Just to be clear, I have Facebook and Twitter, though they are greatly neglected, but I am not jumping on the "let's ditch myspace" bandwagon. Myspace is full of a great load of shitty problems, but Facebook and Twitter have their own as well.

The reason I am making this post is because I am moving my blog to a more suitable location where I can blog effectively and with superior tools for managing said blog. I should have done this sooner, but for so many years my blog has been well followed on Myspace, and since there is no easy way to export everything, I have stuck around.

As of yesterday, I made my first blog on my new blogsite on blogspot.

http://orangeflood.blogspot.com/

Blogger.com offers me exporting tools and the ability to save my blog while I write it, which should prevent some of my more frustrating memories from Myspace blogging in coming rushing back.

For some of you who don't use social networking, but just check in on my blog to see what crazy ventures I've been on lately, this should be a very easy transition, since it is just another location on the web. Those of you who have migrated to Facebook can find me at the following location:

http://www.facebook.com/orangeflood

My blog posts are fed to facebook, so you should be able to easily find a link to what I've been doing any time you feel like it.

To the hardcore people on Myspace who are staying pure, my Myspace account is not going anywhere. Even if I find a way to effectively export my blog, I'll keep this account open as a beacon in the night for lost souls in search of my blog.

I know I've got a few people who keep up on my posts regularly, I appreciate your support and I hope you visit me on blogspot.

Those who have visited our house have seen the horrible carpet that was in our Kitchen and Bar. We have always hated it, mostly because it is so hard to keep clean, and we've been planning to replace it since we moved in.



Lucky for us, Lowe's had a sale on some nice vinyl tiles at 22 cents per square foot, so I was able to replace the floors for less than $40 total (140 square feet including some extra tiles, adhesive and caulking).

I was hoping to remove the layer of carpet and put the tiles directly on the old linoleum, but it turns out that they installed these carpets with an adhesive foam pad underneath them., so it was easier to remove all of the flooring together than to scrape the foam off.



The floors already had primer on them from the original linoleum, and though it wasn't in great shape, I didn't want to wait for a new coat of latex primer to dry before putting the tiles down, so I went ahead without it. If any tiles peel up, I bought some wall-board adhesive to re-attach them with, but the adhesive that they have on the back is pretty strong already.

I learned that the best way to start laying the tiles is to start one row away from the wall, in the center of the room, rather than at the actual wall. The reason is that you can start a perfectly square line of tile if you are one row away, but if the wall is not perfectly square, you will have a disappointingly crooked first line of tiles. Then you just cut the tiles next to the wall so that they fit better.

After your first row, the directions suggest building outwards in a pyramid shape, the main reason for this is that you will have more tiles laid down with more corners to reference with than if you did straight lines. This also makes it less likely that you will end up with any row of tiles which veers off at an imperfect angle.

I did my first four rows, including the removal of old flooring, in about two hours. The part that takes the most time is cutting the pieces you have to fit at the walls and around doorways. After I figured out the first four rows, the rest went a lot faster.



We went to Costco and came back, and I finished the rest of the bar area in about two hours before stopping for the night.



I put down caulking in the space just beneath the garage door to keep any spills from soaking into the sub floor, and to make it look finished.

The angled cut between the bar and family room wasn't too difficult, but took a lot of time. I cut the pieces to the right shape by laying them over the space they belonged in and holding my framing square in place where the cut needed to be.



I only had to re-cut one tile in that section, so I was proud of myself.

Vinyl tiles are best cut with a straight edge such as a ruler or square (I prefer a square because you can make sure your cuts are perfectly straight) and a razor knife. Make one straight cut across the top side of the vinyl and bend it to break. I originally tried cutting the underside thinking that this would mask any mistakes, but when you cut that side, the laminated top piece will not make a clean break, so you have to cut from the top side.

When you are cutting them to size in place, like I did, be very careful not to pull your knife too aggressively, or you might end up nicking the tiles you've already put down, and that is not so desirable. I ended up making a few minor dings, but nothing big enough to see.

This is where I stopped on the first night, just at the edge of the kitchen entry way.



After stopping for the evening, I had a bloody nose, which I haven't had in about ten years, likely caused by dust and irritants in the carpeting. Needless to say, it made me very happy to be removing the carpet, but is a good reminder that you should always wear a particle mask when removing any type of flooring. I know this, but didn't do it.

I started the next day by doing under the dishwasher first. I didn't have to unhook anything except the waterline for the dishwasher, since the power cord was long enough to reach well into the center of the kitchen. I slid the dishwasher out, then put all the tiles down with wallboard adhesive. I went with extra adhesive before giving these tiles a chance to come up both because leaking is most likely underneath the dishwasher, and the dishwasher is the hardest appliance to remove. It has four feet which must be perfectly leveled and then two wood screws holding it in place, as well as a copper water line, waste-water hose, and the power cable has to be disconnected with a screwdriver (it doesn't just plug into an outlet). So I didn't want to have any reason to go back in there.

While I was working on it, I used the wallboard adhesive to secure some loose trim as well. When all was said and done, I actually reinstalled the dishwasher better than I did the first time I installed it, but it took me about an hour and a half to remove, floor and reinstall it.

Next I tiled up to the refrigerator, then rolled the refrigerator out (it's on casters and that is SO nice), laid down the tiles and replaced it in it's nook. Since the refrigerator has a long water line and a power outlet, I can roll it out at any time if I have to do a quick repair.



To do the tiles near the doorway, I had to pull up the carpet reducer strip (metal piece that covers the threshold between the two rooms) and since I was careful, I was able to reuse it, which is lucky because those small pieces of metal are $6 each, and that does not include the nails to fasten it with. Since the tiles at the threshold are small, I added some preemptive wallboard adhesive to make sure they were well secured.

Even though the reducer covers small mistakes, I did my best to make all of the edges line up perfectly so that when I install wood floors, I don't have to make any special accommodations to cover up errors later.

This picture shows the mess that this makes. I highly recommend keeping an ample trash container nearby since these papers and scrap tiles are just from the refrigerator section. It can pile up quickly and those papers are very slick if you step on them.

In the background you can see the carpet that used to be under the refrigerator. The precise reason that carpet in the kitchen is a stupid idea.


Next, I moved the stove out, which slides very easily on vinyl and carpet alike.



After putting tiles in the stove-nook, I moved it back and finished everything up to the pantry door.



In all, the kitchen itself took me about another three and a half hours, including working on the washing machine, but I had to stop at the pantry since I came just short on tiles.

The next day we went back to Lowe's to buy 60 more square feet of tiles. Of course the pantry is only about 6 square feet, but I am going to do the laundry room as well since the flooring is dirt cheap and the laundry room's laminated floor was previously connected with the bar area and it will look nice to have them connect again (plus, I have already tiled into the laundry room by half a tile length).

I finished the pantry in about 20 minutes. I had to take the door out and replace it, but it was fairly simple to complete.

I used a space heater on some of the tiles that were just a tiny bit loose around the edges. The heat makes the glue adhere better and makes the tile more flexible. In the next week or two, anything that hasn't settled firmly will be picked up and re-adhered with wallboard adhesive, which makes a much stronger bond, but takes more time to set.




Here are the finished pictures:







On our last trip to Lowe's, I got some vinyl tiles for our bathroom, so I plan to do those after our laundry room, then I would like to put wood floors in our family room, since the carpets in the family room are in the worst condition (having removed the nasty old ones from the kitchen).

My son was born on January 7th at 5:50pm weighing 6lbs. 4oz., measuring 18.5" long.

His name is Coughlin Joseph Nicholas (pronounced Coge Linn). Coughlin was my Grandfather's name, Joseph is Brandy's Grandfather's name and Nicholas is my oldest friend. We couldn't decide on the middle name, so we kept our two favorite.

 Mom and child came home on Thursday night and Coughlin had his first doctor's appointment on Friday. Everyone is in good health, if not a little tired.





If anyone would like to receive the official announcement by mail, please message me with your address.

Well, we have been surviving snowpocalypse '08 with little to no trouble. It's nice that Washington has relatively mild winters, but it's excellent that we get a good snowstorm every few years. I really have trouble understanding people who complain about the weather. If rain, snow or overcast weather bother you, then this is the wrong place to live. Last I checked, California is still accepting residents. Truthfully, Washington probably doesn't like you anymore than you like it's climate, so just make a clean break and move on.

In any case, we have been enjoying the snow, Abigail most of all. She loves to chase snowballs and chew them up. Even though there wasn't much during the first snow of last weekend, it didn't stop her from having fun.

Here she is getting ready to attack some unsuspecting snow.


In this picture, she is about to bite a blade of grass that had the nerve to exist.


She has a habit of digging through the snow until she finds dirt. She seems surprised to find that it is still down there underneath all the frozen white ice.

I took a few pictures of our backyard after the first snow, here is one utilizing the panoramic feature on our camera.


This is our Hemlock tree with some snow on it. I'm surprised that it's branches haven't been breaking off with all of the extra weight, which is common among evergreen trees during heavy snowfall.


This is our younger cedar tree. It always looks very nice when it's snowy. It seems to be much healthier since I dug up the maple that was trying to grow into it's roots. I like Maples, but those trees are a real nuiscanse.


Speaking of evergreens, I bought and planted 27 Douglas Fir trees a couple weeks ago. Someone on Craigslist had some saplings that were in the range of two years old, so I dug them up and replanted them near the highway. I also bought one juvenile madrona that I planted in the front yard. Between this batch of evergreens and the 10 seedlings that I got last summer, I have planted a total of 37 evergreens in my back yard. I probably have room for at least thirty more, so I might get some more soon. I'm trying to block out the highway all year, the maples and alders do it well during the summer, but after fall comes I can see the highway pretty clearly.

I love having all this space....

This is our birdbath after Sunday's snow:


Of course, it snowed more on Sunday. That didn't stop me from getting to work Monday (I have never missed a day of work due to snow), but Tuedsay Brandy and I had an appointment to fill out paperwork for the impending child that is due in January. After the appointments we went to Costco to pick up the usual huge load of groceries. Brandy had never made a full size snoman, so I made her come outside to make one.

This is it:


It fell over this morning when the Beagle was near it, I think she was nibbling on it because she loves to bite ice. Originally it was as tall as Brandy.



It is really nice to spend time just playing around. I think that we are made for work during the Spring, Summer and fall, but that the Winter is meant to be a time for survival and recuperating. All of the senseless rushing around that people get into really bothers me. We have become disgustingly obsessed with an unhealthy idea of work and too many people have completely lost sight of anything that actually matters.

Here I am hanging out with the Snowman.


Abigail makes me laugh a lot. She was a very stubborn puppy, as Beagles are, but she is a very fun and submissive dog to have. I would recommend a Beagle to anyone who wants an energetic, playful and smart dog, but you should be prepared to deal with destructive tendencies while they are a puppy, and you will always need to have some space for them to explore. Even with our half acre back yard, Abby had a tendency to wander away until we installed the invisible fence.

