Mountains, Canyons, and Sunsets in Wyoming and Idaho

WOW!  I just kept saying that all day as Jim drove the motorhome thru the Wind River Canyon, then over the Continental Divide to where we got a glimpse of the Grand Tetons.  The weather was pretty dark and cloudy so we didn’t get the vistas I would have liked, but we still saw plenty.  Every time we turned a corner, we both said, “Wow!”



And then came the most scenic mountains of all … the Grand Tetons.  It was the sight of these mountains in our first year of travels that literally brought tears to my eyes.  They are exquisite.  They are the charm school graduates of mountain ranges.  This is why we travel – you just don’t see sights like this in normal city life!  The cloudy skies made for less than brilliant pictures, but being in the presence of the Grand Tetons was still a humbling experience.

WE even caught a glimpse of some Buffalo … err, Bison.

We managed to spare a few minutes to stop and the National Park Visitor Center and get our Nat’l Park Passport book stamped.  The visitor center building was quite an experience in itself.  Huge windows to fit the view!

The sun even peaked out for a few minutes.

And, we weren’t done yet!  After leaving the Tetons, we took the road that followed the Snake river – it was a beautiful canyon itself.

I was starting to get tired by this point … and I wasn’t even driving!  We didn’t have any reservations for the night since we had no idea how far we would make it.  It looked like we could get into Idaho Falls before dark, so I looked at our Allstays app on my smartphone and saw that there was an Elks Lodge in Idaho Falls.  Unfortunately, when I called them, I was told that they already had 2 RVs parked there, and that’s all they had room for.  So, we just found a rest area and pulled over.  OMG … I can’t imagine a better spot to rest!  It was overlooking the Snake river, and we happened to be there right at sunset time.


As if that wasn’t enough!  Would you believe that we had 5 bars of 4G on our smartphones?!  So we were able to zip along on the work we had to do before bedtime.
Here’s the picture we took of our parking spot the next morning.

Hiking and Waterfall in NW South Carolina

We vowed that we would take a day off from computer work, get some exercise, and take in the sights.  And we did!  First I have to tell you how we found out about the hiking around here.  Did you know there is another way to find out information besides googling it on our computer ... or smartphone?  We noticed a sign for South Carolina Welcome Center when we first arrived and decided to check it out.  One simple question to the friendly woman behind the counter and we were loaded with booklets and pamphlets, maps and pictures of exactly what we were looking for ... hikes and waterfalls nearby.

A visit to the Welcome center, can be even more informative than Google!

We watched the weather carefully, and picked Wednesday May 30 as the day for our hike.  And, I took along my brand new digital SLR camera - along with lenses from our friend Glenn - looking forward to trying it out on nature.

Wish we could hike in beautiful places like this every week.

It was a beautiful hike thru the woods for nearly 6 miles with only slight ups and downs - called the Big Bend trail.  There was a pretty stream as part of the hike, but we had heard so much about waterfalls in the area, we had to go in search of them.  What we found is called Whitewater Falls and it's right on the North Carolina/South Carolina border.  In fact, the literature says that the top is in the north and the bottom is in the south.  I think it's one of the most beautiful waterfalls I've ever seen.  I was entranced.

My new Canon even takes video!

From 201205

And, here's the surrounding scenery:

And, I have to play around with Picasa to create some special pictures.

Just to prove we were there, we handed our cellphone to someone else.

And, then I also made a collage using Picasa.  I'm working on a series of tutorial videos on how to use Picasa's Collage feature.  This will be one of the lessons:

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Colorado Hiking

I don’t think you’re allowed to spend time with Diane and Andy without some adventurous, physical activity! I remember meeting them in our RVs in Montana in 2004 – whitewater rafting was not on my agenda, but they were very convincing!  See the blog post.  Thanks guys, for getting us geeks away from our computers and out of doors to see the mountains!  Diane originally planned a 7 mile hike for us, but this train had other ideas.  It was stopped, blocking the road, *just* before our trailhead.  Others had already been waiting a half hour, and there had been no word of when the train might fix its problem.  So, we turned around in search of another hike.

Serendipity strikes again!  I can’t imagine a more perfect trail for our day.  A little higher elevation – about 9,600 ft – but a shorter, gorgeous trail.  3 miles thru wildflower strewn granite, pine forests, and aspen groves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not only was the trail a loop trail, but the road we took to get there made a loop back with a stop at Panorama Point where you can see the core of the Rocky Mountains, the Continental Divide.