The Video

We've been back about a week.  Lawn is mowed.  Laundry done.  Client projects worked upon.  Finally time to edit something for us.  Here's the vacation video and the official close to the blog.

If you are trying to view this on a mobile device (phone or tablet) the YouTube agreement does not cover the music I used in the video on those platforms.  Sorry.  It's out of my control.

The Vacation Video

See you next vacation

Time to Go Home

It's been two weeks.  We've reduced our possessions to what fits into our suitcases and it worked.  Salt Lake City, Idaho Falls, The Grand Tetons, Yellowstone, Salt Lake City (again), Portland, Maine, Bar Harbor and Acadia.  We got up before dawn to see sunrises.  Went to bed after sunsets.  We ate energy bars in the car, a plate of nachos that rivaled Grand Teton, climbed to the highest point in Old Faithful Lodge, watched geysers gush, deer, antelope and bison roam.  We saw eagles keep stately watch and lobster boats checking their traps.  Eventually, it comes to an end.

Tonight we took a carriage ride up to the top of Day Mountain.  Our horses, Doc and Duke are brothers.  Like many, they have their share of quarrels and our team did so on the way up the mountain.  Nothing they couldn't resolve.

They didn't mind posing for pictures after the journey.

Here are some video clips of our day (because I wanted to see how they publish):

Sunrise

The first picture is from the balcony of our room at 3:45 AM.  The rest are from the top of Cadillac Mountain with sunrise happening at 5:08 AM.  At least three hundred other people joined us.

Sunset at Sand Point

Here Comes The Sun

 The day started like this.  With a dense fog shrouding the bay.  But by 10 the fog burned off and the sun started to prevail.
 Acadia still pays tribute to the wealth which created it.  Down one of the hiking trails you get a view of the typical, rocky, Maine coastline.  You also get to see this house, perched on that cliff, with its own harbor.

 Since most of the shore line is rock, a beach made of sand is a big deal.  There is one large one inside the park.  Today, the notice at the beach warned visitors that the bacteria level of the water in the bay exceeded National Park Service safety levels.  A day at the beach became a day in the sand.

 In the afternoon we boarded the Margaret Todd, a schooner, which ended up using its engines most of the trip (really all of the trip) because there was virtually no wind.

 There is a baby bald eagle in the middle of the tree.  It's almost ready to try flight, but it did not happen when we drifted by.  Instead, it practices posing for patriotic messages.

 We know the black blob is marine life.  We think it is a gray seal, but it disappeared before we could get a closer look and a better picture.

Along with the very nice houses around the park, there is are some pretty nice boats in the harbor.  Pick one.

It rained. Then it rained. Then it rained some more.

Like most of the northeast, Bar Harbor got its share of rain the last 24 hours.  Sometimes a mist.  Sometimes a down pour.  Sometimes a persistent soaking rain.  No matter which variety, it was not ideal for enjoying the beauty of a National Park.  We used up one rain activity last night by visiting the Reel Pizza Movie Theater to see Belle.  The pizza was fine.  The movie was much better.

Today many group members worked on yet another jig saw puzzle.  This one is called the Bridges of Acadia and it looks challenging.  Lots of the pieces are dark.  No matter what the puzzle must be finished Friday night because Saturday morning we have to leave.

There was also a visit to some very large antique place.  I heard the figure 21,000 square feet used and then my eyes glazed over.  I preferred to wash bed linens.  Matthew came into contact with poison ivy.  So far it is only his forearm.  The washing helps reduce the possibility of spreading it to other limbs.

This evening I drove out to Abel's Lobster, about 20 minutes from where we are staying.  It's a huge operation.  They built a restaurant at some point in their business plan, but it started as a wholesale lobster supplier and lots of activity still supports that part of the enterprise.  They had at least a half dozen boats.  I brought back the lobsters, cooked and ready to eat for four of us.  We also made corn on the cob, because what's a lobster bake without corn?

The weather forecast is much improved over the next 10 hours.  By 10 AM tomorrow, the skies should begin clearing and some sunshine is in the forecast by the afternoon.  Pictures will resume accordingly.

