Category: on the road LEARNING Page 5 of 8

It was a crazy windstorm last night. We even closed the slide out because it was making so much noise. I’m glad we explored and went walking last night. We woke up and stayed hunkered down in the RV and listened to the wind howl. At least I was finally able to update the last week of posts that I have been unable to because lack of proper internet for upload pictures.

We checked out the visitor center and here’s some info on the Great Salt Lake

The Great Salt Lake is in a very shallow basin. It is about 75 miles long by 35 miles wide, but is only about 33 feet deep at its max. Great Salt Lake at him as a terminal lake because 4 rivers and several streams flow into the lake but because of its shallow basin NO rivers flow out. The only way water leaves is through evaporation. This is partially why it’s salt level is so great. The water evaporates and the salt and other minerals are left behind. The other reason is because the lake is a remnant of the Pleistocene era lake called Lake Bonneville: as the lake dried up the salt remained.

Antelope are the 2nd Fastest mammal on the planet…which puts them as the FASTEST mammal in North America. They can run 70 miles an hour. Did you know that bison can run up to 40 miles an hour? Also an antelope eyes are almost as big as elephants; they can see almost 360° and can see movement 4 miles away.

Great Basin is a National Park we weren’t very excited about going to…and it may been left out of our loop because it’s kind of in the middle of nowhere. Since we were kind of stuck in Salt Lake City anyway we decided this was the time to do the almost 5 hour drive from Salt Lake City. We would never really drive to this area of Nevada probably not go this direction again as it isn’t really close to anything so it was a good thing to get out of the way in the 2 1/2 days we had before we could pick up our generator again. Plus, any other direction we went there was too much to see and it would take us longer than that many days and we wouldn’t want to have backtracked again. You know what they say when you’re not expecting much it’s often better than you expected. I’m really happy we did make it out this way. You’re driving through hours of desert to get there. Actually we drove on what was what is dubbed “the Loneliest Road in America”, highway 50 between Salt Lake City and Reno.

One thing we were kind of excited about was that the “southern taurids” were happening in the night sky and Great Basin is known for its night sky. It is so far away from anywhere else it is one of the areas in America that has the least amount of light pollution. Unfortunately it was almost a full moon and so the sky was very bright. We did not see any of the fireballs we were hoping to see.

Light pollution is a real thing… In 2016 Great Basin National Park has been designated an “International Dark Sky Park”

Great Basin National Park lies to the East of the Great Basin Desert. There are 4 defined in North America. The Great Basin Desert is huge and covers the entire area Sierra to the Wasatch Mountains. The uplifting of the Sierra Nevada 15 million years ago created the rainshadow which is now the desert. They say that Great Basin National Parka is an island in terms of fauna. It’s water system is not attached to the ocean in any way and there’s so much desert around it that no animal can make its way into the national park or leave the national Park. Wheeler Peak with an elevation of 13,065’ high, enough to cause its own weather for Great Basin National Park, The pic is high enough that the weather needs to drop it’s moisture to cross the mountain pass. another interesting thing is that you go through five ecosystems in a very short period of time. Desert, Sagebrush Prairie, Juniper Pinyon Pine, Alpine, Sub Alpine.

This whole area is also known as Basin and Range. The thinning of the crust created mountains and then over time over because of erosion it created flat basins.

We started off in the visitor center with a snake presentation. The Sonoran King Snake tried to mimic the poisonous Coral Snake. To tell them apart here’s a little riddle. Red on Yellow, Kill a Fellow. Red on Black, Friend of Jack.

The Gopher Snake tries to mimic the Rattlesnake. They’re very similar in color and the gopher snake is even able to make a hissing sound similar to a rattlesnake. What you really need to look at is the tail. Want to go for snake it’s stripes go all the way down to its tail.

One of the things Great Basin National Park is known for are the Lehman caves and the Bristlecone Pine‘s.

We found out we weren’t able to drive up to Wheeler Peak because we’re over the 24 foot vehicle allowance. We are pretty bummed because that’s where all the old Bristlecone Pine trees are. So we decided to do the Lehman Cave tour first and maybe we could finagle a ride up there.

Lehman Caves. it’s pretty neat down there. It always stays a constant 52°F no matter if it’s the summer or the winter. There is a one natural opening that is 150 feet above the ground. Of course they have since built an entrance for tours. One thing that was pretty remarkable is that for a few minutes they turned out all the lights and it’s very surprising that you cannot see your hand in front of your face. Period. Whatsoever. To the point where both Edwin and I both hit our own noses with our hands looking for our hands. You don’t really think that things can be really that 100% dark.

Lehman Caves is by no means the largest cave in United States. It’s actually quite small, only a few miles long. The mammoth caves in Kentucky are huge as well as Carlsbad caverns and Arizona. But what is significant about the Lehman caves is that it contains over 300 shield formations. The Carlsbad Cavern has 2 for example.

