We Do Hoodoos

Day 14:
Early in the morning we visited Bryce Canyon in southern Utah. We heard that it gets rainfall almost every day during the summer from the ranger at the toll. Gladly it only rained for about 20 minutes, and one heck of a 20 minutes it was. I was being annoyed by my sister and I got so mad I grabbed her special $100 pillow and threw it at her head. She left her window open and the pillow just shot right out of the car! We had to u-turn on the freeway and dangerously get it from the middle of the street and come back. Soon after, we started our 3 mile hike uphill on the Navajo Loop trail, which was claimed to be "The most scenic trail in America," which it was what it was said to be. There are formations called Hoodoos based on an Indian name and legend is that people who lived there turned to stone - and the formations look just like people and other objects. I even found the perfect man-cave. The hike took a couple hours, considering there was a lot of wildlife and viewpoints you just couldn't resist and the colors were amazing, but we were just so tired! Finally we got up to the top of the red and white stripe canyon and I almost could drink 5 rain barrels of water I was so thirsty!
Later, we headed to Arizona and as we approached Tuba City which wasn't a city at all with its 3 NYC block radius and only had 3 motels, which were all booked and same with every other neighbor town, we had to drive to Flagstaff, AZ, about 1 hour out of the way, and I am finally able to write this entry. Grand Canyon tomorrow and etc. Will blog then

Leave it to Beaver/All Hail Taco Bell

Day 13:
Today was a strict driving day, heading from Jackson Hole, WY to the magnificent sites of Utah. We knew we couldn't make it all the way to Bryce Canyon so we headed out to Beaver, Utah and plan to go to Bryce Canyon tomorrow and hike to the main viewpoints over there. At about 12:00, we were famished, and decided to stop for a quick bite to eat. I really wanted Taco Bell, but there was none. Almost every other fast food joint was stationed there except Taco Bell... Thankfully there was a joint at the next exit, otherwise I would go on a hunger strike.
Once we got to Beaver, we encountered a massive hail/thunder storm and stopped at the closest place. It lasted for about 2 hours and the whole line for the best western was completely full once we got at the front desk. Hopefully that will not happen tomorrow.

Old Geysers, Old Geezers, and Old Faithful

Day 12:
Today we saw the rest of Yellowstone and it was practically up in our faces! We first visited the old geysers that were formed in a series of basins. It was very comical of how the warning sign shows a little kid jumping on the geysers. Honestly, what kind of an idiot would pull that stunt off? Anyway... we spent almost an hour at the basins and started to see the main attraction of Yellowstone: Old Faithful. It in fact was very faithful, based on its 92 minute intervals of each eruption...sadly we missed that by 5 minutes as well so we just ate ice cream and waited...and waited until finally he (or she) erupted. The explosion was pretty high and stayed there for about 2 minutes. My dad even got a good video clip of it and my mom got a picture of geezers next to a sign of geysers as well! After that, we saw some colorful paintpots by bacteria that lives in extreme conditions. After old faithful we saw a Bison in the parking lot and while I took this picture my mom ran away...while the bison are comin' my mom goes a runnin'. We drove through the AMAZING Grand Tetons and ended the day in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. We are staying there for a night and had the best Thai food yet! I'm pretty wiped and we have a whole schedule planned for tomorrow. Will blog soon though

The Land Before Time

Day 11:
Today we visited one of the mandatory-must-not-miss-or-you-will-totally-regret-it attractions: Yellowstone Nat'l Park. I heard it is as big as Connecticut, and it is nearly impossible to breeze through it all within a couple of hours! Everything is beautiful and the landscape is amazing! There are a bunch of wild critters such as elk, buffalo, deer, and bears. But there are more buffalo than anything else in the park. I'm astonished of how there is absolutely no gating...anywhere! Everyone in New York would probably sue for tripping over a rock or something stupid like that. All of the buffalo were very close to the car, and we got so scared they might gore holes in the car! There were a bunch of great geysers that bubbled up to 200 degrees and once burnt the surrounding ecosystem in 1978, and has been around almost a million years ago. Almost a dozen people have been scalded to death and others severely burned, luckily we weren't. Later we visited one of the biggest waterfalls you could ever see. We took a load of family pictures all of which I come out squinting my eyes from the sun...I could really use sunglasses! Soon after that we were completely wiped out, so we drove to Chico, Montana to an old resort my parents visited almost 15 years ago and it was just perfect! The swimming pool was entirely powered from mineral hot springs from the mountains, and not that disgusting chlorine most pools use. We plan to go and finish all the cool stuff on the west side of Yellowstone, then head south to Jackson Hole, then to Salt Lake City,UT within a couple of days. ¡Hasta manana!