Wake Turbulence

We were in the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone.  Here's what's happened:

1. A woman and her husband were on a guided climb of Grand Teton.  She fell off and perished.
2. A private boating party (unguided) on a float trip down the Snake River flipped the raft, killing one aboard.
3. Heavy rains in Yelowstone caused a mudslide temporarily closing a road.
4. A combination of heat and chemicals in the ground closed a road leading to a geyser basin in Yellowstone.  It's since reopened.
5. A bus full of Chinese tourists flipped onto its side, skid about 10 feet and closed the road between Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks.
6. A driver put his black pickup truck well into the woods in Yellowstone, but no one is certain how.

When a jet flies through still air or a boat cuts through the water it creates wake turbulence.  The effect is disruptive.  So far, except for heavy rains today, nothing consequential has happened in Acadia.

Cloudy with a Chance of Pizza

It's a rainy, foggy day in Bar Harbor best suited for the fish and crustaceans that are in the surrounding waters.  We are in marathon puzzle solving mode and later, we are trying our National Parks Monopoly.  For dinner we are consider Bar Harbor's only operating theater (at this time).  It is a combination pizza place and movie theater.  You order pizza when you want and they page you when it's ready.  You don't have to order pizza to see the movie.  They do have a liquor license so beer and wine are available in addition to soda and bottled waters.

The seating choice is yours:

There is conventional theater seating with a counter arrangement in front of you.  Or you can sit in one of the couches with a "TV Tray" and watch the movie that way.

Puzzles, Lobster, Water, Acadia

We have a couple of  "build it" traditions in the family.  At Christmas there are Legos.  During summer vacations there are puzzles.  The boys, now joined by their wives, started work on an Acadia National Park puzzle last evening.  It was finished by this morning.

At the top Jan is putting in the ceremonial last piece of the puzzle.  Above is the completed puzzle (on a glass table so you can see my reflection taking the picture).

Acadia is a different National Park because it is so close to major population centers.  It is the most visited National Park in the country although the most visited National Park Service site is the Statue of Liberty.  Acadia was the result of land purchases by the Rockefeller family (once again if you remember the story of the Grand Tetons).  There were and still are private homes that exist, surrounded by park lands.  It is very close to Bar Harbor, where lobsters are a fairly big business.  Below, one of the "bug catchers" as they sometimes call themselves, is checking the traps.  There are tens of thousands of traps just around the area where we are staying.

 The only fjords on the east coast are in Acadia National Park.  Sommes Sound!  Sometimes the sail boats have trouble making it through the channel because the hills on either side of the sound dampen the wind.

There is nothing special about the picture above.  I took a picture of a photographer using a 10 thousand dollar lens with my 800 dollar lens. Lens envy.

We finished up the afternoon touring at Northeast Harbor.  Jesse and Emily are sitting on a dock in front of millions of dollars worth of boats.  It was fun to watch them roll in and out.  Some of the lobster catchers have side jobs delivering packages to the islands around here for UPS and FedEx.  We watched the trucks drive down to the docks, spot their person, and unload dozens of packages.  It was amazing how many of the UPS packages were from Amazon.

Then and Now

We took this picture in 2002

And we took this picture today

As you can see the sky conditions were totally different.  :-)

We also took this one today (by request of the Santacrose family):

But they still serve popovers at Jordan Pond!

This evening we went to check out Bar Harbor after sunset.

There lots of different things you can discover when you explore.  A beautiful sunset over the water.  Wildlife you've never seen before.  Pretty flowers.  Or ICE CREAM!!!!

It's a Really Nice Balcony

The owners of the house picked a great spot and a really good design.  The balcony to the master bedroom has this view in the morning.

I kept my camera kit with lenses, etc downstairs last night.  Feeling just a bit sleep deprived after our red-eye flight from Utah, I chose to use my Samsung phone to take the picture.  The room is filled with glass, most of which is not covered.  I guess we won't be missing many sunrises.

Last Day Yellowstone. First Day Acadia.

We got up on Friday and met a Park Ranger for a tour of the Old Faithful Geyser Basin.  It turned out to be an unusually active geyser morning.  Old Faithful is the most predictable of the geysers in the park.  The other geysers have prediction windows that can range from 2 to 6 hours or in some cases days between eruptions.  It was our fortune that during the 90 minute tour some of the geysers chose to exercise their shorter eruption prediction and Old Faithful erupted twice.

The first and last pictures are of Old Faithful from different vantage points.  On this date the back of the geyser, where no one stands, was the best place to see it.  In the front, where the seating areas place you, a steam cloud covered up the water spewing.  The middle two pictures of are other geysers, one big and one small.

