Yes, Virginia, There Is A Cascade

On June 21st, we decided we needed a bit of a rest. The previous day, we’d done the Sevenmile Hole hike. The day before that we’d climbed to the Petrified Forest atop Specimen Ridge. That was a lot of climbing.

So we figured we’d do the touristy thing and hit Old Faithful.

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Down and Up

I’m still writing up the trip Out West that my son and I made back in June. I’m now up to June 20.

When there is a canyon like the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, what do you do with it? Why, you have to hike down to the bottom and back up again.

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Saturday Comic

This is from the comic strip Bizarro, by Dan Piraro. The cartoon is from May 9, 2008.

Bizarro, May 9, 2008

The strip usually lives up to its name, taking a bizarre take on the world. Here’s a slightly different twist on the NSNSNS signs.

 

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Getting Petrified

After all of the wildlife encounters on June 19, it turns out that we really hadn’t exhausted the day . . . or ourselves. By mid-afternoon, we were bored and wanted to do something else.

We’d been talking about ascending Specimen Ridge but hadn’t gotten to it yet, so off we went.

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A Grizzly Kind of Day

I’m continuing writing about my son’s and my trip out west. It’s our third full day in Yellowstone: June 19. Our plan for the day was to hike up to Grizzly Lake, which lies in the shadow of Mt. Holmes.

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Saturday Comic

Here’s a comic from July 6, 2014. It’s from a strip called Herb and Jamaal.

Herb and Jamaal, July 6, 2014

It just about says it all, doesn’t it?

 

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Getting High

It’s now June 18. We’ve decided it’s a good day to climb Mt. Washburn, which was really pretty close to our campsite.

This is something we hadn’t managed to do when we were there 9 years ago.

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Hot Pot

We were now at our first full day at Yellowstone (June 17). Neither my son nor I are big fans of crowds of tourists, so I’d mainly planned to visit locations that were away from the standard Yellowstone locations. (You may have noticed I do something similar in my hikes around Central Ohio.) Very few people are willing to go the extra mile (literally) to see something different. So, today’s plan was to visit the Monument Geyser Basin.

But that didn’t mean that was all we had to do.

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Entering Yellowstone

Resuming writing about our trip out west, the following morning (this is now June 15) we got a fairly early start to head out to Yellowstone. However, getting a campsite in Yellowstone is a real challenge.

So we had a strategy.

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Saturday Comic

Today’s comic comes from Agnes, a strip from Tony Cochrane about a poor girl who lives with her “Granma”. I’ve never really “gotten” the strip, and I’m not sure I “get” the point of this one, either. It does seem to rely on the standard, exaggerated fears of the shod, though.

It appeared on June 19, 2006.

Agnes, June 19, 2006

 

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We Conata Do This—Yes We Can

I’ve now made it to describing our third day of exploring the Badlands. This time we really went out there, and this day is among our most fun days on the entire trip.

We went back to the Conata Basin.

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Miss Manners Addresses NSNSNS

We take a break from our regularly-scheduled travelog in the Badlands because a reader has asked Miss Manners about the “No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service” signs in restaurants.

But you really won’t believe what torques off that reader.

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Up the Creek without a Saddle

We’re now up to day 2 (June 13) of our trip to the Badlands of South Dakota. On our first day we’d hiked the only real trail of the park, and we’d driven to the other side and seen a bunch of wildlife.

Now it was time to start branching out.

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Saturday Comic

With this strip we finish our sequence from Red and Rover. It’s the Sunday comic. Again, the joke isn’t about bare feet, but the writer captures the 1960s very nicely with Martin, Red’s older brother, showing how you really skateboarded back then. The strip is from June 22 last year.

Red and Rover, June 22, 2014

 

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A Field of Yellow

We’re continuing our trip to the Badlands. The hike my son and I took along the Castle Trail only took up the morning, so in the afternoon (June 12) we went for a drive looking for wildlife.

It was there in a field of yellow.

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