Utah

We’re presently holed up in Laughlin, Nevada, visiting family and chilling for a week.  It’s a casino town on the Colorado river which is a good place to pop into if you want to learn how to play the table games at quarter speed.

But before we got here, and after we left the various parks in Wyoming/Montana, we got around Utah and it’s various interesting rocks.  This’ll be a bit photo-heavy, else I’d have to think of something interesting to write.  You have wiki for that.

Take that, donkey-car

Arches
We started off in Salt Lake City, having driven there from Wyoming the previous day. The first of the parks we hit was Arches, so named for it’s improbably-shaped rock formations of sandstone.
  
  
Capitol Reef
The following day we went to Capitol Reef park and the weather was all over the place, resulting in some seriously moody looking hills.  It was still 40° in new money, mind.
     
Bryce Canyon
Later on in the day, the weather made up it’s mind and lashed down. Challenge accepted.
  

Zion
The following day was our last day in Utah, so we had to make sure to go through Zion Canyon, as this was meant to be the more spectacular of the set.  All the greenery belies the fact that this is the middle of the desert.  It is rather stunning.
     
  
  

And then we were off.  That night’s hotel had a rather different vista:

Kurzfassung auf Deutsch: Wir sahen viele interessante Dinge in Utah und dann verloren wir unser Geld in Las Vegas.

Chipmunks and Bison and Bears, oh my!

So, the next of the big national parks was Yellowstone, which was the first US public space to be federally designated as such. It’s a bit of a monster: about 9000km2 (or 40% the size of Wales, using the standardized British media comparative scale).

Despite it’s many millions of annual visitors in “Recreational Vehicles” with greater floorspace than some flats I’ve rented, they attempt to leave the natural environment as unaffected as possible. Which means there are thriving populations of allsorts including bear, wolves and bison.

Bison are empirically the most dangerous animals in the park, as people have a habit of forgetting that they are both wild animals and 2 tonnes of idiotic grumpiness with horns.

 
They come in large and small varieties

The Americans got excited about spotting these mountain goats, which are somewhat elusive. They are white dots on the horizon before all the zooming, which is why my photos of them look like possible yeti spottings.
 

Goats: allegedly

The elk hang around the more domestic areas, as the bears and wolves are less likely to frequent there. Which is smart.

“I ain’t goin’ nowhere. Get yo’ own lawn. Sheeeit”

Some of them are very silly, however.  This is Derek:

Give him a Wagon Wheel and he calms right down.

Here we found a family of moose, mooses or possibly meece:

“Moooo”. Possibly

And, much to Chan’s delight, we spotted bears on both days we were looking. Five in all but I only managed to pap four of them. I’m not totally sure on morphology but this one is definitely a Black bear (which can be several colours other than black, helpfully):



This zoomed-in dot was a Grizzly, I was reliably informed by a confident American in a baseball cap – so that guy's credentials check out:

Pictured: Definitely not a tree stump

This is a grizzly that we were all a lot closer to. He was worryingly easy to lose in the tall grass:

Sneaky fucker

And this guy, who rather helpfully lured us all out of our vehicles by parading out in a open meadow.  You’ve only got to run faster than the next guy.

Clever girl

And then we have the chipmunk and the squirrel.  The chipmunk was sound - we got on famously.

Stout fellow

The Squirrel and I had a right falling out, though.  He chased me away from the nut he was carrying. Plainly not into sharing.

What a prick

Kurzfassung auf Deutsch: Wir entdeckten Bären und ich ärgerte ein Eichhörnchen.

Going-to-the-Sun Road

Apologies for delayed updates. We have been WiFi-less which has meant that all the hours that G would usually have spent mindlessly staring at his phone has had to be used more constructively, hence us being 1700+ miles further on since we last posted!

Glacier Park is a National Park in Montana. We purchased an annual pass which allows entry to the numerous national parks. It is $80 (£55) and allows entry for two pass holders with a vehicle. It is called the 'America the Beautiful' pass and therein I feel lies our problem in good old Blighty: We too live in a place which has gorgeous scenery and interesting wildlife - although without the danger of the wildlife seeing you as a snack (that said only 7 people have been killed by bears ever in Yellowstone, yet 12 people have been trampled to death by cows in the UK in the last 6 years) and I think we need to get a bit more American about boasting about our patch: come on National Trust, be more Dog.

The reason for coming to Glacier Park was to travel a route called the Going-to-the-Sun Road , which is a 50 mile road across the mountains and is only passable from late June/early July each year to early September.

Glacier Park was formed by Glaciers ages ago. The current remaining glaciers were formed around 7,000 years ago. It was weird to see them, bright and shiny and just "over there" yet know that some parts of them have never been touched by humans.

The Pics: