Day 37 / 365

Calgary has some of the most beautiful sunsets.

Day 32 / 365

Yesterday, I wound up spending much more time in Craters of the Moon as I had anticipated. I found the park so interesting that I ended up hiking all the trails, and exploring the caves and lava tubes until past sunset. Hence, I spent the night at the Lost River Motel in Arco as I was too tired to keep driving any further. Arco is a small town of barely more than a thousand inhabitants, but it is a well cared for place and has an interesting history. It was named after Georg von Arco of Germany, who would later become the lead engineer of Telefunken (produced radio vacuum tubes). More interesting, however, is the fact that it was the first community in the entire world to be lit by electricity generated from nuclear power on July 17, 1955, powered by a reactor of the nuclear power plant I had visited yesterday. Wikipedia tells me that on January 3, 1961 the SL-1 reactor melted down, causing three deaths. It was the world's first (and the U.S.' only) fatal reactor accident. There was no mention of this in the self guided tour yesterday, and I am happy to report that I did not glow in the dark either.

There aren't too many exciting photos to share today since it was mostly a driving day. Originally, I had toyed with the idea of venturing all the way to Washington, because I would have loved to see the Palouse Falls. I decided to save that for a later time, when I would have more time than a week, otherwise I spend the entire time sitting in my car. Thus, I started the trip back in the direction of Wyoming, to enter Yellowstone through the West Entrance this time.

Lunch was spent sitting on a rock overlooking the waterfalls in Idaho Falls, which seems to be a pretty attractive small city. It has a historic downtown, and the falls run right through the middle of the city, with the Mormon temple as the backdrop. Unfortunately, it was a blue cloudless sky, and the sun so bright that it made it unfit for photography, as the bright light washes out all of the detail of the water streams.

It was in Idaho Falls that I came across an entire city block full of flags for Independence Day celebrations. I had to pull over and take a photo - I had never seen so many flags in one place! I thought Canadians are openly patriotic (which they definitely are compared to Germans) but it is nothing compared to the Americans. No matter how small the town, even if it only consists of a gas station and a post office, it has a higher population of flags than people. There are so many, in fact, you would think the US Economy could keep going on flag sales alone!

Idaho's license plate proclaims "Famous for Potatoes", so I supposed  it is only fitting to include a photo of a potato field. My parents also grow their own potatoes, and it was neat to see that the large scale farming of potatoes looks no different than what my parents have going on.

One of my favourite photos from this trip is that of an albino Elk fawn. It was so very little and laid near a tree, perfectly lit up by the afternoon sun.

I love how the sun lights up the little pink ears, the long lanky legs are stretched out, and you can even see the pale blue eyes. The incidence rate of albino Elks is only about 1 in 6 million, and sadly they are not able to reproduce.

Admittedly, I (willingly) made a stop at the ultimate tourist trap, Bear World , because they had 6 bear cubs, all less than 6 months old. Two of the black bear cubs were quite rambunctious and kept on wrestling with each other, it was so adorable. One interesting tid bit I was not aware of was the fact that bear cubs only weigh about 1/2 pound when they are born.

Some random strange looking bird, a member of the chicken family I would assume. *It's called a Guinea Fowl*

And to end the day, a beautiful sunset just past Yellowstone's West Entrance. This one you are going to want to CLICK ON for a larger version.

Day 30 / 365

Last night, I stopped in at the Square G Cabin lodging at Colter Bay in Grand Teton National Park. The cabins were built as part of a ranch in the 1930s, and are built of logs. They are quite cute, with a desk, a night table, and a bed. At around 3:30am, I woke up with the distinct feeling that something was crawling on my skin. I turned the light on, and discovered 3 bugs about the size of my pinky finger nail, and also pulled one out of my hair. Trying not to let it affect me, I told myself that I probably picked them up while hiking yesterday. I examined the bed sheet and the rest of the lodge, and wasn't able to detect any other creepy crawlies. So, I tried to go back to sleep. Not even half an hour later, I again had the crawling feeling, and discovered yet another bug. At that time, I had had enough and decided to pack up and leave. The sunrise was at 5:43am anyways, and my sunrise spot was a half hour's drive away too. Needless to say, I made it to my sunrise spot with time to spare, but at least it gave me ample of time to set up. I had chosen the Snake River Overview as my sunrise spot - the very spot where the all time great landscape photographer Ansel Adams stood 68 years earlier and captured one of his most famous photographs. It was auctioned off recently for $350K!

What didn't initially look like it was going to be a spectacular sunrise certainly turned out to be one. The clouds turned slightly yellow/pink and the peaks lit up one by one. It was quite magical, except for one of the other photographers there who kept on feeling the need to dispense annoying comments.

Grand Tetons at Snake River Overlook with alpenglow on the peaks.

By this time, the alpenglow had disappeared. Alpenglow is the most beautiful part of a mountain sunrise, but it also comes and goes quite quickly.

As the Golden Hours of photography are sunrise + right after, and sunset + right before, I went to several more spots to shoot photos. Once I start to shoot, I never notice how tired I am, because getting nice shots is quite a thrill and keeps you going.

If you are ever driving into a sunrise or an unbelievably beautiful landscape, you MUST listen to William Joseph's CDs "Beyond" and "Within". It completely intensifies the experience :)

 

For some reason, the Grand Tetons are much less visited than Yellowstone, even though Grand Tetons is directly south of Yellowstone. It is a much smaller park, but is captivating and very beautiful. What I also found unusual is how the Tetons rise directly out of the plains, with no foothills of any kind.

Schwabacher Landing is an area of completely still water due to a beaver damn. It results in gorgeous reflections of the Grand Tetons.

The groups of old farm buildings known as Mormon Row have withstood the elements for more than a century, since the farmland here was first homesteaded by the predominantly Mormon settlers in the early 1900s. One can easily see why they chose this magnificent location.

After visiting the barns at Mormon Row, the sun was getting to be too high for good photos, and also the sky started to cloud over. I went back to the Square G cabin and took a shower, since I had not felt up to the task when I had left at 4am. With the weather at Grand Tetons starting to take a turn for the rainy and the weather forecast not looking much more promising, I decided to start the drive into Idaho.

On my way out of the park, I stopped at Cunningham Cabin. The cabin was built as a homestead in Jackson Hole and represents an adaptation of an Appalachian building form to the West. The cabin was built by John Pierce Cunningham, who arrived in Jackson Hole in 1885 and subsisted as a trapper until he established the small ranch in 1888. A small fortification was erected in 1895 during unrest involving the Bannack Indians. Traces of foundations survive. The cabin was the scene of a shootout in 1899 between a posse and two horse thieves, who were killed at the scene.

This is a view of the Tetons looking out from inside of the Cabin.

My first impression of Idaho is that it is not all that spectacular, at least not the Snake River Valley. There is a lot of potato farming and irrigation, but most else is prairie/desert with sage brush as the predominant vegetation. However, the sky was spectacular today - the clouds were fluffy and billowy, and the sky a perfect blue. If there were such a thing as cloud 9, this is what I imagine that it would look like:

The sunset was one of the most colourful I had ever seen, it was as if the sky was on fire.