Great Western Adventure: Day 15

Interested in what we did before we got to the Grand Canyon?

Days 1-4: Chicago, The Corn Palace, The Badlands, and Wall Drug

Day 5: Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse Memorial, and Devils Tower 

Day 6: First Day in Yellowstone 

Day 7: First Camping/Kayaking Day in the Grand Tetons 

Day 8: Second Camping/Kayaking Day in the Grand Tetons 

Day 9: Back to Yellowstone and Visiting Old Faithful 

Day 10: The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and Lamar Valley

Day 11: Kayaking on Lake Yellowstone

Day 12: The Roosevelt Arch and the Old Faithful Inn

Days 13-14: Driving to the Grand Canyon, Parts I & II

Day 15: Fossil Walk, Condor Talk, and Lightning!!


We woke up early and went on a Fossil Walk led by Ranger Robb. While we waited for everyone to gather for the walk, Ranger Robb told us about his personal attempt to haze the squirrels at the Grand Canyon with a water gun. People have been feeding the squirrels so they get really close to people and sometimes bite people, which is a problem because they still carry the plague, as in the black plague that killed half Europe's population in the 1300s. So if you're visiting the Grand Canyon, don't forget to chase the squirrels away!

Ranger Robb showed us the fossil beds on the Rim Trail that are evidence that the land around the canyon was once under water.

After lunch, Nick and I took a bus to the Yavapai Geology museum, about 20 minutes away from our cabin, where we saw illustrations of how the canyon was formed over millions of years. It's pretty complex and after so much time I don't remember the exact details, but it involved an inland sea, the Colorado River, and erosion. From the museum we were able to see the bridge at the bottom of the canyon that allows hikers to cross over the Colorado to get to Phantom Ranch, the only lodge on the canyon floor.

In the afternoon we attended a Condor Talk by one of the other rangers, who explained how condors were reintroduced at the Grand Canyon after being almost extinct. There are now just fewer than 500 condors in the world, many of which live at the Grand Canyon. The most fascinating thing that she shared with us was that they discovered that some of the condors were nesting in the same place as condors did 10,000 years ago. I believe they knew this because of fossils or bones, but I can't be sure. Sadly we didn't get to see a condor, which has a wingspan of 9 1/2 feet! We did see this pretty little guy.

After the talk we got some ice cream to tide us over until dinner. While we were sitting by the canyon enjoying our snack, we saw a squirrel come up right next to a woman who was also sitting and eating a snack. She then asked her husband if she should pet it, and he said yes! As I saw her reach out her hand about to touch it, I involuntarily yelled, "NO!" and she looked startled. I explained that the squirrels can carry the plague, and she replied, "I know." WHAT?! People amaze me.

After picking up the Grand Canyon version of the "how people died here" book and a book about the Fred Harvey Company, which was partly responsible for the Grand Canyon becoming a tourist spot, we spent the afternoon relaxing in the cabin. Just as we were getting ready to head to dinner at El Tovar, a crazy lightning storm blew in. Ranger Robb had warned us that lightning is pretty deadly around the rim, so we opted to drive over to the hotel instead of taking the short walk.

We were seated in a room that had an entire wall of glass facing the canyon and we were able to watch the crazy storm throughout our meal. It would have been awesome if I hadn't been so worried about what was happening back at home as the hurricane barreled through our area, along with the tornado warnings that had popped up on top of everything else.

We retired early for the night in preparation for an early morning hike into the canyon!

Great Western Adventure: Days 13 and 14

Having crammed as much of Yellowstone as we could into 5 days, we left and drove to the Grand Canyon!

Interested in what we did before we left Yellowstone?

Days 1-4: Chicago, The Corn Palace, The Badlands, and Wall Drug

Day 5: Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse Memorial, and Devils Tower 

Day 6: First Day in Yellowstone 

Day 7: First Camping/Kayaking Day in the Grand Tetons 

Day 8: Second Camping/Kayaking Day in the Grand Tetons 

Day 9: Back to Yellowstone and Visiting Old Faithful 

Day 10: The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and Lamar Valley

Day 11: Kayaking on Lake Yellowstone

Day 12: The Roosevelt Arch and the Old Faithful Inn

Day 13: Driving to the Grand Canyon, Part I

Before we left Yellowstone, we took a tour of the historic Old Faithful Inn. On our way from our cabin to the Inn, we saw this little guy posing on the boardwalk.

It was August 25th and we just happened to be there for their Christmas in August celebrations.

 

Apparently on August 25th in the early 1900s, Yellowstone had an unseasonable blizzard, snowing in the guests at the Old Faithful Inn. Ever since then, the park has celebrated Christmas on August 25th, having all of the staff dress up in reindeer antlers and Santa hats, and the stores play Christmas music and sell Christmas-related goods. It was pretty fun to happen upon such a celebration.

The Old Faithful Inn is like a giant treehouse, complete with a mini treehouse near the roof inside!

 

You can see the treehouse in the upper right-hand corner.

 

 

Our tour guide told us a whole bunch of fun facts about the history of the Inn. The weirdly shaped pieces of wood that make up the railings are all limbs from diseased trees. The architect drew a picture of the shape of limbs that he wanted for the railings on the back of a shingle and sent the workers out into the woods to gather similarly shaped limbs. It was the first rustic style lodge built in a National Park. The famous El Tovar and Bright Angel at the Grand Canyon, which we later visited, were inspired by its design. I highly recommend taking a tour if you ever go to the park.

From there we started our two-day drive to the Grand Canyon. On the way out of the Old Faithful area, we dropped our postcards in their tiny post office, complete with this hilarious sign.

 

As we drove through Jackson, Wyoming, we saw this arch made of shed elk antlers.

 

There is an elk refuge there that has a great advertisement on an AM radio station. You MUST listen to it if you're driving through.

We also started to see a change in the landscape as we got more into Utah.

 

At some point during the drive, we came across this sign, which was super helpful because we thought we were on 89. It turned out that to stay on 89, you had to take a left at a stoplight less than a mile before this sign is posted. We had missed it because we were trying to find somewhere to eat!

After a long day of driving and dinner in Salt Lake City, we crashed at a hotel for the night.

Day 14: Driving to the Grand Canyon Part II

After a quick continental breakfast (isn't it the best), we got back on the road to finish our drive to the Grand Canyon. On the way we had to dodge cell phone dead zones and make arrangements with my parents at home who were preparing for a hurricane. First an earthquake and now a hurricane! They got some seriously strange weather while we were away. When we stopped for lunch we heard on the news that they were evacuating NYC and shutting down public transportation. I started to get a bad feeling about being away while poor little Flick was home alone!

On our drive through Utah and into Arizona we passed by the Red Hills, Bryce Canyon, and Navajo Nation, although we didn't stop because we wanted to get to the Grand Canyon before dark.

We arrived at our cabin just before dusk and were able to take in our first views of the Grand Canyon (although the picture below was taken the next day).



If you've ever been there, you'll know what I mean when I say it is indescribably big, which is an obvious statement, but an accurate one. We spent the last few minutes of daylight taking in the canyon while we waited to be seated at dinner.

Up Next: A Fossil Walk and a huge lightning storm

Great Western Adventure: Day 12

Since we're within the one year anniversary of our trip, I need to get a move on with these recap posts. Things should move a little quicker now since there wasn't too much to take pictures of after we left the Grand Canyon. But first, our last full day in Yellowstone!

Interested in what we did before our last day in Yellowstone?
Days 1-4: Chicago, The Corn Palace, The Badlands, and Wall Drug
Day 5: Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse Memorial, and Devils Tower 
Day 6: First Day in Yellowstone 
Day 7: First Camping/Kayaking Day in the Grand Tetons 
Day 8: Second Camping/Kayaking Day in the Grand Tetons 
Day 9: Back to Yellowstone and Visiting Old Faithful 
Day 10: The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and Lamar Valley
Day 11: Kayaking on Lake Yellowstone


Day 12: The Roosevelt Arch and the Old Faithful Inn

Nick and I woke up super early to drive from the Lake Yellowstone Hotel to a few areas near the north entrance. We stopped at a general store near Tower Fall looking for breakfast but didn’t find anything edible. What we did find was a fence made out of branches that had awesome designs on them from pine bark beetles! This is one of my favorite photos from the trip.

We also visited the Petrified Tree before driving to the north entrance where the Roosevelt Arch is located.

 

 It reminded me of the people whose faces appear in the stone to report to the Gnome King in Return to Oz. Unfortunately I can't find a picture if you don't know what I'm talking about! I urge you to not show that movie to children though.

 

The arch is a pretty classy entrance to the park as the top of it reads “For the Benefits and Enjoyment of the People.” The park rangers like to remind visitors that the park is owned by everyone and that we should all take responsibility in preserving it for future generations. It got a little redundant, but it’s an important message in an age where things are replaced constantly.

We took a quick stroll through Gardiner, Montana, and then headed back into the park to Mammoth Hot Springs, the largest hotel area in the north area of the park. It’s also the fanciest area of the park and the location of the first growing grass that I had seen in about a week. What a strange sight! Yellowstone must have groundskeepers working around the clock to keep these lawns and gardens flourishing, because nothing of this sort grows here in the natural landscape.

Our first stop was the map room in the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel. How awesome! It was a map of the US and every state was made from wood that came from that state.

The pictures don’t do the map justice—it was hard to capture the different textures. It’s definitely worth seeing if you visit the park. Here's where we were...

...and here's home, very far away! We live about 20 minutes from Trenton, NJ, which is marked on the map.

After a very disgusting lunch (I would have much preferred a pre-packaged 7-11 sandwich, if that tells you anything), we took a walk around the Mammoth Hot Springs, which were apparently no longer active. We had been looking forward to seeing these but they were pretty boring and bland in person (it looks WAY better in our pictures for some reason).

It was well into the 90s that day. When we got back to the car I was feeling kind of sick due to lunch and the heat, so we decided to skip the short hike we had planned and went straight for a soak in the Boiling River. Sounds refreshing on a hot day, right? It actually was!

A short walk from the parking lot is a spot where a hot spring flows into a cold river. Over time, people piled up rocks along the river’s edge to keep the hot spring water contained, creating a natural hot tub of sorts.

 

I remember seeing Bear do this on an episode of Man Vs. Wild. Thankfully the rocks were already there for us so all we had to do was walk in and sit. It was so refreshing! Look how happy I am now!

We sat a good distance away from the hot spring so the water was a refreshing temperature, but the other people in this picture were sitting with their backs almost touching the hot water (the greenish water in the bottom-center of the picture). I’m surprised they didn’t get burned.

The trail head to Boiling River includes a few signs that warn against the possibility that organisms that can cause Primary Amoebic Meningoenchephalitis and Legionnaire's Disease are present in the water. The signs instruct you to not submerge your head under the water as the organisms enter through your nasal passages. I can’t tell you how many people I saw dunking their heads! Just another example of how people don’t understand that Yellowstone is a wild place, not a theme park where there are no real dangers.

This beautiful scene was our short walk back to the car.

We spent the rest of the day driving through the park and stopping at the various sites along the way.

We stopped at the Fountain Paint Pots, which weren’t nearly as good as the Artist Paint Pots, but did include a fun geyser called “Spastic Geyser” that constantly erupts. These neat trees were in the same area. We nicknamed them "The Clydesdales."

For dinner that night we ate at the Old Faithful Inn, which looks like a really big treehouse. I had bison ravioli, which was delicious, with another $6 bottle of champagne! After dinner we wrote out postcards in the lodge and then took in a night viewing of Old Faithful erupting. It was so peaceful without the hundreds of people around. All you could hear was the night bugs and the water falling onto the ground.


Up Next: A tour of the Old Faithful Inn and then driving to the Grand Canyon!

Happy Memorial Day!

Happy Memorial Day to folks in the US! As Memorial Day is the unofficial start to summer, it's only fitting that Nick and I filled our 3-day weekend with long bike rides, barbecues, gardening, eating on the porch, going to flea and farmer's markets, and unintentionally getting sunburned while in the car.

Speaking of gardening, I feel like my garden is coming along nicely. Not everything is thriving, but I'm learning and tweaking my plan along the way, which is what I think should be happening during my first season of growing. Two of the flowers are blooming and doing great and two of the flowers got a bit damaged during a surprise late-season frost, but they're starting to come back.

The cilantro is growing like a weed, which is great because cilantro is in almost all of the recipes in our new favorite cookbook, Mexican Everyday. The other herbs were doing just so-so, so last week I moved them on top of our fence so they could get more direct sunlight. I already see a difference, so hopefully they'll start growing like the cilantro soon enough! The tall herb on the end is some parsley that we picked up at a farmer's market yesterday. I didn't start it from a seed, which I think is what I'm going to do next year. The waiting is killing me!

The strawberry plant (on the right) just sprouted its first flower this week! Sadly, the hydrangea (on the left) that we had next to our front door took a turn for the worse and I had to pick off a bunch of dead leaves and flowers.

