight's stop , Elko. Twin Falls turned out to be an hidden gem. The Shashone water fall is very pretty and they make sure you know that it is 50 feet higher than Niagara Falls. The bridge on the Snake River is very impressive too. The canyon has volcanic origin from 12,000 years ago.


Bridge on Snake River

Shashone Falls

We are at the truck stop now. Nothing special except that a Tostada Pizza, so filling that we could not even finish a small one. ( This was at Pizza Barn). Question for tonight is : Do we drive straight home or stop at Tahoe????

Good night...



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day 36 ...Idaho Falls via Grand Tetons

We drove out of the south entrance of YS park without even eating breakfast. Plan was to eat somewhere in Grand Teton area. First we saw beautiful frozen lakes and then this water fall by the road side. It is on lake Lewis , still inside the YS boundaries.



Right after Yellowstone, we entered the Grand Tetons. I have just one word to describe them , " GRAND". The mountains have lots of snow and rivers are half frozen and everything is beautiful . We took so many pictures that it is hard to decide what to put here, so i am putting just one.
Most of the places were still closed. We ate at a place called , " Story mountain lodge" , it was the way lodge should be. Beautiful views and great wholesome food.
We were going to the town of Jackson Hole and encountered this building on the road side. Upon further investigation, this turned out to be the , National Museum of Wild Life art " a true hidden gem. They have the best collection of the wildlife art ( sculptures, paintings etc) in the world ( they claim)

One example of their collection.

Jackson hole is an interesting town. Sort of quite now but they will process over a million people this summer ( someone said these words to us). The arch in the picture is real antler arch. The Elks shed them every spring and the boy scouts collect them and rotary club makes the art.

We drove to Idaho Falls this evening . It is quite late because I am doing all four blogs tonight. Jagdish is sleeping but not very happy about the night being on. So, I will update the map tomorrow.

Thanks for being with me in this journey. It has been fun. Good night and sleep well.

Day 34 more pictures , no talk ( little talk)

Upper Terraces

Petrified redwood. There used to be a lush Redwood Jungle here ( millions of years ago). A volcanic eruption buried the redwoods before they got the chance to fall down.

Wall of Lava slow that solidified.

A half frozen Twin Lake. This was on the way to Mammoth Terraces.

Yellow Stone has so much to offer that I still have many more pictures to share. But, do not worry, no more yellow stone pictures. We are moving on tomorrow.

Day 34...Still lot more to see in Yellow Stone part A

Today was wonderful. we drove to the north part, to Mammoth Mineral Terraces and then to Tower falls. We saw many Bison herds, sometimes crossing the road, looking at people and sometimes just in the meadows. We also saw many Elk herds as well as other deers and smaller animals and most exciting of all, we saw two black bears just mining their own business . One of them crossed the road just behind our car. Very exciting.


The Terraces were beautiful and very colorful. The minerals in the water as well as the Thermobecterias give them all these colors.

Interesting thing is that the Elk was walking right through the boiling hot water and was drinking it too. I read that it is so cold in the mountain that they come in the thermal areas to warm up.

I am going to post some more pictures in the next blog just because I think they are worth sharing... Good night

day 33 A day in Yellow Stone

We are staying at the Old faithful Snow Lodge. The newer lodge here but still is a log lodge. Everything squeaks and makes noises. Last night people above us were stomping on the floor, I am not sure what was going on. We could not sleep much and first thing in the morning we got our room changed to the second floor. We are hoping that tonight we can have a good night sleep. Moral of the story is: Get the room on the top floor so you are the one stomping on other’s head. Anyway, the day was beautiful. The sky was blue and air was warm. It was a big change from the snow and rain of the last few days.
We stated off seeing the much obligatory Old Faithful, which goes off every hour and a half (more or less). After the old faithful eruption we took a 3 to 4 mile hike around and above the Old Faithful and saw some beautiful views and many more geysers, each one with a different personality, attitude and age.



Old faithful from a view point above the hill.

After the fire, wild life in Yellow Stone was almost vanished but it has come back in abundance. Bisons are everywhere and so are the smaller animals like chipmunks, Prairie dogs, marmots, rabbits. Lots of Canadian Geese and other water fouls were roaming around the river. We saw very few Elks and no moose. It seems that the population of moose and elks has gone down a lot.

After lunch we drove towards the Madison Junction which is near west entrance. We saw more amazing geothermal activities with vivid colors due to different micro organisms. These bacterial colonies thrive in boiling hot water and sulphuric acids. Life thrives everywhere.

Reflections in the thermal pool near Madison Junction

Firehole Geyser area. There are many more unique and beautiful places.

You see vivid colors, boiling water and steam everywhere you look. All of this mixed with snow, mountains , rivers and lakes makes this place a unique place in the world.

We did end the day with a grand view of the old faithful with Sun setting in the background.

Good night

Day 32...Yellow Stone..a break from Internet , TV and even news papers

I am back. Three days of total isolation , no TV , no Internet and no news paper ( ok, i confess, Black berry was still working some of the time) . I did not miss the TV or the news paper but I did moss Internet . I wrote the blogs but am posting them now. So ,today there will be four blogs coming.
We drove through lot of fresh snow and slick roads but made it Yellow Stone through East entrance. The road US14/US16 is supposed to be one of the most beautiful road in USA and it is very pretty when you can look and admire the beauty.
The town of Cody, looked very interesting also, I wish the weather was better and we could spend a day there. The town was founded by " Buffalo Bill" and has lot of old history about it.
The drive from Cody to Yellow Stone was beautiful.

First thing we encountered was the frozen Yellow Stone Lake and also found out the the road from East to Old faithful was closed and we will have to go through a longer route to get to the lodge we were staying at.
The weather was nice and we had plenty of time so we were not panicking. We took our time and saw all the Canyon land area things. There is the Yellow Stone river

Which made this canyon called the Grand Canyon of Yellow stone. It is very colorful as you can see
The river also made several waterfalls. Unfortunately, the trails were closed due to snow but we were able to get to the viewing areas.

Yellow Stone is huge , so it is divided into four different sections. the East part was Canyon area and it has the canyon , river ,lake and water falls but it also has the Geothermal features that makes Yellow Stone unique. We saw several , " boiling mud" areas. Almost everywhere you look, you see mud boiling or steam coming out or boiling hot water and of course the smell of Sulfur is everywhere.

We travelled south ,west to get to the lodge which was in Old Faithful area. A the security Bison checked us out carefully before we were allowed to get into that area:



We stayed at OF snow Lodge , it is nice but pricey. It is about the most comfortable option for this time of the year. Most of the campgrounds and lodges are not open yet. I was little disappointed but the OF area in that it is very built up and we saw more concrete than the trees in that part but remember YS is huge , so there is lots of good stuff here too.
More to come in tomorrow's blog. Good night