After the tour we finished packing, got in the car and drive to Salt Lake City.  Our Jet Blue flight was a red-eye.  We got to the airport in plenty of time, only to discover the counter for Jet Blue closes for long stretches of the day.  We arrived when it was closed and could not check our baggage.  Also, all of the services that passengers might want are on the other side of the TSA security check point.  Finally, for the third strike, most of them close at 9PM and the counter doesn't re-open until 9:15 PM.

I know that there are some people in the Albany area who are very excited about Jet Blue flying out of our airport next year.  I wasn't that impressed.  In Salt Lake it appeared that Jet Blue pays Delta to cover their counter for several hours each day.  The Delta employees change clothes and re-appear as Jet Blue employees.  We even left through a Delta gate.

While fairs may be competitive, everything on the plane is extra.  A blanket on the red-eye was five bucks.  Same for a neck pillow.  Meals were six bucks.  Movies were available at your seat provided you were willing to pay for them.

We arrived safely in Portland, Maine this morning.  Jesse and Emily picked us up and we drove to Bar Harbor where we are staying at a place Jan located on VRBO (vacation rental by owner).  It's beautiful.

 Sand Point in Bar Harbor.  Privately owned rental. 3 full bedrooms.  2 full bathrooms, 1 half bath.  Laundry room, living room, dinning room, kitchen.  Big decks for great views.
 The living room.

 The kitchen. All the rooms make good use of natural light.

 Downstairs deck area in the back of the house.

Master bedroom with Jan unpacking.

View from the deck of the Master Bedroom, third floor.

Goodbye Yellowstone. Hello Acadia.

As always the week flew by.  Our flight to the east coast is a "red-eye" and that will give us time for a Ranger guided tour of the Old Faithful basin.  Sometime today we will drive from Yellowstone to Salt Lake City and hop an airplane to Portland, Maine to start part two of the vacation, in Acadia National Park with Jesse, Emily, Matt, Eva and grandchildren to be named later.

We love the parks and Yellowstone is gorgeous.  Here are some travel tips.  On this vacation we are staying in the Snow Lodge.  In previous vacations we've stayed in the Old Faithful Inn.  Old Faithful was built as a summer hotel and it still operates that way.  The Snow Lodge was built as the winter hotel, but now operates year round.  To get into your preferred hotel (and ours was and still is Old Faithful) making reservations a year in advance is not too early.  In fact, a year in advance might already find certain rooms, like the ones facing the geyser basin, gone.

The Snow Lodge was built to retain heat.  National Park hotels typically are un-air conditioned.  The West side rooms in the snow lodge, the rooms facing the geysers, are HOT during the summer.  They do not ventilate well.  If you aren't going to need the refrigerator in your room unplugging it will help.  They do provide a fan and we bought some extension cords so it can sit in front of the window to draw in some of that cool night air.  Still, the side of the room with the refrigerator is much warmer than the side of the room near the window.  The rooms on the east side of the lodge are much cooler.

Get up early and get outdoors. It's the best time to tour the park.  Sunrises are spectacular and wildlife is abundant in the early morning.  By 11 AM, the flood of visitors staying outside the park in West Yellowstone make it into the property.  Yesterday, while lunching, we looked out the window at the roads and saw that they were bumper to bumper congested by noon.  We developed an approach of touring through "lunch" and eating that meal late.  Then relaxing or napping.  Then exploring again in the evening through sunset.  By 5 PM a large portion of the car traffic heads back to West Yellowstone.

Mosquitoes are abundant.  Bring bug spray.  Use it liberally.  Yellowstone mosquitoes really are fat, slow and stupid.  They will try and land on you even after the bug spray but they probably will not.

Dress in layers.  The temperature drops down quickly after the sunset.  While we've enjoyed afternoons in the eighties at night we experienced 40 degree temps.  It starts to get much warmer by 11 AM.  Around sunset it's been in the 50's.  Depending on when you visit snow isn't out of the question.  There was a serious snow storm here, virtually a blizzard, the day before meteorological summer.  It doesn't usually snow in July or August, but frost isn't out of the rule book.  Sun block is also helpful.