I think it wasn't getting enough sunlight there, so today I moved it onto the porch and we got a coleus for the front door instead, which the plant people assured us would do fine in the shade.

One of the tomato plants sprouted a couple of weeks ago, but the other remains to be seen and the onions don't appear to be growing at all.

The spinach is growing very slowly, although that area gets hit hard every time it rains because it's directly under an overhang and I think the plants are getting damaged.

I think both of these areas don't get enough direct sunlight, so I'm going to have to rethink them next year. Are there any veggies that don't need a lot of direct sunlight?

I thinned out the spinach a little bit and transplanted some of it into a rectangular pot that I put on the fence on the other side of our patio, along with some lettuce and mesclun seeds. This spot gets a ton of direct sunlight, so I'm hoping that all goes well and we'll be eating home-grown salad at some point this summer.

Memorial Day also means the 5 for $5 Simplicity sale at Joann!

I stopped by on my way home from work on Friday and picked up six patterns: 2475 Amazing Fit skirt, 1801 Cynthia Rowley dress, 1941 Amazing Fit blouse, 1882 Amazing Fit fitted dress, 1883 Threads collection sportswear, and 2263 Threads collection sportswear. If you couldn't tell, I sorely need work clothes. Ironically I haven't been sewing too much lately as most of my time has been spent working and studying/reading for the course I'm taking to prepare for a certification test.

What sewing classes I've actually made it to have been spent working on New Look 6803 in view A with the belt, which is almost finished! Of course I always complicate things by adding a lining, so the patterns are never as quick and I think they should be, especially with my sewing time so limited these days.

Image source

I also finally started working on a quilt for myself using Jay McCarroll's Habitat line, only more than a year after I originally planned to make it. I have all of the fabric for the blocks cut and lined up, so now I just need to get sewing! I have a feeling that this might not get completely finished until December when I take my certification test.

Mexican Every Day!

This year for Nick's birthday, I bought him Rick Bayless' Mexican Everyday and a whole bunch of stuff from Rick's food line, Frontera (he also has a restaurant in Chicago named Frontera Grill, which we intend to visit when we go back in August). We had seen Rick on Top Chef Masters, which he won, and then kinda fell in love with his PBS show Mexico - One Plate at a Time, even though we've only seen it a few times. The episode we saw involved him kayaking off the shores of a Mexican island, catching his fish, and then cooking dinner on the beach. It was insanely relaxing, which makes more sense to me now after learning that he regularly practices yoga. The show was kinda like watching a yoga DVD but without the yoga.

Ever since going to Distrito a couple of years ago (if you are ever in the tri-state area, you MUST go there), Nick and I have been borderline obsessed with Mexican food. Not Tex Mex—I'm talking real Mexican food with fresh ingredients and not smothered in cheese, although a touch of queso fresco really does the trick sometimes. Essentially, buying Mexican Everyday as a present for Nick was really a present for me as well. And it has been a present many times over in the short 16 days that it has graced our house.

Last Friday, we had my parents and my sister and her husband over for dinner. We made pico de gallo/chunky tomato salsa and tomatillo salsa served with Frontera chips; jicama salad with watercress, romaine, and lime-cilantro dressing; and grilled chicken with red pepper sesame marinade, mexican beans with greens, and Gulf Coast-style white rice pilaf. Then we had some friends over on Sunday and made chicken a la Veracruzana in the slow cooker and what I ended up calling churro cookies (Mexican shortbread cookies topped with cinnamon sugar). Last night we went to a barbecue and brought with us some smokey chipotle salsa with pan-roasted tomatillos. And today we made red chile chicken and rice with black beans (topped with some of last night's leftover smokey chipotle salsa) and another batch of chunky tomato salsa and jicama salad with lime-cilantro dressing. If you're counting, that is 11 different recipes in 16 days, with two made twice!

Mexican feast!

Pico de gallo/chunky tomato salsa

Smokey chipotle salsa with pan-roasted tomatillos

Red chile chicken and rice with black beans, topped with smokey chipotle salsa with pan-roasted tomatillos

Jicama salad with lime-cilantro dressing, topped with pico de gallo/chunky tomato salsa

I was preparing like a mad woman during all of the meals except for today, so I don't have pictures of everything to share. But believe me when I say that all of the recipes were delicious and we would make them all again, especially since they are all so easy. They all feature fresh ingredients and are all pretty healthy as long as you stick to the serving size. Rick's introduction is also really inspiring. It chronicles his journey to balance eating delicious and flavorful food with being healthy, and after reading it I couldn't help but want to mirror his lifestyle.