Deadwood, Devil's Tower & Close Encounters

Day 10:
Double digits!!! Today was one historic day. First thing in the morning we visited the alive town of Deadwood, which characters from the past, such as Wild Bill Hickok are memorialized and are great tourist attractions. Today they had a parade of different figures and other interesting things... too bad we missed it by about five minutes, which was a real shame because it sounded really cool.
Our next stop was to the very tall Devil's Tower, which is a famous spot for close encounters of the unknown, used in the movie "Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind," and a perfect spot for sunbathing prarie dogs. It's also the very first national monument. Native Americans used to believe that seven girls were chased by a bear, so they jumped on a stone and prayed to the gods to save them... and suddenly the stone skyrocketed into the sky and the girls were reincarnated into stars. But truly the tower was once an active volcano, but its top is sealed and the very top of the tower has its own ecosystem of extraordinary animals. Records have it that a handful of people ascended the tower, but today many climbers can go up and reach the top as well. However, there was probably many Native Americans who climbed the tower before there was a form of records.
We are settled in Cody, WY and plan to visit Yellowstone national park, accomplishing the first fourth of our trip, and then heading to the south to states such as Arizona. Big day tomorrow, better get some rest.

Badlands, Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse & Crazy Cows

Day 9:
Where do I start? Today was one heck of a day! We started the day by stopping at a western town called Wall in South Dakota that is famous for a store called Wall Drug. It became popular by the free ice water campaign to settlers during the Westward Expansion. Next was the Badlands National Park. It was a crazy expirience being at such a high altitude and the layers of rock were gorgeous colors varying from purple to gold. We happened to make a huge detour along a unpaved dirt road where we were attacked by kamakazi grasshoppers getting stuck in the car grill to cows on the road that wouldn't move. Next was our goal to hit: Mount Rushmore. It was so big and up close the pictures we took almost look like you could climb up the chiseled granite and touch the former presidents on the rock. We took a nice nature trail where we learned about the sculptor and how each president got his face on the mountain. Lastly we visited the renown Crazy Horse memorial, which is similar to Mt. Rushmore but much much bigger. It is an unfinished model of the Native American Crazy Horse, which is planned to be a full-scale 3D model of him pointing to his lands of Black Hills, which was foretold where life was created and where life shall end in those hills. There was a special laser light show tonight projected on the mountain of how it became a project to remember the cultural values of the Lakota tribe. We plan to go to Deadwood tomorrow and venture into Wyoming, which from there we will make our way south to Arizona and such. Until tomorrow my friends.

Welcome to Murdo, SD

Day 8:
Today marks the first week of our journey! I've read some emails about the consistency of the posts of the blog, but the last couple of days have been parts of the surprise I've been talking about... But lets move on. Today we headed out of Iowa/Nebraska and drove into South Dakota. The town we are currently in is called Murdo, it's a wild west town from the early 20th century. It is just like the wild west but with a touch of modern buildings and technology. For our first day in SD, things were kind of strange. Along I-29, we saw these giant bull heads and tee-pees along the highway. I even saw my first hitch-hikers going to Sioux city, not that it's a contest or some kind of honor to see these guys, but you just never see them in the east coast. Day 7 was an easy day, I got this cool Ozzy Osbourne Tee shirt from Spencer's. We arrived in Murdo around 9:30 and went to a Cowboy bar for dinner... Yee Ha! We plan to go to Deadwood and Mt. Rushmore tomorrow and stay in South Dakota for another night. 8 states in 8 days, good progress so far...