Two National Parks, One state park, and one National Monument.

Here is a more comprehensive video log of our trip to see Glacier National Park.

View from our campsite in Glacier National Park.

The West

Carole and I have taken several trips out west. And I took one without her to go backpacking. And when I look at some of the photos I took and recall the places I saw, I still find it hard to believe that I got to go and see those sights and experience those moments.

Two Medicine, Glacier NP.

Devils Tower.

Iceberg Lake, Glacier NP,

Bison, Black Hills.

The Needles, Black Hills.

Blue Lakes, Colorado.

Rocky Mountain National Park.

Longs Peak, Rocky Mountain National Park.

Weminuche Wilderness, Colorado.

Weminuche Wilderness, Colorado.

Absaroka Mountains, Yellowstone National Park.

Geyser, Yellowstone.

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.

Sleeping Grizzly bear. Lamar River, Yellowstone NP.

Bull Moose, Grand Tetons National Park.

Joshua Tree National Park, California.

Outside Joshua Tree NP.

Carole, in Joshua Tree NP.

Views!

Over the next couple of days I'll post some of the better photos we were able to take of the views both heading toward Glacier NP and while we were in the Park. It wasn't all choking ash and smoke. We had about three good days of clear skies with no smog. During that time I must have taken well over a thousand photos. I kept looking around and with every change in direction I found a new subject of mountain and horizon.

This was our campsite on Pray Lake. We were positioned on a pull-through site just a few steps from the rest room. The campground had a number of these nice rest rooms.

So, on our way...

I keep saying that there's something magical about the skies in Wyoming and Montana (when they're not packed with fire smoke).

A closeup view of the rock on the walls of Devils Tower.

I took this soon after we had set up camp. The smoke wasn't too bad at this point. And later a cold front pushed through, bringing rain and consistent winds that extinguished the local fires and knocked out the smoke clouds from Idaho and Washington.

This is an unusual waterfall that appears (and actually is) coming through a pierced rock wall. In earlier summer the water flow is sufficient that it also drops down over the top.

Early morning sight after the rains.

Rising Wolf Mountain just behind us.

And the view across Pray Lake as it's meant to be seen.

What a great view at the breakfast table!

I couldn't get enough photos of that view on the lake.

Early morning on Pray Lake.

Trailer Wash!

I'm going to be too busy working on fiction and washing the travel trailer today for me to blog. Sorry! So here are a few photos of our trip to Devils Tower.

One of our first good views of the Tower.

I took this one along the trail that leads you around the Tower.

These are prayer flags left by Native Americans for whom the Tower is sacred ground.

We also saw climbers scaling the Tower.

The Big Heads!

My wife enjoys historical parks. If she sees one around an area we're going to be in then she makes plans for us to try to stop.  Because of this, I have seen some really great places, including the Wright Brothers Memorial, the Coal Mining Museum in Beckley WV (truly--everyone should see that one), the Laura Ingalls Wilder home in Missouri, and many others.

I have never really wanted to see Mount Rushmore, so I was reluctant to go. I just figured it for another giant statue of famous white guys. But, like the Wright Brothers Memorial on the Outer Banks, it's far more than that. It's a museum of natural history, of art history, of engineering potential, and one to get the heart pumping for those of us who are only subliminally susceptible to propaganda. It's an exceptionally effective history site and just about everyone should see it. The day we were there it was packed with foreign tourists--more foreigners than Americans I would say.

We also took some time to glimpse the slowly forming Crazy Horse Memorial not far from Rushmore. When I was younger I figured that one for a pipe dream, but it looks to be coming along, although at a snail's pace. Perhaps it will be completed.

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, we arrived to find Mount Rushmore completely sheathed in very thick rainclouds. So we wandered around in the museums and watched a film narrated by that moron Tom Brokaw. When we emerged from the theater we found that the clouds were beginning to break.

I reckon my favorite President on the mountain.

Borglum pushed for Teddy Roosevelt to be on the Monument. There was initial pushback against this, but he insisted and the committee relented. In retrospect he was proved right.

And as we left, the clouds completely lifted above the mountain, affording us an unobstructed view.

We saw some mountain goats on the entrance road as we were leaving the Monument.

I took this photo the next morning as we were packing up to leave Custer State Park. I really want to go back to visit this park again, and to stay for at least a week.

From there, it was on to our next destination...Wyoming's DEVILS TOWER NATIONAL MONUMENT!

No Griz!

Well, we have returned home. Very long trip. Longest ever vacation. So much of it spent driving!

I now no longer have to imagine what it's like to witness a cloud of smoke that covers a huge portion of the North American continent. Between the historically enormous fires in Washington state (over 400 square miles) and the ones in Idaho, and the local fires in Montana we saw smoke clouds that spread over thousands and thousands of miles. Upon leaving, we actually drove for two days over three (enormous) western states trying to escape from the smoke. Only on the very eastern edge of South Dakota did we find ourselves free of most of it.

That said, we did have some days without smoke covering the skies. Three days in South Dakota and Wyoming, and roughly two and a half days in Glacier National Park (Montana). Then the fire smoke rolled in and obliterated the views. Most of the wildlife, also, seemed to fade from the landscape. Hiding? It sure seemed so.

We ended up never seeing a single grizzly bear, not one moose, and only two black bears (one of them a cub).

Details as I download the files and collect my thoughts.

Wyoming's Devil's Tower.