It takes a couple of weeks to complete the training, but she learned very quickly and has only actually run through the fence a couple of times.

Here she is running with some snow in her mouth..


I made trails for her on Sunday so that she could run around faster. Most of the snow was too deep for her to walk through, she had to hop wherever she went. I made a trail going all the way around the yard, she likes to run around it like it's a race-track and howl.

Here she is standing at Brandy's feet, probably waiting for me to throw another snowball for her.


Her fur repels water and snow fairly well, but she does get cold. A couple times we were out playing until she started shivering, we went inside, but she was more than willing to stay and play some more.

Here she is after investigating some snow for suspicious scents.


A dog's sense of smell is actually stronger near water and ice because it weakens the scent of all the other things they would normally have to smell like grass, dirt and pollen.

We don't have any pictures of Poncho because he only played for a few minutes before begging to go back inside. I can't blame him, even with a sweater on, he has fairly thin fir, his whole underside is practically bare skin.

So, that was our snow adventure, I hope everyone has been enjoying the snow as much as Abby has. If you are cranky about it, I encourage you to find a new state, because I like mine.

We pass over the Agate Pass bridge and the chipper "ding" of the stop-requested light goes off. A girl stands up and talks to the bus driver for an eternity while I try to peice together what is happening.

"This is the 90 Express to Christ Memorial" I think to myself. "Why would they request a stop?"

Four other passengers stand up and start to make their way forward.

"I have never been on the bus at this time, perhaps these riders have a special arrangement for this route." More rational thinking.

"Perhaps they simply got on the wrong bus and the driver is letting them out anyway." The bus turns right on Suquamish Way and pulls over to let them out.

"I guess the driver will just take Totten Cutoff back to 305."

I glance around as Totten Cutoff zooms by without so much as an afterthought, nobody else seems confused.

I am the one on the wrong bus.

We started with a mid-day trip to one of Eureka's many Ocean beaches. Eureka is very interesting because it is built around Humboldt Bay, which is more like a shallow slough. The interesting part is that there are lots of bridges that cross over the narrow parts of the bay and rivers. The way the roads wind around the water (where you are sometimes surrounded by water on all sides) actually reminds me of home a lot. Essentially, if you try to navigate by any sensible means, such as finding the direction you are facing by using the water around you, you will find yourself terrible lost.

We didn't get lost though, so that's not what this story is about. This story is about Abigail, Poncho and Barb and Sandra's dog Kendall (A three year old Doberman) going to the Ocean.

Poncho has been to the Ocean before and he really likes the Sandy beaches there. Sandy beaches are one of the few places where Poncho acts even remotely like a dog, so trips like this are always a fun. Abigail had never seen the ocean before and has very little experience with large bodies of water. At this point in her life, she's still a little afraid of the water. Just to get her to splash around in our creek tends to take a lot more effort than it's worth. In one trip to Marrowstone Island, I tricked her into the water by playing a game of fetch, in which I gradually threw a stick closer and closer to the water until it was actually in the water. The first time I threw the stick in the water, she splashed in after it but immediately jumped back, howling at the stick from the shore.

Other than Poncho, I haven't known many dogs that started life with such a fear. I hope that she eventually learns to like the water and swimming, because it seems like something all dogs should enjoy, but this opinion may be largely impacted by a dog my family had which would drag you into the water if you didnt' let her go.

Although a little uncertain about the water, Abby definitely loved the beach. She seemed to love running up and down the beach with Kendall.

This pictures makes me laugh because both of Abby's Beagle ears are standing perpendicular as she flys down the beach. You'll notice at this point that she is staying well clear of the waterline. Kendall is outside of this shot splashing on the small waves.


Here is a picture of Kendall running by. I don't have a single picture of Kendall standing still at the beach. They haven't been able to take her as often because she has developed a strange case of arthritis (strange because she is only three years old), so this trip was filled with constant motion for her. If you look closely, you can see that none of her feet are touching the ground.


Abby occasionally stopped chasing Kendall to explore her new environment. In this picture, she had just stopped eating the foam to watch Kendall run by again. As she got a little more comfortable, she started getting a little more daring, venturing closer to and even into the waterline.


Here is Abby eating foam as Kendall runs back the other way.


Again, Abby kept venturing closer to the water and even started venturing into the shallow, creeping waves until she got caught by a slightly bigger wave.

You can see the panic and uncertainty on her face as she runs for the shore.


I really wish that I was able to get a better picture because it was hilarious, but the wave came up so fast that I couldn't catch it in time.

Poncho had a similar experience a wave caught him off gaurd. I had plenty of time to prepare for that picture, but Poncho jumped so fast when the water hit him that all I got was a picture of his torso  with some froth behind it.

After her experience with the wave, Abby stayed clear of the waterline and kept a watchful eye out for those sneaky waves.


Something that is funny about Poncho is that it's very hard to get pictures of him, partially because he always seems to zig-zag around, not holding still or walking in a straight line long enough to draw a bead on him. Because of this, I only have a couple good pictures of Poncho from the whole trip.

Like this one:


Abby, on the other hand, always travelled in straight lines, even if she was running at top speed, so that made it easy to get a lot of good pictures of her.

Here is Abby getting ready to chase Kendall. You can see her right front and left rear paws getting ready to lunge, even though Kendall is not in the picture. You can also see Poncho acting kind of like a normal dog, enjoying the sand and investigating things. Those of you who know Poncho should understand the significance of this.


