Obama to YNP; Nate to Ruskin

It was announced the other day that President Obama will be vacationing with his family at some of our nations National Parks, including Yellowstone. He is set to fly into Bozeman, Montana on Air Force One on Friday and travel by helicopter into the park sometime Saturday. He will be speaking in Bozeman on Friday. After his visit to Yellowstone the First Family will be heading down to the Grand Canyon before visiting Phoenix.

Unfortunately I will be leaving Montana on Thursday, the day before all of this Presidential action will be taking place. But, to keep the glass half full, I will be heading back to Nebraska. Actually, heading back to Nebraska has the glass at about 98% full, with missing Obama's visit making up that missing 2%. A visit in Denver with some good friends on my route back will replace about half of that 2%, meaning the glass is almost overflowing.

Basically what I am saying is that I can't wait to get out of here. It has been a pretty decent summer, but I can't wait to get back home. Some people say that "home is where you heart is," to which I sometimes respond: "then your real home is in your chest," but home is Nebraska. See you soon Cornhusker state!

Yellowstone 8/4/9

Old Faithful from the ground.






















Those fools in Wyoming finally learned how to parallel park. In this same place a couple of weeks ago you may remember that this sign was disobeyed.












View of the lower falls from a distance. We hiked a trail that went along the southern rim of the canyon to get to this place. Of coarse once we got to the end of the trail it was apparent that there was a road that would have taken us there as well, but that would not have been as scenic or as much fun.







The hot springs at Mammoth. It is really amazing the difference in the colors. It has something to do with different organisms that can thrive and survive in the heat of the springs.















The view of the lower falls in the canyon from the end of Uncle Tom's trail. The hike down to the viewpoint is very similar to the hike to the top of Seven Falls in Colorado Springs. This one was about 330 steps one way.

West Yellowstone News Police Reports

The West Yellowstone News publishes police reports every week. Many times they are more humorous than anything else. Here are a few of the highlights from last weeks publication.

• Report of someone dressed as Bigfoot on HWY 20 standing in the middle of the road. "Mr. Sasquatch" was almost hit by the reporting party's vehicle
• Report of injured deer on HWY 20. -Deer had already died when officer arrived
• Illegal camping on school football field. -Officer removed camper
• Individual request officer help in locating overdue spouse. -Fremont County Sheriff's Office and Yellowstone National Park were notified. Spouse was located at home waiting for her husband.
• Local apartment manager reported possible arson attempt. -Officer responded. Not an arson attempt, individual had set their eviction notice on fire and pushed it through office mail slot
• Air Idaho Flight for Life was called in. Flight was later canceled because patient was too big

But I am really looking forward to next week's police report because late Saturday night the owner of the campground got into an altercation with some bikers not obeying the quiet hours and sprayed one of them in the face with bear mace. Apparently the biker came at him and may have thrown a punch. But still.... that stuff is made for 500 lb bears, not humans.

Koozie count: 77

Sometime in the early 1990's I bought a koozie in Branson as a souvenir of the family vacation we took there. When I saw a koozie at a shop in Texas on another vacation I decided I wanted to start a collection. The one pictured in this blog entry is the seventy-seventh in my collection and will help me remember the summer of 2009. The koozies I have allow me to support my favorite sports teams in style, as well as let me keep my drinks cool in a shotgun shell, shark, turkey, golf bag, basketball, wolf, or several different fish. Of the 77 koozies, the most popular "type" would be the ones that support Husker athletics. Anybody who remotely knows me should not be surprised by that. I brought two of those with me to Montana and have at least another five or six at home.

The koozies come from all over: Lovewell Lake, Pike's Peak, LeBron's (Canada), South Padre Island, Las Vegas, and even a cousin's wedding (at which my cousin Brooke was named president of the Polka Dot Club). Special thank you to anyone who has given me a koozie over the years to help me build my collection. Especially my sister who anytime I ask which one I should use always says "24!" which by now I know is the one from The Hair Company that I got for my birthday from Aunt Amy.

7/21/9: Bears

Several times over the last week (almost nightly) there has been a black bear coming into the campground and trying to get food out of the dumpsters. I guess it all started when some family left some pet food out overnight and attracted the bear. Ever since then he has been coming onto the campground and has been chased off by security a few times, and has scared a couple of campers who have spotted him. We have even had a ranger come to the campground and made suggestions about what should be done, including the ranger helping "take care of" the problem. Several of the staff have the desire to climb up on top of the bathroom building next to the dumpster that the bear continues to visit and wait there until it arrives (and leaves!), because the sight of a bear is quite rare. The picture accompanying this post is what the bear probably looks like, except real. (To fully understand the humor of my last statement, please click on this link.)

MPG 7/20/9

I filled up with gas the other day for the first time since I arrived in Montana. I calculated my miles per gallon and it turned out to be 30.8, an all time best for my 1993 Grand Prix. I was really surprised because on that tank I was doing a lot of driving through hills in high elevation. But most of that was not going more than 50 miles per hour. Another factor may be that I have not run my air conditioner, because every time I do the floor of my car gets soaking wet. Still haven't figured that one out yet.

7/16/9 : Guy-On-Machine vs. Tree

So I was just sitting here this afternoon reading when I looked out the back window as a rancher drove up on his 4-wheeler. I figured he was just checking fence like I have seen him do several times before. But this time he was on a mission, he wanted to get rid of a stray tree that has been growing in his pasture. Needless to say he didn't quite win the battle as he got stuck right on top of the tree.







He sat there for about 8 minutes trying to dislodge his machine, rocking it back and forth, trying to pick it up off of the tree... nothing was working.










But eventually he did get unstuck, and before he left he went at the tree from a different direction and decked it pretty good going about 15 mph. I'm sure he'll be back later to finish the job, but for now the tree stands victorious.

Need Cash? Go to the ATM Machine. Which of coarse means Automated Teller Machine Machine. It's like the SLO Office, PIN Number, or MLB Baseball. It just doesn't make sense. Sweet life West Yellowstone, Montana.











The Playmill Theater. Last week I saw a performance of Footloose and this week I am going to see Guy's and Dolls. For anybody from Concordia University, it's kind of like The Black Box on steroids; except more expensive and the acting probably isn't that much better. Still kind of fun to go to though.







The sign for the KOA just off of Highway 20. The view in the background is worth noticing.

7-7-9 Old Faithful

The site of the Old Faithful geyser, just minutes before it erupts. This is the view of the geyser from Observation Point, which is about a half mile hike that rises 200 feet. You can see the crowd of people at the far edge of the geyser area, probably close to 1000 people down there. Up at Observation Point, it was me and about a dozen other people.










Old Faithful just as it starts to erupt.














At about its maximum. The wind was blowing towards Observation Point so it was tough to see the water coming out of the ground. So as far as that goes the view was better from the down below where all of those people are.














Zoomed in a little closer.

















On my drive back I turned off onto a side road that lead to a bike trail. I walked down the trail a little ways which lead to a hot spring pictured here.














The spring water ran off into a river, where there were a few men fly fishing. I watched one of them for a while and think it would be fun to try sometime.











Also on the way back there were a bunch of vehicles pulled over and people standing on a riverbank taking pictures. This is what they were going crazy for. It was fun to watch them ignore the crowd of people and interact with each other.

7-2-9

The river.

The second of two waterfalls, I did not get very close to the first one. The combination of the trail we hiked and the side of the canyon we were on allowed us to only get to the top of this waterfall. Maybe some other day I'll get to the other side and hike a different trail to get a better/different view.
After the river went over that waterfall it heads on its way down through the canyon. Very pretty.

Just had to throw this in there, "Parallel Parking Only" in Wyoming apparently means "Park Perpendicularly." Sweet neighbors we have in Nebraska. The whole row of cars was parked this way. (But I guess we really can't blame the nice folks from Wyoming, the cars were mostly from out of state. Plus Wyoming did produce Chris LeDoux so they get a free pass on this one.)

6-24-9

This is a the cabin that Carson and I live it. It's actually pretty big for two people, I was expecting something a lot smaller anyway.

My room, clean as usual.

Standing in front of the TV, looking at our chairs and table.
Standing at the front door, looking at the room doors and the kitchen area. My room is the middle doorway.
Standing at the front door, looking at the TV, microwave, and Carson's room.

6-23-9

I took this on my way out to Montana in Grand Teton National Park. It was a pretty cool view just off of the roadside, which is probably why there were a bunch of tourists pulled over to take pictures.