The Adventure's of April - Day 3

As you can tell, this post is a little late, due to the busyness of our schedule the past two days. 

We are arrived in Arizona at Charles & Nan Braught's house (Nathan's grandparents) safe and sound last night about 10:00pm. 

But I will explain how we got here and the details of all of that, tomorrow :) 

So we got up early Wednesday morning and spent a couple hours in Jackson enjoying the beauty and pure awesomeness that is Jackson Hole, WY. We walked around downtown and went into a pretty sweet camera - photo supply shop, some gift shops, found a few cool souvenirs, and got some tasty coffee at one of the coolest Starbucks I've ever been in! 

Nathan's favorite building in Jackson. 

Nathan and I were hoping the cloud cover and snow would clear up as it got later in the morning, but it did not.  We tried to head back north to try and see some of the Tetons but had to turn back after about 30 minutes, due to heavy snow and fog and the roads being quite atrocious :( 

That was a major bummer to us, as that was one of the things we were most looking forward to seeing and photographing along this trip. 

It continued to be snowy and foggy for quite a while as we drove along the snake river in the Bridger National Park. 

 This was so gorgeous driving along this river gorge. The water was so green and clear, we went for a little hike along the river and quite enjoyed ourselves :) 

 After we got out of the canyon the land got flatter and it was raining to the right of us and looked so cool! 

Cool antler arch over the road... Pretty much the only elk we saw on this trip ;p 

After all that driving through Wyoming, we finally reached Idaho!

Super low clouds along the mountains. 

We made a stop at Bear Lake State Park, which straddles the Idaho and Utah state line. 

A cute little Groundhog that kept us company at the lake.

The water was a brilliant blue/green, it was amazing.

Epic clouds above the lake.

Driving through the Bear Lake river valley and the Cache National Forest in Utah was amazing. The red foliage around the creek, the brilliant green/blue water, and low fog, and drizzling rain... It was gorgeous. 

Heavy fog and clouds driving through Northern Utah. 

The sun starting to go down as we were getting closer to the Salt Lake City area. 

It was dark by the time we go to Salt Lake City, and so I didn't get to photograph anything in that area, sadly :( We got to our hotel in Nephi, UT around 10:30pm and had a fantastic nights sleep. 

I will try to post again tomorrow sometime of all that we did yesterday. 

Until then, have a wonderful evening!

The Adventure's of April - Day 2

Bighorn National Park, scenic overlook.

We got going about 8:00am on Tuesday morning, after having breakfast and a long talking/researching session with the motel manager and some other guests... Turns out none of the roads around Yellowstone National Park were open yet for the season, so we had to change our route somewhat. So that was a bummer, to not be able to go there. But the way we went still had tons of gorgeous scenery and lots of things to see. We had a hard time getting anywhere, we stopped so much! 

Right after leaving the little town of Ranchester, we entered the Bighorn National Park, and mountain range. It was absolutely spectacular to drive through. Two full hours of none stop beauty and magnificence.

Overlooking Ranchester and beyond.

We even saw some cool wildlife... deer in this area and a couple hawks later on.

As we got higher and higher into the mountain range, reaching an elevation of 8,568ft. the scenery changed quite a bit. There was lots of snow and tree covered landscape.

After a while we started going down hill a bit more and things turned more into canyon and desert. We made a stop at Shell Falls, though it wasn't really open, since when does that stop us ;p 

Panoramic view of the mountains at Shell Falls.

 We drove for about an hour or two when we reached the town of Thermopolis, the location of the World's largest Mineral Hot Springs. It was so fascinating! 

Tepee fountain

The mouth of the spring.

That is all solid mineral build up from the water. It just went on and on.

Swinging bridge and some of the mineral water flowing under the boardwalk.

After leaving Thermopolis, pretty much right away we entered Wind River Canyon, it was beyond spectacular... having huge cliffs and mountains shooting up into the sky on either side of you, just feet from the road side.

We went through a series of three of these tunnels, one right after the next.

Once we were through the 15-20 miles of canyon, we came out on the other side to see that the landscape was flattening out quickly. 

But it didn't stay that way for too long, we were quickly approaching the Shoshone National Forest.

The temperature majorly dropped and we started to head up into high elevation again. The roads were slick from the snow and ice, but Nathan cruised through there like a pro and we did fine.

We then reached the highest point of the range and saw the Continental Divide, Nathan's first time ever seeing it. It was pretty cool to say the least!

Then we drove back down into some valleys and reached the boarder of the Grand Teton National park!

It was quite a bummer though, we drove for about an hour through the Tetons and couldn't see much of anything because of the heavy fog and snow surrounding the mountains. Which was also making it quite dark and hard to see anything.

At long last, after a very scenic day of travel, we arrived in Jackson, WY. We absolutely love it here, it's probably my favorite town I have ever seen or been in. Don't be surprised if we move here... ;) 

We had a great nights sleep and a terrific stay in our mountain view motel downtown. Today we are going to attempt to view more of the Tetons, then shall be heading to Idaho, and Utah!

I'll keep you all posted! 

The Adventure's of April - Day 1

Nathan and I left bright and early Monday morning, right as the sun was coming up. We made it to Fargo, ND and made a quick stop to fuel up, gas for the car and some Caribou coffee for the two of us. 

The next few hours of the trip went smoothly. We stopped again in Bismark, and then once we got to Mandan, we took a scenic byway for the next hour or so and got to see a lot of beautiful land and scenery. 

We got to the Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the historic town of Medora, later that afternoon and checked out their super cool museum they have there. And spent about an hour exploring as much as we could of the park in the short amount of time we had.

Panoramic shot of the eastern view of the park.

Got to see quite a lot of buffalo, and get up close to a couple of them.

After that we didn't take any unnecessary stops, having still 5 hours of driving ahead of us till we would reach our hotel in Wyoming. 

I really enjoyed driving through Montana, the scenery was gorgeous. Such large expanses of huge rolling hills, dotted with farms and ranches. We weren't too super impressed with the towns we stopped in looking for post cards... but other than that Montana was pretty cool ;) 

Montana railroad tracks and  scenery at dusk.

We reached our hotel at long last around 11:00pm after a long day... and were very eager for a good nights sleep! 

Stay tuned for tomorrows update on our travels as we drive through Wyoming. 

Time to hit the road...

Taken near Clearbrook, MN.

This past week has flown by so quickly for us! We are pretty much all packed, except for the last minute things we have to grab as we head out the door, and ready to hit the road early tomorrow morning. We are shooting for a departure time of somewhere between 4:00-5:00 am, in hopes that we can reach our destination in Racnhester, WY, at a decent hour tomorrow evening. 

 Not too sure what interesting things we will see along the way while in North Dakota ;p Though I'm certain we will find some pretty things in Montana to photograph. I will be sure to post some good shots of the Bighorn National Forest, WY our first planned scenic stop on the trip.

Well, I shall keep you all posted on our events as tomorrow unfolds, until then, farewell! 

Lake views...

Strong winds blew in some big grey clouds today. It's been raining and sleeting off and on this afternoon, and the wind has been blowing hard. 

I stopped by the lake in Leonard on my way home from work earlier... And as you can see the ice is just starting to melt off of the lakes around here. 

There were even a couple Canadian geese out there braving the chilly waters. 

I wonder if there will still be ice on the lakes when we return from our trip the end of April... I guess we will have to just wait and see!