7/22/2014 Day 8 Scenic Superiority

Today, we got up from the Holiday Inn and we went to a deli that was really good and I got biscuts and gravy. We then drove deeper into West Yellowstone and went to Norris Canyon Road and saw the Norris Geyser Basin, the Echinus Geyser, the Steamboat Geyser, the Virginia Cascade, and later went to a hilarious sheepeaters cliff because here was a chipmunk that was on a nibbling on a old chip like nomnomnomnomnom and I got some nice pictures of it.

We also went to the Mammoth Hot springs and we saw a rock that actually resembled a mammoth.

When we visited the hot springs, it was raining but we were still able to enjoy the landscape and I got some pictures on my camera.

We passed a weird rock that looked like a moai from easter island so I snapped a shot.

We just looked around at landscapes that  looked really nice but we got to our Best Western that was actually in a small town so we chilled a bit and then we went to a place called the Raven Grill that was delicious and I ordered coke as my drink because now I actually love coke. I wrote some blogs and we just said see you later to my parents and we just settled for the night.

7/10/2014 Day 7 OLD FAITHFUL SUCKS

Today, we woke up from our Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn's generally do not have free breakfast and so we went to a really good restaurant and my sister and my dad got in a fight but it all came out alright. We did waste a little time waiting for everybody to cool off but we eventually headed into Yellowstone and we saw Old Faithful, did part of  my junior ranger program, and did see Old Faithful erupt except it was the most boring geyser in my opinion and I can show you some pictures.

The rangers said it usually is over 120 feet high except it was more like 40 feet of an eruption, and even more disappointing was it started raining and the video I THOUGHT I was taking turned into nothing because my camera had a really annoying self turn off function. Next, we went to the Black Sand Basin, which was a small area of hot springs that looked really colorful but weren't much from what we saw later.

We also wanted to got to the Firehole Lake Drive except it had construction because a thermal thingamajigger melted the asphalt and funnily, still to this day my sister is still getting emails about Yellowstone burning up; Literally. We did got on Fountain Flats Drive that had a place that was named Queens Laundry.     ._.     We also went on the Firehole Canyon Road which had a pretty waterfall that I took a video of and some pictures.

Also, while we took a break at a river, my sister broke a law by picking wildflowers and almost lost 200$ glasses because she tried being a Mexican in the trunk of our car and her glasses fell off and I didn't tell her I found them until we went to the Firehole Canyon Road. We then just went back to the Holiday Inn and we retired for the night.

7/8/2014 Day 5 (Yes, now I did it)

Today, I got up from the Holiday Inn and we adventured around the city and we went to the free hotel breakfast that was decent enough and later I went to a bookstore and bought a Big Nate book and I learned about a where's waldo thing were in 25 stores around the city had hidden waldos but we didn't have time for them and the celebration with the awards was on July 31st. Before though, we went to a record store and I saw some songs that were pretty cool. Funny thing was, it was the only one and also there was a waldo there but I didn't know about it then because it was before we went to the bookstore. My sister got a hilarious sticker of the lumpy space princess from adventure time and she actually bought it and some stickers from the TV show Breaking Bad (Which I know nothing about) and even funnier was that my other sister actually had a sticker printer with the sticker paper! Also, around the city they had power boxes that were painted but I took no pictures of them. We ate lunch at a breakfast bistro and I got fish & chips (Fish with tartar sauce and fries). We lost our shampoo before so we went to target and bought some more and that also proved I was right we still did not buy enough from target to supply the whole trip. We were hanging out until we had dinner downstairs and I guess it was pretty good. We didn't do much after but I guess I liked the tour of Boise. After checking my camera, I actually took no pictures of Boise and I don't want to copy pictures from Google. G'bye!

7/9/2014 Day 6 (Day 5 was so boring I forgot about it)

Today, we left from our hotel and and were driving for a long time. When I say long, I mean nine hours of driving but we did take a lot of breaks and we did go to some amazing things like the biggest sand dune of North America (Which was not at all very exciting) and we did actually have some fun. We took only one gas stop and I ate so many french fries from McDonald's. Then we drove longer (Yes, longer) and again, it was pretty boring. We got to a bridge after passing through Idaho City. I took some pictures and with my 80x zoom and I got some kayakers but I deleted the pictures because my camera has digital zoom so it had horrible graphics. It was so loud underneath that I just left. We then just went to Japanese food that ironically it was owned by a Chinese person and our waitress was american. We then went to our hotel which was a Holiday Inn. I thought it was a pretty nice hotel. What we did see in the morning was the biggest sand dune in North America and even though it did not seem impressive I was surprised by the farms in the area and also the landscape around. I thought today was boring but I guess it was a driving day. At least I got some great pictures! (Along with George W. Bush!) We reached West Yellowstone and stayed at a decent Holiday Inn and we were ready to explore the main part of our road trip!

Old Faithful Falls to the Hype

After a rough start to the day and breakfast at Running Bear, we finally set out to Yellowstone around noon. The drive in was very pretty and we even saw an elk. The myriad of younger trees puzzled my family and myself until we later found out that there was a very big forest fire. It was pretty cool that the environment was so resilient and could recover so nicely. Forest fires are evident all over the park. Yellowstone is the epitome of nature. Our first stop was Old Faithful which is a very predictable  geyser. Finding parking was pretty difficult because many people go to see it every day.  It seemed more like going to a carnival than seeing one of nature's wonders. Everyone was walking around with ice-cream while looking for a seat. The way that the eruptions were scheduled made it also seem like a show. I did not really appreciate Old Faithful as much as I thought I would.  There was a Ranger there for a Junior Ranger speech, however the information he gave was easily found in the information given in the brochures handed out at the gate. The Junior Ranger program required a signature from a Ranger after a program to complete the booklet. I forgot my Junior Ranger program in the car, except the Rangers are usually nice so I just decided on telling the Ranger I was with my brother when we heard the speech. After the geyser finished spurting, we went to the visitor center to stamp our National Park Passport. 

After the geyser we went to black sand basin which was an area with a few hot springs. It smelled strongly of sulfur because of the minerals. The thermal active ground also had a few mini geysers that still spurted, however those were unpredictable. The area was also forested until it reached closer to the hot springs where the trees were dead probably because of the acidic nature of the hot spring water. I was becoming really hungry so I returned to the car to have the boxed lunch from Running Bear. The roast beef sandwich was okay except the actual meat itself was too salty. The black sand basin was very pretty.

After the black sand basin we went to the Grand Prismatic which was also a very big attraction in Yellowstone. Along the boardwalk there were two boys behind my sister and I that was blasting a song with the lyrics "Ni**a I'm Faded." They were rather annoying and I wanted to turn around and tell them that they are losers for thinking that they are cool. To be honest, if they went to school on Long Island they would have no friends especially because they were dressed like oranges. The Grand Prismatic was gorgeous because of it's bacteria mats that gave it its color. A random guy came up to my sister and me to tell us about an indent in one of the bacteria mat that was there because someone decided to go in. Before reaching the Grand Prismatic, along the boardwalk there was also another hot spring that was a really pretty blue. Within the hot spring you could see where the water was springing up because of bubbling in the water. At the end of the boardwalk you can see where the hot spring water flows in to the river. 

We finally reached our car and wanted to do an auto-tour called the Firehole Drive which is another main attraction. However the road was closed for some random reason. Instead of taking that drive, we decided to take the Fountain Flats drive. It was still really pretty but I was looking forward to the Firehole Drive even though I already saw pictures of it.  We decided to go to the Nez Perce creek after that drive where my siblings and I put our feet in. On my way back up to the car, I picked a few flowers even if it was illegal. It was only a few anyways but when I finally got in the car I realized I lost my Raybans. I even checked the area for about an hour. I went back to the car to check and picked up an apple because I was hungry. I threw the core down by a log because it can biodegrade. As I searched I accidentally walked through some black mud and accidentally kicked it up all over my leggings. After the second time I returned to the river to search, I saw a Raven take my core. I also saw another Raven that stole a baby bird from another bird's nest. 

This time down, the man that was getting ready for fishing for a while as well told me that if I didn't find my glasses by now I would never find it. He even suggested that I should just stick to 99 cent glasses from the pharmacy. I gave up soon after and we took another drive to a waterfall. While my sister and I were sitting there my brother asked me what I would do if he found the glasses. It actually turned out that they were in the trunk all along. They ended up there where I pretended to hide in the trunk as a fugitive. We returned to West Yellowstone for tapas at Cafe Madriz. I also really wanted some home made ice-cream so we went to Arrowleaf Ice-cream and Grill. This place was pretty great because they blended toppings into the ice-cream. It was one of the top ice-creams I ever had. We then went back to the hotel for the night.

 

Piles of Sands and Nine Hours on a Car

After eating a similar breakfast to yesterday's we packed our things and set off for a nine hour drive. Our first stop was the Bruneau Dune which was the tallest single sand dune in North America. It was a state park but it still had it's own stamp. I still stamped my National Park passport with it though. The lady in the visitor center was also giving out mini Clif bar samples which were really good. The visitor center was also renting out sand boards which resembled snowboards. We didn't rent one although it was really cheap. When we reached the actual dune, we realized we made the right choice because it was too tall to climb anyways. It was really dry in that landscape and it dehydrated my skin. To me the dune wasn't that cool because it was just a pile of sand. In this area there were actually tumbleweed blowing. 

After leaving the state park we went to the Perrine Memorial Bridge. I also didn't really see the significance of the bridge except for the fact that across it, there was food! 

So after we finished looking around by the bridge, we went to one of the top rated restaurants which was a Japanese restaurant. By the parking lot there was a bush with berries on it and I popped it by accident when playing with it. It stained my fingers for the rest of the day. After lunch I was forced to sit in the back of the car on our way to the Japanese internment site. It wasn't that exciting because only one building was left. The information on the signs were pretty cool though. I was kind of bummed out when we found out the stamps were in the Fossil National Park which we passed a while back. From there we drive directly to our hotel. We ended up eating dinner at the restaurant in the hotel because nothing else was opened even though it had bad reviews. The waitress was also very bad. I had baked beans and mashed potatoes that were dissatisfying. After eating we all just went to bed.

Boise, Breaking Bad, and Bookstores

A really enjoyable Hyatt Place breakfast was the best way to start our day before exploring Boise. Our first stop was the Record Exchange because my sister and I spotted it the previous night. It was pretty cool because it had a soda fountain so after flipping through their record collection and then choosing not to purchase anything, I bought a peach Italian soda. I also bought a bunch of stickers and pins from Breaking Bad and Adventure Time.

After getting in the car to go deeper in to downtown, my mom quickly noticed that the power boxes were painted elaborately for public enjoyment. It was really interesting to see because we lack that in New York. We found really good parking on a main street in Boise right next to a local bookstore. My brother bought a Big Nate book and read a good portion of it before even leaving the store. We also decided to start the Where's Waldo search that went through many of the local stores. The closest one after the bookstore was in Jamba Juice, I also needed to use the bathroom so that was perfect. It took me a while to find the Waldo even though it was right there on the menu. After I got a smoothie and rendevoused with the rest of my family outside I spotted something quite odd. A guy that didn't have a shirt on ordered a smoothie. Now that I think about it, there was also a guy in the bookstore with no shirt. If you did that in New York or Boston or San Francisco people would not even have to service you in the store. I guess it is just apart of their culture there. The kids that seemed a little younger than me were also just biking around. I like towns/cities where you can walk around and go into various local stores. Small businesses are my favorite. We realized we were approaching lunch time so we decided to go to Goldy's Breakfast Bistro. The food was amazing except the restaurant was decorated like a poopy diner. I know that is very immature to say, except it was. We returned to the hotel where I got a Jones cream soda. It was really good and kind of tasted like cotton candy. We were going to eat at Fork, except we were all really tired and decided to just get soups and salads from the Gallery downstairs at our hotel. It was really satisfying. We went back upstairs to watch Portlandia which may be my new favorite show. I fell asleep soon after while playing Pocket Trains on the iPad.