I was trying to get a good angle on these  sand formations and caught another snapshot of Kendall whooshing by.


Here is Abby being curious about the sand formations.


It was very windy that day, Abby's ears kept blowing around.


And this is just another really good picture of Abigail, our curious, happy little Beagle.


I was trying out our new camera and managed to get some really good actions pictures with the waves. I have a lot more than this one, but who wants to see fifteen pictures of waves from different positions and in different states of being anyway? I mean, waves look pretty, but they are never nearly as impressive in a picture as they are in person.


There is an old pulp mill very near the beach we went to. I really like old and decaying industrial structures for some reason, so here is a Picture of the mill floating in the fog with a funny pair of pilings in front of it.


And here is the mill all by itself. Strangely I think I like it better with the odd pilings.


This is some strange iron pipe of some sort sticking out of the sand.


We went back to the house for a birthday barbeque of pork and beef ribs, held for Brandy's uncle Ralph, but before that happened, I tried to help Sandra troubleshoot her motorcycle problem. It hasn't been started in five years and after cleaning out the gas tank, she hasn't been able to get it to fire, except when it was first being cleaned up, and they sprayed some started fluid into the cylinders (where it made a couple of choked turns and then wouldn't fire again). This sounded like a fuel delivery problem, so I took the fuel line off to make sure the petcock was dumping fuel like it should, but as I removed the line, it broke in two places and began leaking. This wasn't a big surprise since the bike is a 90 something and had spent a considerable amount of time sitting unused. Luckily, on motorcycle fuel petcocks, if you turn the petcock to the "On" position, the fuel won't drain unless there is positive suction pulling it. So I took the hose fragments down to the nearest Kragen Auto Parts (ten minute drive into Eureka) and bought a replacement hose.

The drive was ten minutes, but I had to wait around at Kragen for twenty to get the length of hose. What a bunch of jerks!

Anyway, that's another story, so I put the new fuel line on and still couldn't get the motorcycle to start even though I picked up some carb cleaner and sprayed it right into the fuel intake in hopes that it might clean out a little. Like many motorcycles that have been sitting for a while, The gasoline in the carburetors eventually evaporates and leaves nothing but the junk that was floating around in the gasoline, which plugs up the pilot jet and no longer sends fuel to the cylinders. If I were going to be there for several days and had a repair manual for that motorcycle, I would have offered to rebuild the carbs to get it running.

A not-running motorcycle is just sad.

So, we had some delicious ribs and potato salad, followed by lots of visiting and me learning to play Yahtzee before dominating at a game of Monopoly. It isn't common for me to play games, especially games that require little to no strategy, so this was a special occasion for Brandy.

Ralph went home at about 10:30  and we all went to bed around 11:30. It's really too bad that we don't get to visit more often or for longer periods of time when we do visit. I'm glad that they are planning to come up for Thanksgiving. Between their visit, our future son and Brandy's Dad coming up in January or February (to see his new Grandson), this is going to be a busy winter.

Over the labor day weekend we made another semi-traditional trip to visit Brandy's Aunt and Uncle in Eureka, California. We initially made this trip two years ago over labor day weekend, and had plans to do it again last year, but canceled at the last minute since Barb's (Brandy's Aunt) girlfriend Sandra had to go in for back surgery.

There was no such trouble this year, so we made the trip.

We left our house at 4:20AM. When going south on I-5, it's best to try getting through Portland before 8:00AM if you are leaving on a weekend and before 6:00AM if you are leaving on a weekday. Even if you use the I-205 bypass to get around Portland you will run into bad traffic during the morning and evening rush hours.

Even though the draw bridge was up when we got to Vancouver, we made it through Portland by 7:30, taking extra care to stay in the right lanes to avoid ending up in Beaverton (If you've ever been through Portland with the intent of following I-5 South, you'll understand).

We stopped in Salem at around 9:30 for fuel and decided to go to Shari's for "breakfast" since we were making good time. I say "breakfast" in quotations because we did have breakfast before leaving the house at 4:20AM, which technically makes our 9:30 stop kind of a lunch and kind of a second breakfast. The service was fast and I enjoyed some coffee, then we headed to a nearby gas station to fuel up.

While the car was being filled, an older gentleman pointed out that my jacket sleeve was hanging out of the back door. Normally Abby doesn't jump out of the car, but in this case, when I opened the door to adjust my jacket sleeve, Abby was overcome by the urge to jump out and greet this person (Perhaps in thanks for saving my jacket from some ill-fate).

I moved for her immediately and she went straight into her submissive position, laying on her back apologetically. I picked her up and let the old man pet her. He let me know that he used to have a dog that was part Beagle and we spoke briefly on the topic of Beagle antics and demeanor.

This portion of the story may have seemed of little significance to you, but I mentioned it because shortly after getting back on the Interstate, I saw another older man on the side of the road, leaning against his pickup, smoking with a younger man. This is the point at which I realized that every old man I had ever seen in Oregon looked the same. Blue jeans, cowboy boots, long sleeve button down shirt, long and full grey beard with a black stetson, usually smoking or at least obviously a smoker. This is the standard attire for a man over the age of seventy within the state of Oregon.

There is nothing wrong with this, in fact I like it, but thought I should share my epiphany in case anyone else noticed this quirk.

On this particular trip, we followed I-5 south into Grants Pass, OR, then followed Hwy 199 South West into Crescent City, where 199 runs into Hwy 101.

We got into Grants Pass somewhere around noon, I wasn't paying much attention since we only stopped there for fuel and I was probably busy making fun of Oregon for requiring an attendant to pump your fuel for you (You know gasoline is more dangerous in Oregon). This marked the end of the quick and the beginning of the fun, yet windy and dangerous portion of our trip.

Before getting into the Redwood forest, but after getting into California, the road winds along the Jebediah Smith River Canyon, in which most of the road is shoulderless and was carved out of sheer rock. Despite the fact that visibility on the road is never more than 400ft in front of you (due to the constant blind curves) the speed limit is still 55mph for the most part. This road is a real thrill, I only wish Brandy hadn't felt so carsick from it. The river at the bottom of the canyon is pretty when you can see it and there is one large tunnel that is very interesting. In any case, this winding death defiant road goes on for about 20 miles before becoming a little more sane and a lot more impressive. The reason the road becomes more impressive is due to the massive redwood trees that grow right next to the road.

When we made this trip two years ago, I tried to take some pictures that demonstrated the impressive massiveness of these trees, but had some difficulty showing the scale.

Here is another attempt at demonstrating the size of these trees. In the foreground you can see a small redwood sapling as the focus of the photograph. The sapling was probably about eight inches in diameter. If you look just behind it, you can see that the background of the picture is almost entirely an old growth redwood.


We saw trees which had a diameter which was wider than our car is long, unfortunately there aren't many places to stop near trees like this, so it's hard to get a scale picture to demonstrate.

This is just a pretty picture of two redwoods in the sunlight.


This picture doesn't make them look so big, but they are both about six feet in diameter. I think I'm going to frame this picture and hang it on my wall though, it's very nice.

I took a picture from this exact spot two years ago to show how windy the road was. The speed limit on this portion is still 55mph.


Anyway, we got into Crescent City around 2:00PM. All of the Ocean towns along Hwy 101 are very similar,  Crescent City is a pretty nice place and it has some very long sandy beaches where people enjoy surfing.

It's funny to me that even though we live so close to the Ocean in Washington and even though our coast line is gorgeous, we rarely ever take the time to go there. For me, this was the first time in over a year that I had seen the Ocean, and Brandy had not seen the Ocean since our last trip to Eureka two years before.

About an hour south of Crescent City, just north of Trinidad, CA, there is a small portion of beautiful coast line where the highway follows the coast for a mile or two. This portion reminds me of the Washington and Oregon style coasts that I like so much. Beachy places are nice for playing in the Ocean, but they don't even come close to the beauty of the rocky coasts we have so many of.

Here are some pictures of that place.




I have the overwhelming urge to climb this rock formation.


We recently got a newer (though still used) camera with an optical zoom, the clarity and resolution is very impressive compared to our last camera. It is disappointing that photo-hosting websites have such a low size limit, because, even though they still look good, the original images that I have are even clearer. If you are in the market for a new digital camera, one of the best things you can do is get a camera that has a high capacity for optical zoom. When using digital zoom you cut down the resolution when you zoom in, but with optical zooming, your resolution stays the same since the lense is doing the adjustment.

In any case, here is a picture of Abigal using our cooler as a pillow.


We got to Barb and Sandra's house at approximately 4:00PM. Our last trip only took about ten hours, but we took a little more time to stop this time.

Immediately after arriving, we went back out to look at some Yellow Lab pups with Barb and Sandra. We didn't mind getting back into the car since it gave us a chance to visit. We went out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Eureka and had a relatively early bed time.

These pictures only represent a small fraction of his dealings with these cardboard castles.

I like Wyoming, let's just make that clear to anyone who didn't pick up on that already.

We arrived in Yellowstone in the mid-afternoon, right around 3:00pm. As with many of the other high elevations, we found large amounts of snow in the area.

Just after getting into the park, we stopped at a small picnic area to let the dogs out. Abby loves snow, the fact that it was dirty didn't bother her.


The melting snow made for lots of tiny streams running everywhere. This one reminded me of my creek.


Right across the road from the picnic area there was a small lake which made me feel very even more at home. It seemed at times like I didn't leave Washington at all.


Anyway, our main goal in going to Yellowstone was to see what we could from the road, then to stop at Old Faithful.

Shortly after departing the rest area, we came across a male Bison which was hanging out by himself in the road. We had to stop and wait for it as it wandered back and forth between the two lanes of traffic. When he wandered into the opposite lane, a car or two could go by before he came back. Once Abby noticed him she started using a deeper growl than we've heard her use before.

I don't know what this bull was doing alone, but I assume his herd couldn't be too far away. It was also odd to see him since we were higher in the mountains and the buffalo herds tend to gather in the lower western areas where it's grassy.


The people in front of us got much closer than I would have. I wasn't surprised to find that people were constantly pushing the limits with the wild animals and other park rules, despite the fact that they hand you a pamphlet at the front gate warning you about the fact that these are wild animals which will kill you for being stupid.

We didn't see any other wildlife until we got past Yellowstone Lake, where the vegetation becomes much more prevalent and grassy.

The lake itself is fairly impressive. It's about the size of two Ozettes, though I suspect that it is quite a lot deeper and contains more than six times the volume of Ozette. The water is a very light blue due to the metals in the water. This effect is common in Washington, but many of our lakes and rivers are too muddy for this to be obvious.

The water is also fairly clear, not as clear as anything like Lake Tahoe (which is absolutely beautiful and you should go there), but it is still fairly clear. I suspect that the nearby basin of thermal activity helps keep the water clearer and high in metalic elements.