Respect the wildlife.  The Park Service wants you to stay 100 yards away from bears and wolves and 25 yards from other wildlife.  Obviously with bison using the road system to get around staying 100 yards away from them isn't always possible.  They also lay down next to the elevated hiking trails in the geyser areas.  Just don't try and put your back to a bison who is grazing 10 yards away so that you can take a selfie.  The animals have boundaries.  What it is only that animal knows.  That big hump behind their large heads is shoulder muscle.  They don't look like they can move quickly but they can.  They define their comfort zone.  Your notice will be when they charge you or gore you.

For bears, the worst place you can be is between a momma bear and her cub.  If there is a cub make sure you can see mom and that she isn't behind you.  Hike in groups.  Bears don't really like to mess around with 'gangs'.  We haven't seen a bear this trip.  Wolves and bears are harder to see.  Mule deer, Prong Horn deer, Elk, bison and eagles are fairly easy to find.  Moose are not as easy to see.  Most of the animals spend the summer getting ready for winter.  They do move around freely.  It's not a zoo.

Geyser gazing is fun.  Old Faithful is somewhat predictable.  Hence it's name.  Currently it erupts about every 90 minutes plus or minus 10.  There are published schedules for some of the other geysers too.  They have much greater margin for time error.  Some can be plus or minus two to three hours.  If you want to see the others you will need to put some time into it.

The park is an active volcano.  Did you think Disney engineered all of these interesting thermal features?  Earthquakes are common.  There are some every day.  Most are so small only the monitoring equipment feels them.  There is no evidence of an eruption happening anytime soon.  That can always change, but science does have ways of monitoring the elements that predict eruptions.  While the park changes geologically every day, the threat of a super eruption remains low, as it has for all of our lives, the lives of our grandparents, great grandparents, great great grandparents.  However, the thermal features change the park constantly.  An area we wanted to visit is closed because the soil changed in PH so much the asphalt started to melt.  Geysers stop gushing and become thermal pools or even fumaroles.

All of the parks are great to experience.  Very small children are not likely ready to be here.  If they are you will need to be flexible.

I probably won't post pictures today, although we might have time to kill at the airport.  Otherwise, look for our new adventures in another one of our National Parks next week.

"It's raining from the ground"

A young visitor to the park asked a Ranger for an opportunity to be heard while we were touring this morning.  His revelation: "It's raining from the ground."  Think about it.  To a 7 to 8 year old it looks just like that.

A pair of large bison decided the road system in the park is easier to travel when you want to get somewhere in a hurry, rather than the fields.  They sauntered side by side along one of the main roads with dozens upon dozens of cars behind them.  We were in the other lane and as the bison waddled on by one of them decided to come right up to our car window to take a look.

Photo courtesy Brian Santacrose.  Bison can run very fast if they want to do so.  This pair just needed to get from one place to another and the roads are easier to travel than the back country.

Our morning started in Norris Geyser Basin.  Norris changes rapidly.  Sometimes daily.  It is the most unpredictable part of the park, which is what makes it fascinating to visit.

 Some of the rain from the ground shoots high into the sky.  Some of the geysers erupt every five minutes.  Some once a day.  Others are completely unpredictable.  The one above gives little eruptions frequently, but other times it roars with water spraying 400 feet into the air for up to 40 minutes.

 Vixen Geyser erupts very frequently this summer.  Sometimes every five minutes.  Last summer it was a quiet geyser.  This year it has lots of energy and when the eruption is finished it cleans up after itself.  Most of the water goes back into the hole from where it came.

 Despite all the geological turmoil life finds a way in the park.  There are patches of wild grasses that can only survive on fresh water.  There are hundreds of wild flowers nearly adjacent to thermal features.

 See the splatter on the guard rails?  It's from hot mud.  I took some video of the mud pots in front of the group.  This was the thick mud, the looks a bit like Cream of Wheat hot cereal when it's nearly done.  Thick with bubbles of steam shooting upwards.

 Sometimes the juxtaposition of the beauty is striking.  This waterfall can be seen along Firehole Drive.  It is also down stream from one of the areas where you can swim (at your own risk).

And only a few thousand years away from that is this shimmering pool of aquamarine water with gentle steam rising upward.  The color was a deeper blue the last time we visited but patrons insist on throwing things, usually coins into it.  A good practice in the parks is to leave only footprints and take only pictures.  Tossing coins into the ponds or soda cans into the geysers is pretty foolish and disrespectful.