On Sunday morning, we headed to Hoover Dam to take a tour.
Greg, standing in front of one of the cement buckets.A diversion tunnel, used to divert the Colorado River while they were building the Hoover Dam.Our tour guide, talking about the building of the dam.Our other tour guide, leading us down one of the many tunnels within the mountain.Greg, walking down one of the ventilation shafts.One of the inspection tunnels. The inside of the dam is honeycombed with tunnels.The Lake Mead side of the Hoover Dam.I have no idea how those people got into our picture!
Mike O’Callaghan – Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge
After leaving Hoover Dam, we stopped at the Mike O’Callaghan – Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge overlook. Walking out onto the bridge, we got a great view of the Hoover Dam.
Lake Mead overlook
Just before arriving back at the campground, we stopped at the Lake Mead overlook.
Valley of Fire State Park
After a yummy lunch of grilled ribeye steak, mashed potatoes, and broccoli, we headed to Valley of Fire State Park.
I had no idea what to expect from this state park, but it was fantastic! I wish we had set aside more time to enjoy it.
Unfortunately, it took over an hour to get there, and Greg wanted to be back to the campground before dark, which meant we only had about an hour and a half to see it.
Balanced Rock
We even got to see a couple of desert bighorn sheep!
Valley of Fire State Park had some very interesting-looking hikes, but we didn’t have the time to try any of them. Maybe next time.
Sunset
On the way back to the campground, we stopped at a couple of overlooks to enjoy the sunset.
We were up early again this morning to see if we could catch sunrise on some of the arches in the Windows section of the park.
We were shocked to discover the parking lot nearly full at that hour of the morning. Dang! I had really hoped to get some pictures of the arches without a thousand people standing underneath them.
Oh, well. With a little effort, we managed to get creative with our photo taking.
That is Greg, standing on the ground waiting for me to quit fooling around.
Park Avenue
Next, we hiked the Park Avenue trail. Maybe we were spoiled from hiking at Bryce Canyon (or maybe we were simply in too much pain from all the hiking we’ve been doing), but neither of us found the views along the trail particularly breathtaking.
I’m calling this formation “The Nuns,” because it reminds me of a group of nuns milling about.
We didn’t go all the way to the Park Avenue Overlook, which we realized later that evening probably would have been a good idea.
Sunset at Arches
We spent the afternoon napping, doing laundry, and shopping for hair cutting supplies. (We both desperately need haircuts, and we haven’t been able to find anything like a Hair Cuttery.)
After dinner, we headed back to Arches National Park to see if we could catch the sunset.
Our first stop was Park Avenue Overlook. This overlook was so much better than the trail!
Our next delightful surprise was the view of the La Sal Mountains as the sun was setting.
And shortly thereafter, the full moon made an appearance.
On our way into the park on Wednesday, we encountered another gaggle of cars, which we instantly knew meant there was wildlife to see.
It turned out to be a bull moose, who was feeling trapped by all the tourists. He kept darting one way and then another, trying to find some way past all the people. He finally managed to dash across the street into a field.
Our first stop of the day was Schwabacher Landing, which is a popular location for taking photographs of the Teton mountains.
Maybe we got there too late in the morning, but I did not like any of the photos I took. The mountains looked like cardboard cutouts, and they were overshadowed by the foreground.
Jenny Lake
Next, we headed to Jenny Lake. We purchased tickets for the ferry ride across the lake, where we hiked to Hidden Falls.
My photos of the falls turned out terribly, but I managed to capture a photo of this artist painting the falls en plein air. He was painting in oils and was quite good. I was kind of jealous, to be honest.
After Hidden Falls, we continued our hike up to Inspiration Point.
Yes, I actually climbed up the side of that rock cliff!
Coming down was another story. At one point, I sat down because I was so terrified. Some gentleman at the bottom offered to come up and assist me, but I managed to complete it by myself. Yay!
The size of the ferry boat on the lake in the photo below should give you an idea of how high up we were. The sign Greg is standing behind says Inspiration Point el. 7200 ft.
After climbing down from Inspiration Point, we chose to hike around the lake rather than take the ferry boat back.
Another hiker asked if she could join us on the hike back since she was worried about encountering a bear on her own.
On the hike back to the Jenny Lake visitor center, we got to see another moose. Unfortunately, he was shy and didn’t want to have his picture taken.
Shortly after that, someone else we encountered on the trail told us that they had seen a moose at Moose Pond, so we took a short detour to check that out.