Here is the best picture I have of the lake as we drove by.


It was pretty, but there was no need to stop, the road stuck to the lakeshore for almost half an hour worth of driving, so there was plenty of time to take it all in. It was also getting to be late afternoon and we still had a lot of road to cover.

Between Yellowstone Lake and Old Faithful there really wasn't much to see. I could understand how someone who lived in a state with more plains might be more enamered with the trees and vegetation, but being the tree snob that I am, it wasn't much of anything I didn't already have in my backyard (so to speak). I have seen a lot of legitimately impressive forests on our various adventures, but other than the Olympic, the only forest that has really left me in awe was the Redwood forest. The sheer size and height of the trees is enough to make anyone stop and wonder.

I had not done any research about Old Faithful or Yellowstone before we went. If I knew that there was going to be so much more to see, I might have tried to spend more time there, but what we did manage to see was still very interesting. My recommendation to anyone going to Yellowstone is to set aside a couple of days to see all of the geysers and hot springs in the park. We plan to go back one day to camp out and see all of them, but I'll talk about what we did see in hopes of inspiring you to see more than we did.

When you first get out of the parking lot you come to a boardwalk that leads all the way around Old Faithful. At the far end, the boardwalk crosses the Firehole river and leads around a series of other geysers, since we had about 40 minutes before the next eruption for old Faithful, we followed it.

The path has to be on a boardwalk both to keep you from falling through the shallow crust of hot springs if you dared wander too far, and also to keep you from being burned by the hot runoff during eruptions. The area is full of small springs and geysers, some of them constantly erupting and others going off only on occasion.

This is one of the first pools we passed. The water is so clear because it is constantly at or just below boiling point. There is no way for any normal bacteria or algae to live, so the water is very clear (and smells terribly of sulfur).


The thin crust of ground that seems to grow around the edges, combined with the obviously high tempurature makes it immediately obvious why you don't want to step off the boardwalk and discover a new spring. My curious mind does make me wonder how often this type of thing happens though. The ratio of stupid families that visit the area, coupled with the density of thermal features makes me think that injury must be common.

As we walked by a few more geysers and springs, we were lucky enough to see a couple of the more common eruptions go off right next to the board walk. In the foreground there is a very small geyser erupting, while a much larger geyser erupts just on the other side of the boardwalk. If you look just to the left of the large eruption, you can see another small geyser erupting behind it and in the distant right-hand background you can see steam coming from another group of geysers that we didn't get to visit. In the left foreground and middle, you can see two boiling springs, which are actually both geysers that were not erupting.


I'd like to know more about the patterns that they have found in the eruptions. It seemed obvious to me in my hour of time there that there are a few eruptions that are obviously connected in some way, since they always erupt in close succession. I think it would be very interesting to design a research vehicle that could explore the caverns and tubes below to see how they connect.

This is a tiny geyser that is constantly erupting. They named all the geysers, but I didn't take note of them since they are mostly irrelevant, unless you want to participate in some form of anthropomorphication were you discuss how cute the geysers are.


Just behind that geyser, you can see another shallow-crusted hot spring.

Here is another large spring, when you can get close enough, you can see all the way to the bottom of them due to the clarity. The orange color around the edges is actually rust from iron deposited by the iron in the water. In the far background, you can see Old Faithful steaming behind the trees.


We went back to the viewing area for Old Faithful in time to get some seats in the front. Old Faithful seems to be steaming constantly, I don't know if that ever changes or not, but in the grassy areas near it, the droppings and footprints make it obvious that herds of animals come through and graze there frequently. The pamphlet says that they come by most often in the winter, since they don't have to dig in the snow to get to the grass and shrubs. It is fascinating to me that the ground is warm enough to melt snowfall all year round.

Here is old faithful before the eruption starts, steaming away as usual.


The eruptions last several minutes and can reach over 150 feet in the air. Someone could probably dedicate their entire life to studying the underground tubes and chambers that come together in such a perfect way to allow such regular and large scale eruptions.

here are the pictures I took of the eruption itself. If you imagine this going on for several minutes, you might as well have been there. The first picture doesn't look small, but is probably about fifty feet high. Right on schedule.


It is hard to differentiate between steam and falling water in this picture.




After erupting for a few minutes, the blasts slowly get smaller until it digresses into it's former state of constant steaming. The sun gleaming in the runoff looks very pretty in this picture.


If anyone has any questions about the effectiveness of geothermal power, please let your concerns be settled by this group of thermal anomalies. In the Netherlands, 25% of their power is provided by geothermal plants, making electricity so inexpensive that they heat the streets in some towns, rather than using snowplows and other conventional methods of de-icing, but this blog is about my trip, we can talk about geothermal power some other time.

We went back to the car and started the trip home. The road leading away from Old Faithful led us by countless other geysers and hot springs. Overall, we were much more interested in the small springs and geysers that you could get close to than Old Faithful, although Old Faithful was definitely impressive in itself. As I said before, I would love to go back to the park and spend a day or two meandering around the thermal areas. I'm sure that the northwestern portion of the park also boasts more rivers and waterfalls that I didn't even get a chance to look at. It seems like the kind of place that you could spend a lifetime exploring (much like Washington's own national park) without being able to take it all in. If only I could find a way to make that into my job...

