My last couple of weekends were fantastic, with a lot of sight-seeing!
For the 4th of July weekend, Sailesh, my close friend that I was fortunate to have met back at my workplace in Bangalore in the fall of 2003, visited me from LA, and we went up to the Yellowstone National Park - the first National Park in the United States - estd. in 1872. It is around 412 miles from Boise; around 7.5 hours by road.
Met him at the airport on Jul 3 @ 4:45 pm, after 3 years. We came out and drove to my place in the Hyundai Sonata car that he had already bukd for our trip to YS.
Quickly freshened-up and went to a coffee shop near home at around 6 pm… spent time there talking about life in the last three years, caught up with the times we missed, etc. & then went downtown @ around 10 pm, where we had some beer, before heading back home around 1 am.
We got up around 7 am on Jul 4, and left home around 8 am after packing. Packed a coffee and a burger for brkfast, that we ate on the way.
There are two things here in America when it comes to these long drives that I noticed - 1. Freeway 2. Highway. The only difference is that while the highways have traffic signals, the freeways do not, so you can take them and they have speed limits upto 75 - 80 mph.
On the way, we stopped by the Shoshone Falls - a waterfall on the Snake River - named after its crawling shape I heard. I have always been a big fan of nature and its landscapes, and needless to say, I was enthralled by the beauty of the place.
We reached West Yellowstone by around 5 pm with a lot of breaks in between. After checking into this lodge called ClubHouse Inn, we had a quick shower and went on a small drive to the park, to get a 'feel' of the route we'd be exploring the next two-and-a-half-days.
Came back to the hotel @ around 10 pm and saw the July 4 fireworks... it went on continuously for a good twenty minutes - was like the fireworks we watch on some tv telecast @ the Olympics or something... mind-blowing stuff this!
(From that I've heard, Jul 4 is the only day for fireworks... unlike back in India, we cannot go boom-boom anywhere and everywhere... people hv to obtain costly licenses and approvals for private use of fireworks!!!)
On Saturday covered the Northern Part of the park, before spending time on Sunday & half of Monday to cover the larger Southern Part.
Yellowstone is so beautiful - worth every bit of it; and couldn't get enough of it, though!!!
The park is divided into two main regions - the northern and the southern part… the main attraction in the northern part is the Mammoth Hot Springs and in the South is Old Faithful, the tallest geyser in the world that springs to life every 90 mins.
Saw many a deer, bison, and elk; one bear cub having supper by the road, two mountain goats fighting each other up in the mountains (using binoculars)… lots of hot springs and geysers, mountains (some snow-capped too), besides my eternal favourite - waterfalls (so many of them). Also touched snow for the first time in the United States. :))
We left West Yellowstone around 3 pm on Monday afternoon (I had taken off on Monday for working on Jun 8 - Memorial Day) to reach Boise around 10 pm.
It was a great ride all the way. As I do not know driving, Sailesh drove entirely.
He then left for LA the next evening by the 5 pm flight from Boise to reach LA by 7 pm.
_________________________________________________
The rest of the week was work, home, cooking, and gym-ing...
_________________________________________________
The following Friday, the 11th of July, Jahan, my Iranian roomie, said that we should camping during the weekend… so, after work, we drove around 200 miles to reach a place called Stanley, the population of which is supposedly sixty-nine people!
We drove for around 3 hours before reaching there by 10 pm and camped by the lake. It was my first camping experience and was beautiful…
I like that one thing about the people here - they have so much of nature to see and experience - they can camp in the wilderness, go mountain biking, rafting, canoeing, skiing, surfing, hiking, etc. and many take advantage of these things by spending time in the wilderness… it is really adventurous. Rongte khade ho jaathe hain...
On Saturday, the 12th of July, we did some road biking and biked a good 30 miles between 11 am and 3:30 pm, before buying some groceries, coming back to the campsite by the Red Fish Lake, and cooking some burgers and stuff.
T'was a wonderful feeling to be spending time by the lake - the two days. Spoke for sometime with Jahan and we were then joined by another friend of his from HP called Kevin, who camped along with us.
On Sunday morning, we met this wonderful couple - a home husband and a writer, called Gabriel and his English teacher wife Erin @ the coffee shop. They were going mountain biking and invited us to join them - it was a first time experience for Jahan, Kevin and me - and we went - it was a freakin' 17.5 mile ride in the jungles… there were places where one slip would drop u dead from the cliff - man! Was it a-w-e-s-o-m-e!
We left Stanley by 4 pm to reach Boise by 9 pm.
_________________________________________________
One important observation here - and I like that about this place:
The taxes paid are utilized PROPERLY. These national forests are maintained amazingly well - u'd feel like ur in some paradise.
They usually charge 7 to 10 USD per person for camping at a spot - and the maximum time you can stay put there is ten days. There are umpteen such spots within the mountains / forest, and it makes you happy paying them as they really use the money towards the maintenance of these camp-sites.
Every such paid camp-ground would have a (common) toilet and a shower.
Now, again, there are free camp-grounds too, if you don't like to pay - just that one may have to travel several miles to attend a nature's call or even pee. And yes, bear with the mosquitoes (always helps to carry bug-spray with you).
