Join us on our journey – Greg and Linda's Sabbatical!

After a few long days of driving, we arrived back in the eastern time zone and have been enjoying the beautiful mountain weather of Franklin, NC while getting the house ready for the fall rental season.

Just a few miles down the road from the house the Appalachian Trail crosses the road so we decided to take a break from chores and take one last hike before we head back to Florida in a few days.  We decided to hike the Appalachian trail to Siler Bald to enjoy the 360 degree views of Georgia, Tennessee and the Wayah Bald tower of NC.

 

Back at the house, we have been enjoying the front porch sitting in this fabulous weather.  If you want to get away from the hurricanes and hot humid days in Florida, we still have a few dates available for rent in October so let me know if you are interested in a mini fall vacation in paradise.  Check it out at www.vrbo.com/655751.

After a fabulous week at home visiting with all of our family, we got out of Florida just before the frenzy of hurricane Irma exploded.  We picked up Cheyenne and Lilly at the Salt Lake City airport and headed for Colorado.

We stayed several days in Loveland Colorado and enjoyed a few days in Rocky Mountain National Park!  During our visit to the park, we made the five mile round trip hike to Alberta Falls and Mills Lake.

It was the beginning of the annual elk rut so we were fortunate to see many elk!

We even got to see a few normally very elusive and very large bull elks as they were bugling for their ladies!

We made the drive up the Falls River road that takes you up to over 12,000 feet! It was a beautiful drive except for the brief hail storm! The temperatures were definitely cooler at the higher elevations with the daytime temp dipping into the low 40’s and it is starting to look like fall as the aspen trees are starting to show their golden colors!

The town of Loveland is known as an artsy town and did not disappoint as we enjoyed the downtown street art followed by a walk around the Benson Sculpture park.

 

 

 

 

It was finally time to make our way to Salt Lake City where we would be catching a flight home to Florida for a few days of work and visits with the family.  We made our way to Yuba state park about 100 miles south of Salt Lake City.  It was a very nice park with some nice wildlife and a very deserted beach along the reservoir.

From there we made our way into Salt Lake City and had time for a nice hike outside of town to Catherine’s Pass.  Unfortunately we were about two weeks late for the super bloom but we still managed to see a lot of beautiful wildflowers!

We spent the afternoon in the city visiting the Capitol building and the Mormon Temple Square before checking out the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Practice.

We enjoyed and evening mass at the Cathedral of Madeline in downtown Salt Lake.

We also managed to make our way over to see the Great Salt Lake and what a disappointment it was – smelly and those flies are everywhere!  The waterfront property here is definitely not highly valuable!

Enjoyed our short visit to the area but after 70 days in the Pod, we were looking forward to our trip home to see our little Charlie and spend some time with the family and get some work done.  Heading back west after Labor Day to pick up Cheyenne and Lilly and make our way east again!

 

We found the perfect spot to watch the eclipse at Canyonlands National Park in Utah.  We hiked to the top of whale rock – yes it looks like a huge whale, and watched as the skies got just a tad darker and the temperature cooled noticeably.

The Canyonlands National Park is quite spectacular!  The hikes to the overlooks allow you to see the amazing depths of the canyons that were formed millions of years ago.

This area known as Upheaval Dome is believed to have been caused by a meteorite.  The photos do not do it justice as it really does look like a massive explosion of the earth.

The Mesa Arch at sunrise is the pinnacle of hikes in the park and unfortunately we did not quite make it in time for sunrise, but it was still spectacular.

This was a beautiful five mile round trip hike to the Morning Glory Arch which is just south of Arches park.  It was a really cool hike because you had to traverse the river that flowed through the canyon about 10 times along the way and the pinnacle of the hike was the arch at the end named morning glory for all of the morning glory flowers that were along the way!  It was absolutely breathtaking the whole way that you did not even realize you were exerting yourself along the way – my kind of hike!

There was also a group that had entered the canyon from the other side and were rappelling through the arch when we got there.

 

 

We had planned to leave Yellowstone and head south to the Grand Tetons and Jackson, Wyoming for a few days but when we originally planned the trip months ago, we had no idea about this little event “Eclipse 2017”.  Since Jackson was in the path of totality, there was total mayhem and traffic was ridiculous for the days prior to the eclipse in this area and we were told it was only going to get worse over the weekend.  We decided to shorten our stay and head further south for the eclipse but not before a drive through the Tetons and a stop in Jackson.  We took a ride up the “Snow King” gondola that was originally built back in the 1930’s by one of Greg’s distant relatives named Neil Rafferty.  At the top of the mountain, we found the memorial to Neil!

 

We headed south to Utah and made our way to Arches National Park.  Quite a change in temperatures as the temperatures hovered close to 100 degrees but fortunately it is a dry heat and we figure it will help us acclimate back to Florida weather when fly back home later this week.  Arches is a beautiful park and we had several great hikes with beautiful scenery including the hike to the Delicate Arch!

 

Besides the bison that are everywhere, including on the roads, here are some of the other animals we came across while on various hikes in Yellowstone.

This coyote was hanging around the buffalo herd one night when we were in hayden valley.

The antelope were everywhere when we were hiking in Lamar Valley.

Probably one of the cutest animals and one of my favorites is the marmot.

We came across this beautiful elk on one of our early morning drives.  We could not get him to lift his head from eating to get a good photo of his face!

This mule deer was along one of our hikes near the lake.

These mountain goats were on the mountain overlooking calcite springs.

 

Beartooth Pass on the southern edge of Montana has been described by Charles Kuralt as the most scenic drives in America so of course we had to check it out!  We have been on some pretty scenic drives around this country but have to agree with Charles that this one is tops! It is also a bit of a white knuckle drive and definitely a bucket list item for anyone with a motorcycle!

We stopped at the fire tower about half way up and learned that it can and does snow every month of the year.  We were fortunate to be there on a very sunny day in August but the temperatures were in the 40’s with a very strong wind.  Here are some pictures of the amazing views from the top and also along the winding road to the top!

After leaving Beartooth we headed south to Cody, Wyoming and spent the afternoon at the Buffalo Bill museum.  The museum is actually five museums and well worth the admission price.  We had only planned to make this a quick stop and ended up until they closed and loved every minute of it.  Definitely recommend stopping here if you are in the area!  We ended the day with dinner at the Wyoming Rib & Chop House for a delectable meal of their award winning ribs!

On the way back to our campground in Yellowstone, we were entertained with more great scenery and a beautiful sunset!

 

 

 

Another great hike we did in Yellowstone was the hike to Storm Point on the shores of Yellowstone lake.  The shores of the lake all kinds of colorful rocks and geo thermal formations that make Yellowstone so unique.

There is also a remote section that is much like a Florida beach except the sand is glittering and black. While walking on this section of the beach, we came across a geo thermal formation near the waters edge so we dug our own pool and allowed the cool water of the lake to flow in to mix with the boiling water of the geo thermal to create our own hot pool!  Mad scientist at work here but it felt oh so good on our tired feet!

Hayden Valley is only a few miles from our campground so we head over there each evening to see the buffalo that roam the valley. August is the rutting season for the buffalo so it is very interesting to watch the buffalo in action as the bulls become quite aggressive as they find their mates. We witnessed lots of head butting as the bulls establish dominance. It is amazing how fast these large animals are and you definitely don’t want to get in their way!