We are planning on making one of the bigger meals for our Saturday or Sunday dinner and having the rest as leftovers on one night during the week. The best part is that I literally want to make every single recipe in this book. How often does that happen with a cookbook? 

Purple People Eater Ginger

For the past month or so, I've been in muslin failure mode. I mentioned before that I tried out the skirt from Simplicity 2215 and it wasn't flattering. Then I dug out the muslin that I started for a Crepe last March (ugh) and after working with my sewing teacher for a little bit, we decided to toss it. I had stitched up the smallest size for the bodice and the chest was still about 3 sizes too big and we just couldn't manipulate the fabric so the bodice would fit. We got the chest to fit, but then there were these huge pockets of fabric on the back by my arms. If my sewing teacher, who has about 30 years of experience, can't get the damn thing to fit, I'm ok with finally giving up on it. Now I'm super hesitant about making any Colette pattern that involves a top because the bodice will most likely always be way too big. Anyone have any solutions? It's sad because my bottom half fits perfectly with their measurements.

But it doesn't end there. After recognizing that I need some summer blouses in my wardrobe, I quickly whipped up a muslin of the blouse from Simplicity 2211. It was too big, but I was able to take it in so that it fit like it was intended to. The trouble was, it just wasn't flattering. The blouse doesn't have any button or zipper closures, so it needs to be baggy enough to be able to slip it on as is. I never wear baggy shirts untucked and, when this shirt was tucked into a skirt, it was way too bunched up in the back. So I scrapped that muslin too.

Then I made the skirt from Simplicity 2211 and was nearly finished with it when I realized it looked like crap on me. It doesn't have a waistband or darts, both of which I apparently feel the need for in a skirt. I started to take it apart to fix it but was eventually so disgusted with it that I threw it aside.

At least I feel like I'm learning good lessons when choosing patterns to try out. I now know that I like to wear structured and fitted garments. I'm not sure why this didn't occur to me before now, because all of my ready-to-wear clothes are exactly that. I guess I'm highly influenced by the cute things that I see other people making.

After all of those false starts, I needed a sure bet project. So I dug out my Colette Ginger pattern and made my third Ginger, only this time in Version 2. The best part about this project is that I was able to pull everything from my stash, hem tape and all! Forgive the weird lighting in this picture. It turned into quite the crappy day, but Nick and I were able to sneak in a few pictures after work while the rain took a break. My crops are peaking in at the bottom to say hello!

I just can't get over how awesome hem tape looks from the inside and it's so easy to use.

It was so nice to finally finish a project that worked out! As much as I love my Gingers, I think I need to find  a skirt pattern that sits lower but retains the A-line shape. A simple A-line skirt has the potential to become one of my wardrobe staples. Anyone have any suggestions?

We Killed It!

This morning was the 2012 Broad Street Run and Nick and I pretty much killed it. We ran the 10-miler in 1 hour and 45 minutes, which is 10 whole minutes faster than last year!

This year's registration sold out in 5 hours (for 30,000 runners) so they opened up 10,000 more slots in a lottery system. Because of this, the race was noticeably more crowded this year. Usually the runners thin out after the first half mile, but the crowd was pretty packed for the entire 10 miles, especially at the end. And the traffic getting out of the stadium area was absolutely nuts. Thankfully my awesome mom and sister drove us down again, so neither of us had to be at the wheel in that madness.

I am so proud of our time! I think this will probably be our last year running, so it was nice to have such great results.

After lunch and a delightful nap, because I am crazy, I took to our garden and planted the rest of our crops! Here are our tomatoes, red onions (the grassy things), and garlic (in between the onions and the tomato plant on the right).

This planter used to house a whole bunch of hostas, one of my very least favorite plants (the previous owner apparently loved them). We pulled out the actual plants in the fall, but there were a million roots left over. I spent a good 45 minutes digging through it to get them all out! Between that and running 10 miles this morning, I hope I'll be able to walk tomorrow.

My one concern with our garden is that I'm not quite sure how to maintain the plants once they start growing. Does anyone have any good resources for that sort of thing? Basically I need very specific guidelines about how to cut the leaves/veggies off of the plant when they are ready to eat. I look forward to that day!