For the 4th of July weekend, Sailesh, my close friend that I was fortunate to have met back at my workplace in Bangalore in the fall of 2003, visited me from LA, and we went up to the Yellowstone National Park - the first National Park in the United States - estd. in 1872. It is around 412 miles from Boise; around 7.5 hours by road.
Met him at the airport on Jul 3 @ 4:45 pm, after 3 years. We came out and drove to my place in the Hyundai Sonata car that he had already bukd for our trip to YS.
Quickly freshened-up and went to a coffee shop near home at around 6 pm… spent time there talking about life in the last three years, caught up with the times we missed, etc. & then went downtown @ around 10 pm, where we had some beer, before heading back home around 1 am.
We got up around 7 am on Jul 4, and left home around 8 am after packing. Packed a coffee and a burger for brkfast, that we ate on the way.
There are two things here in America when it comes to these long drives that I noticed - 1. Freeway 2. Highway. The only difference is that while the highways have traffic signals, the freeways do not, so you can take them and they have speed limits upto 75 - 80 mph.
On the way, we stopped by the Shoshone Falls - a waterfall on the Snake River - named after its crawling shape I heard. I have always been a big fan of nature and its landscapes, and needless to say, I was enthralled by the beauty of the place.
We reached West Yellowstone by around 5 pm with a lot of breaks in between. After checking into this lodge called ClubHouse Inn, we had a quick shower and went on a small drive to the park, to get a 'feel' of the route we'd be exploring the next two-and-a-half-days.
Came back to the hotel @ around 10 pm and saw the July 4 fireworks... it went on continuously for a good twenty minutes - was like the fireworks we watch on some tv telecast @ the Olympics or something... mind-blowing stuff this!
(From that I've heard, Jul 4 is the only day for fireworks... unlike back in India, we cannot go boom-boom anywhere and everywhere... people hv to obtain costly licenses and approvals for private use of fireworks!!!)
On Saturday covered the Northern Part of the park, before spending time on Sunday & half of Monday to cover the larger Southern Part.
Yellowstone is so beautiful - worth every bit of it; and couldn't get enough of it, though!!!
The park is divided into two main regions - the northern and the southern part… the main attraction in the northern part is the Mammoth Hot Springs and in the South is Old Faithful, the tallest geyser in the world that springs to life every 90 mins.
Saw many a deer, bison, and elk; one bear cub having supper by the road, two mountain goats fighting each other up in the mountains (using binoculars)… lots of hot springs and geysers, mountains (some snow-capped too), besides my eternal favourite - waterfalls (so many of them). Also touched snow for the first time in the United States. :))
We left West Yellowstone around 3 pm on Monday afternoon (I had taken off on Monday for working on Jun 8 - Memorial Day) to reach Boise around 10 pm.
It was a great ride all the way. As I do not know driving, Sailesh drove entirely.
He then left for LA the next evening by the 5 pm flight from Boise to reach LA by 7 pm.
_________________________________________________
The rest of the week was work, home, cooking, and gym-ing...
______________________________
The following Friday, the 11th of July, Jahan, my Iranian roomie, said that we should camping during the weekend… so, after work, we drove around 200 miles to reach a place called Stanley, the population of which is supposedly sixty-nine people!
We drove for around 3 hours before reaching there by 10 pm and camped by the lake. It was my first camping experience and was beautiful…
I like that one thing about the people here - they have so much of nature to see and experience - they can camp in the wilderness, go mountain biking, rafting, canoeing, skiing, surfing, hiking, etc. and many take advantage of these things by spending time in the wilderness… it is really adventurous. Rongte khade ho jaathe hain...
On Saturday, the 12th of July, we did some road biking and biked a good 30 miles between 11 am and 3:30 pm, before buying some groceries, coming back to the campsite by the Red Fish Lake, and cooking some burgers and stuff.
T'was a wonderful feeling to be spending time by the lake - the two days. Spoke for sometime with Jahan and we were then joined by another friend of his from HP called Kevin, who camped along with us.
On Sunday morning, we met this wonderful couple - a home husband and a writer, called Gabriel and his English teacher wife Erin @ the coffee shop. They were going mountain biking and invited us to join them - it was a first time experience for Jahan, Kevin and me - and we went - it was a freakin' 17.5 mile ride in the jungles… there were places where one slip would drop u dead from the cliff - man! Was it a-w-e-s-o-m-e!
We left Stanley by 4 pm to reach Boise by 9 pm.
______________________________
One important observation here - and I like that about this place:
The taxes paid are utilized PROPERLY. These national forests are maintained amazingly well - u'd feel like ur in some paradise.
They usually charge 7 to 10 USD per person for camping at a spot - and the maximum time you can stay put there is ten days. There are umpteen such spots within the mountains / forest, and it makes you happy paying them as they really use the money towards the maintenance of these camp-sites.
Every such paid camp-ground would have a (common) toilet and a shower.
Now, again, there are free camp-grounds too, if you don't like to pay - just that one may have to travel several miles to attend a nature's call or even pee. And yes, bear with the mosquitoes (always helps to carry bug-spray with you).
Comments