It was a beautiful day for a hike, but by the time we finally got back to the Jenny Lake visitor center, we were beat. Greg said he was more tired from that hike than he had been from any other hike we’ve ever taken.
Scenic Boat Tour
Back at the car, we inhaled our lunch (it was 3:00 p.m. by this point). Then we decided to head over to Jackson Lake Lodge to see whether we could buy tickets for a scenic boat tour.
The girl at the concierge desk told us that the very last scenic boat tour for the season was leaving at 5:15. We booked our tickets and then headed to the bar to relax until it was time to head to the marina.
Five-fifteen is a terrible time to take a scenic boat tour if the goal is to get lovely photos of the Teton mountains rising over the water. The first 45 minutes of the tour involved traveling directly into the sun, which made taking photos of the mountains impossible. By the time the boat captain finally turned around to head back to the marina, the sun was setting behind the mountains, leaving them in shadow.
Despite that, I did enjoy the tour, and I learned a lot. Our tour guide was delightful.
Sunset
Since the sun was setting when we arrived back at the marina, Greg and I quickly hopped in the car and headed to another popular spot for taking photos of the mountains.
It was a beautiful sunset, but I don’t feel like I got very good photos of it.
I love all of the beautiful fall colors in the foreground of this photo. Fall has definitely come to the Tetons!
We encountered another traffic jam on the way back to the campground. This time it was a herd of bison on the side of the road.
When we finally arrived back at the campground at 9:00 p.m., we promptly collapsed into bed.
On Thursday, we drove 2 hours back in the direction we had come from the day before. (This part of the trip was not particularly well-planned, I’ll admit.)
Our first stop was the Minuteman Missile Site.
The Minuteman National Historic Site consists of two Minuteman II nuclear missile facilities that are no longer in operation as well as the visitor’s center. We weren’t able to get tickets for a tour of one of the sites, so we watched an informational video about the Cold War and browsed the exhibits in the visitor’s center.
I imagine this photo brings back vivid memories for anyone over the age of 60, including me. I remember nuclear “fire” drills that involved huddling with my classmates against the walls of the hall in my school. As if that would have saved us!Can you imagine being the president and having to decide whether to engage in a nuclear war with less than 30 minutes’ notice?The video and this poster talk about the number of close calls the U.S. and Russia have had over the years due to various mishaps. It’s terrifying to think of how incredibly close we have come to annihilating ourselves — multiple times, no less.
At one time, the U.S. had thousands of nuclear missiles. Now we only have a couple of hundred — still enough to destroy the planet, just not enough to destroy it multiple times over.
The Badlands
Next, we headed down the road to the Badlands. They were awesome! Unfortunately, the photos will not do them justice.
It’s impossible to get a sense of how massive these stone formations are and how deep the ravines go without having people in the photo to compare them to.
Our first order of business was to hike the Notch Trail.
It was freakin’ hot!
We did pretty well, despite the sun and heat (it was 100°)…until we got to the ladder.
As we waited for these folks to carefully make their way down, a crowd began to form at the bottom, waiting to go up.
Neither of us wanted to feel the pressure from a bunch of young whippersnappers to rush up the ladder, so we decided to abandon the rest of the hike.
Some other photos of the Badlands:
Roberts Prairie Dog Town
Before finishing our tour of the Badlands, we drove 5 miles down a very bumpy gravel road to Roberts Prairie Dog Town to check out the prairie dogs.
Prairie dogs are prolific little suckers. All those white spots are prairie dog mounds.Nothing like a little plague to add to the adventure!
I would post a picture of some prairie dogs, except that we didn’t get any. We saw them, but they were very far away and we needed binoculars.
Plus, it was so windy that it was impossible to hold the binoculars still enough to actually see what the prairie dogs were doing.
Wall Drug
After the prairie dogs, we headed into the town of Wall to check into our motel.
Then we had dinner at the Badlands Saloon and Grill before heading across the street to check out the famous Wall Drug.
Apparently, this is the must-see attraction in Wall, South Dakota (think South of the Border with an upscale, South Dakotan twist).
They had hats. Boy, did they have hats!And they had boots. Lots and lots of boots. And walls of photos, for some reason.And Greg, checking it all out.
Afterward, we headed back to the Badlands to see if we could catch the sunset. Unfortunately, the clouds were moving in by this time.
But look what we did see on our way into the park!
This was my first experience with a bison up close and relatively personal. But it was certainly not my last.
Although the sunset was a disappointment, I think I got some decent pictures.
Meanderings & Mind Munchies 