As we passed by more plains, the amount of buffalo and other wildlife sightings became more frequent. At one point, somewhere near 20 cars stopped to investigate a herd of 30 or so bison that were grazing in a field next to the road. One group kneeled down a few feet in front of a bull and cow so that they could have their picture taken. Aside from the danger of a stampede, bison have very sharp and pointy horns. Is it any wonder that there are hundreds of people gored every year? The middle of a national park is probably not the best place to sustain serious impalement injuries and hope for survival.

I stepped on the gas and got out of that situation. I don't feel bad for anyone who is killed after being stupid enough to approach a 2000 pound animal with swords growing from it's skull. It's as if people have entirely forgotten that the world is a huge and wild place. They've spent too much time in the tame and controlled parts of the world and assume that the whole place must have had railings and warning signs installed by now. Personally, I appreciate the dangerous portions of the world a lot more than the safe ones, but I try to remain sensible and realistic about my status as a guest in those places.

We passed a few other groups that stopped to watch other herds, but none of them were so daring with the buffalo as the group that wanted the really awesome picture. Further down the road traffic thinned out and we started to see groups of Elk and Moose. One brilliant car slammed on their brakes because they saw a pair of female elk on the side of the road and wanted to get a closer look. I was two cars behind them and had to make a rapid stop. They stood in the middle of the road for a moment or two, then decided to pull over, placing their vehicle no more than three feet from the two elk. The Honda Civic directly behind the stopping van could not see why the van was stopping and moving to the side of the road, so they laid on a heavy and long horn beep to let everyone know how pissed off they were. As they got around the van, they spotted the elk and changed their mind about pulling over. I made another hasty retreat, I had no desire to be part of those videos you see where an angry animal smashes it's head into a car furiously, while the people inside crap themselves.

We crossed the Montana border and made our way into East Yellowstone at around 7:30pm. Made a brief stop for gas and headed North towards Belgrade and I-90. Twilight seemed to linger for a very long time because we were constantly passing through overcast and mountainous areas, but that was a good thing since Highway 191 is a very pretty drive and it would have been a little scary at night due to all the blind curves. Sunset took place just as we got into Belgrade and onto I-90. Our general plan was to get as close to Butte (if not all the way to Butte) as we could before we got tired and stopped for the night. Since we weren't tired enough to stop at Belgrade, we decided to head for Butte, which was only about 90 minutes down the interstate. Between the two places, there wasn't much available, we saw a couple of motels on the roadside, but they were in places that didn't have gas stations, so I decided that it would be better to wait since stopping for the night, then stopping a little ways down the road would be a waste of time. The key to efficient and speedy road trips is to make your stops as efficient as possible. When your travel time is above one mile a minute, even a 15 minute restroom break can add up when you add in similar stops for gas and food. This is especially true when it comes to travelling with animals.

Most of the interstate was easy to keep speed on since the roads were mostly straight and flat. As we got closer to Butte, the roads started winding through the mountains and that made travel a little slower, but like I said, we still made good time.

As we descended down the final hillside into Butte, I noticed some blood splattered on the road and a few parts of what was once apparently a dear. As I started to make my sarcastic comment to Brandy about it, we saw a dark shape in the headlights, which was the remainder of the carcass and a large pool of blood. I quickly swerved into the left lane and missed the body which would have surely totalled my car. As I made the move, I felt my rear wheels slide a little on the slick blood that was on the road. Aside from the time we saw a fawn dying on Hwy 199 in Oregon, that was the most disgusting road trip moment we've had. For some reason, we always have some sort of run-in with deer on our road trips, so I was glad that we got out of that one without making contact.

We got into Butte at about 10PM and started calling the nearby hotels. Apparently Butte is a popular place to stay, because the first for hotels had no vacancy, but there was a Days Inn which had a room with two King beds available for $90 something a night. It was much more than the rate we got in Ogden, but the hotel was considerably less scummy (actually fairly nice) and they offered a free breakfast. We went to a McDonald's, got dinner and ate it in our room.

Travelling through Montana and Idaho is nice because they have CPL reciprocity agreements with Washington. Idaho and Montana actually go a few steps further than Washington and have generous open carry laws as well (although, I have no real desire to do any open carrying since that defeats the entire advantage of carrying concealed in the first place).

The next morning, we loaded up the car, walked the dogs and helped ourselves to the breakfast. It wasn't anything special, cereal, bagels, toast, orange juice, coffee, that sort of thing. I hate when hotels advertise a continental breakfast and all they have is a box of danishes.

We hit the road about 7:00am Pacific and started heading back. Montana is beautiful, but the only notable event was that Abby discovered prarie dogs at one of the rest stops we went to. They scampered around in the bushes and made their tiny peeping noises at us while we walked through their territory. Abby found a few of their burrows and wanted to look inside. I stopped her since rattlesnakes like to hide out in burrows during the day. Abby was disappointed by this since it was the only adventure she really had since leaving Nebraska.

We crossed through Idaho, stopped for gas in Cour de' Laine, which was pretty. The winding roads made Brandy a little naseous, but overall the sights were pretty. Eastern Washington looked like it always does. We stopped outside of Moses Lake for lunch at a Taco Bell, we stopped for coffee and gas in Cle Elum and we were home by about 5:30.

Overall, I think the southern route down to I-80 and across  the plains was better. The mountains in Idaho slow you down a bit, and I think we'll be making future trips primarily via the old route along the 42nd Parallel, but I'm considering trying the Northern route again without so many detours to see if it balances out when you don't make detours, but my general feeling is that if I take that route again, I'll want to make more detours and stops, so I suppose the next trip will be decided by circumstances.

That's all there is. I hope you've enjoyed the pictures and commentary.

I've delayed this one too long, but at least I have lots of pictures to show.

When I first re-entered Wyoming there were lots of trees as we were at the foot of the black hills.

This is a monument at the first rest stop we used after leaving Rapid City. It's dedicated to the Custer expedition. Made of petrified wood and rocks.


This is a hill at the same rest stop. The large amount of trees and greenery is fairly comforting.


Slowly the scenery started to change, I think this clay hill is gorgeous.


Later, I felt ask though I never left South Dakota, as you can see from the picture, there isn't much difference in scenery here from the initial pictures of South Dakota.


The way that the road seems to fade infinitely into the horizon made home seem unattainable, but I wasn't too worried about that since I knew we were just about to take a crash course in everything there is to see in Northern Wyoming. I wanted to go home, but because there was so much to see, it didn't even feel like we were taking a trip home, it felt more like we were just out to see what there was. I liked it the first time through, but to say that I liked it even better the second time would be an extreme understatement.

The scenery reminiscent of South Dakota quickly faded away. Hills started showing up, then becoming larger and larger.


Not long after crossing the border, we could already see the Big Horn Mountains ahead.


This is a picture of some lake that was on the side of the interstate. It's unusual for me to not know for sure, but I think it's a lake called Lake De Smet.


There were two routes across the Bighorns that would take us to Yellowstone, Highway 16 and Highway 14. Highway 16 was  advertised on road signs as more straight and safe, but our GPS and maps told us the 14 would be faster (and looked like it would be prettier).

We stopped for Gas in Buffallo, which is at the Highway 16 exit, to make our decision. When I picked up some snacks and juice, I overheard the cashier explaining to a man with an RV that she recommended 16 and that 14 was too scary for her to take in a car.

I'm not sure what 16 looked like, but 14 was very beautiful, though with all of the switchbacks, I can understand why it was advertised as the less favored route.

Right after we left the interstate for Highway 14, we passed through a town called Ranchester, right at the foot of the mountains. The town had a population sign which indicated it's population was somewhere around 25. I've honestly never seen someone bother putting up a population sign for such a small number, but my hope is that they did it to scare off anyone who would be bothered by such a thing.

Anyway, here is a picture of the road leaving Ranchester to wind up the Big Horn Mountains.




These two picture is a few switchbacks up the moutain, there was a vista point that looks off into Wyoming's eastern front for eternity.

This one looks South down the range. You can see a couple portions of the road switching back.


This one looks west over the plains, the beige ribbon below is the portion of road where I took the first pictures of this highway, right outside of Ranchester.


The road continued to wind in a switchback pattern until we were at about 7500 feet, where the range seems to mostly flatten out. Along the road there are countless places where you can pull out and see rock formations and read boards that talk about some scientists stupid idea about how the rock formation got there and how old they think the rocks are. Only, they present it as scientific fact and I know that they are really just making a best guess. Scientists are more frequently getting into the habit of doing this, I'd much prefer if they just admitted when they weren't sure. It doesn't make the rock formation any less fascinating, but maybe for them they just can't allow themselves to stand in awe of something that they don't understand or can't explain.

At 7500 feet, there was still snow, even though the temperature was holding steady between 70 and 80 degrees. It's impressive that the snow gets packed so thick that the snowpac can last so long in some areas.


Brandy didn't believe me when I told her that it was snow when we first saw it, but after we passed a few patches that were very close to the road, she was convinced. Abby and Poncho weren't very excited about it though.


I think the dogs used Brandy's pillow more than she did during the trip.

As I was saying, the top of the range seems to be very flat and grassy. There were some thick trees around, but for the most part, the area we passed through seemed like marshy grassland, but as the road started to descent, it returned to the familiar switchback style that first introduced us to the Big Horn range.

As slow going as travel may have been in these conditions, the desert side of the range boasted much more impressive rockery and rivery, as it were.


I don't have any pictures of the rivers we passed by, but this ridge fascinated me. It looked like it was straight once and then someone just pulled something out from under it and it broke in half.


Here is a closer look at the "break" in the ridge. In the very bottom of the valley, you can just barely see a bit of our road ahead, just above the guard rail.


Further up the ridge, another ridge splits off and comes to a commanding point.


Somewhere down in that valley, there is a big river. I like the way that the rock faces have such different colors from sandy brown to red.


In some of the pictures you can see that the road is very red in color. This isn't a problem with the camera, but I haven't been able to find out why the roads in this area are red. I assume it's because they mix some of the red clay soil or rocks into their asphalt, spreading the crimson hue from the mountains and dirt into the roadways.

Once we got out of the range, the scenery turned to high desert, which resembled what the state of Wyoming looked like when I first saw it, driving through the southern portion.

We stopped continued along 14 to the town Greybull, where Highways 14, and 16 merge together. We found a gas station that also served food. To be precise they were a combination Taco Express, Pizza Express, Burger Express and various other express things, basically meaning you could order whatever you wanted. I had two super chicken burritos and Brandy had a taco salad supreme. For a place that serves food in a gas station at rock bottom prices, it was surprisingly good food.

From there we continued along US 310, which was just a combination of Highways 14, 16 and 20. There isn't much to be said about anything between Greybull and the last town before yellowstone, Cody. Basically just more cattle ranches and some scattered grass fields. The only notable occurence was a lighning storm that consisted of one very thick, dark cloud floating around making hundreds of jolts.

At this point, my lunch break is over, and you've got plenty to digest, so I'm saving Yellowstone for my next entry.