Archive for September, 2013
It’s still only September…
… but the weather is more like November. This might end up as the wettest Seattle September since 1978; thirty-five years ago. That will be no surprise after watching the University of Washington and Oregon football games yesterday and having peered out as pretty much steady rain since Tuesday. I see SeaTac airport had 1.71 inches of rain yesterday and Astoria, on the coast, got almost 4 inches. The Weather Channel is forecasting a major storm tonight with 2 to 5 inches of rain and winds as high as 70 mph.
Related articles
- Saturday was wettest September day on record (komonews.com)
- 2 storm systems will make for a windy, wet fall football weekend (seattletimes.com)
Fall IS Here
After a splendid, sunny fall day yesterday we were greeting with light drizzle this morning. It looks like the next 5-6 days will be the same:
Home Again
The drive home from Kalispell was super easy; just 488 miles in perfect weather and beautiful scenery over the first 100 miles of so to I-90 . Even got home in time to watch the UW football game. After covering 1,108 miles on the first two days the rest of the trip was pretty easy with our total miles driven at 3,408.
Glacier National Park
We finally made it. After living just eight hours away from Glacier for eighteen years we finally visited this iconic park. The scenery is fantastic;. even this time of the year when the water flows are at their lowest. We had a great day. We spent an hour or so walking the Trail of the Cedars path. At Logan Pass we had a leisurely lunch seated on a big flat boulder, gazing at majestic Mount Reynolds in the distance. On the return direction we even spotted a couple of bears cavorting on the cliffs.
Glacier National Park
Bozeman to Kalispell
One of our shortest driving days: just 311 miles from Bozeman to Kalispell. We had time to check in at the Best Western and take a short trip into Glacier National Park before nightfall. Looking forward to full exploration tomorrow. This Best Western was a real surprise: a very nice motel and we had a huge room with a balcony, fireplace and whirlpool tub.
Our room was at the top left
Spearfish Canyon
Since we only had a 400-mile drive today to get to Bozeman, MT, we decided to spend a bit of time in the morning driving the Spearfish Canyon scenic byway, a twenty-mile stretch due south of Spearfish. It was still another lovely drive along Spearfish Creek with views of the steep canyon walls and numerous waterfalls. It made for a very relaxing start to the day and we ended up spending well over two hours in the Canyon. Here’s a very short video of some of our photos.
Roughlock Falls
A Special Day–Wild Horses
We weren’t sure what to expect as we made the drive to Hot Springs, SD and the Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary. What a marvelous experience. It was just Trisha and me as our guide, Mark, drove us over hundreds of acres of the sanctuary to see some of the beautiful mustangs running free on the vast grasslands. Some of these magical animals were curious and tame enough that they approached us and we could pat their gorgeous snouts and feed them handfuls of grass. It was just so cool to see hundreds of horses living completely free. Here’s a short video…
Custer State Park; Needles Highway
A day of leisure driving. We stopped back at Mt. Rushmore to spend a bit more time at the inside exhibit. Then off to Custer State Park, the Iron Mountain Road with its Pigtail Bridges, the Needles Highway and the Wildlife Loop.
Needles Highway tunnel
Badlands National Park
We zipped out of the Cambria Suites early this morning to maximize our time at Badlands. We did the traditional stop at Wall Drugs where I had mammoth pancakes for breakfast. Yummy! The rest of the day we cruised around Badland National Park stopping countless times for photographs although the overcast sky wasn’t optimal for picture taking.
Mt. Rushmore & Bear Country
After struggling, believe it or not, to find a Starbuck’s for a latte to start the day we spent the morning visiting Mount Rushmore. What a fabulous setting. It was more impressive than I remember as a ten-year-old over 50 years ago. From the famous monument we drove a bit through Custer State Park then stopped off at Bear Country USA, one of those drive-through wild-life parks. It was very cool: in addition to dozens of bears we saw elk, big horn sheep, a wolf, mountain goats, pronghorn sheep, reindeer, bobcats, et al., all very close up.
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