Quick science: Water drips down from the ground water above. The calcite in the water is what makes up the formations. There are two distinct formations; stalactites and stalagmites. To easily know the difference which one grows from the ceiling down and which from grows from the ground up… Stalactites has a “c” for ceiling, they grow down from the ceiling. Stalagmites has a “g” in it and they grow up from the ground. When a stalactite and a stalagmite meet they form a column.

After the cave tour we had lunch in the visitor center and we were surprisingly floored by how good the food was. They’re handmade potato chips were off the hook. We also start looking for a ride up to Wheeler Peak and the cook was nice enough to offer us his car (not drive us up, but give us his keys and return it) but he said don’t worry about the 24 foot length restriction…our car would make it up just fine especially since there weren’t that many people.

The drive up in our car was totally fine and I’m glad we took the RV. We did the 3 mile walk up to the Bristlecone Pine Forest. I still remember my dad taking us to Bristlecone Pines in the Eastern Sierra‘s when I was little and I’m happy we came here. There is something very very cool about these trees.

Bristlecone Pine trees can live up to 5000 years old. It’s pretty crazy to think how much the world they have seen in this one area. They are used to growing an adverse conditions 9 to 11,000 feet in elevation, with little moisture.

Because of cold temperatures, dry soils, high winds, and short growing seasons, the trees grow very slowly. that is also what gives the Bristlecone Pine tree it’s an usual swirly luck because it is growing in adverse conditions all the time. It’s needles, which grow in bunches of five, can remain on the tree for forty years. Even the dead trees can remain standing for thousands of years.

We ended up taking a detour to an alpine lake. So happy we did because it had a thin layer of ice across the whole lake and skipping rocks, throwing ice, and listening to the sounds of the pieces skip across the top

6th National Park

In Nevada. 7th State

You would think we would’ve had a great night sleep in a hotel but it was quite the opposite. We miss our little cocoon.

We woke up early and went for a walk to liberty Park, I was beautiful little park located at 600E 900S. And the city and court building located in the middle of a park in Washington square was a really cool building.

We picked up the RV and drove out to Antelope Island to see the Great Salt Lake. The girls are not impressed and do not think it is that great, but I think that’s just due to the amount of mosquitoes that are out here and the smell of brine shrimp. We did see both antelope and a bison as we drove to our campground, Bridger Campground. I would’ve gone swimming because I wanted to float in the salt, but I don’t think Edwin would’ve let me back into the bed, let alone the RV.

The sunset was beautiful though as promised

After being traumatized by being in back in civilization for a day in Salt Lake we found the Timpooneke campground in the Uinta National Forest southwest of Salt Lake. Today was the first day in a long while we woke up in the RV and did NOT move it for any reason and went to bed. It was a much needed day of staying in one place.

We had fun shooting bow and arrows, playing around the campsite, building a fire, Edwin worked on getting more solar panels working, and most importantly, no driving the RV to a destination, going to the store etc…

We did walk around the trails in the campground and thought there were a lot of cars and realized half of Salt Lake came up to the mountains to take their fall foliage pictures for their annual family picture/Christmas card. Back to our little secluded campground we go.

But Isabella did talk me into doing a quick little photo shoot the two of them. She asked for a family one and I said if you can get dad to say yes then sure. Dad was working on the solar so it was a sister shoot. I was even talked into new grabbing out my big camera so most of them are on there but here’s a quick few from my phone

So the reason we did the crazy drive to Salt Lake was for a few reasons. 1. It was the easiest way for my mom to get home 2. The cheapest ($2000 to fly home from the town of Jackson). Too bad we didn’t run into a Hollywood star that my mom could’ve flown home with. 3. But really because our generator started smoking like crazy in Yellowstone and there is a Cummins dealer in Salt Lake. It only has 30 hours on it and we needed to get it fixed.

We had an appointment this am at 9am and were hoping it would be a quick fix. When Edwin fired it up they said they have to bring in the vehicle to their bay to check it out. We decided to be efficient and grab our laundry which we were in need of doing and taking an Uber to the laundromat thinking it would be fixed in the time it took to do laundry. No such luck. They called midway through the wash cycle saying that they would need the vehicle/generator for a week. That they could take out the generator and we could have our RV back and come back next week. Bummer. Then they called another 30 minutes later with more bad news. Taking out the generator would not be so easy and they didn’t have the time/manpower to take it out today so we would have to return on Monday to take out the generator, then return next Friday to pick it back up. Or, pick up the RV and fix it at another location on our route. Double bummer. But we kind of need our generator. Especially with going through cold water, wanting hot showers etc…

So we are making the most of it. I guess this is part of the RV life. We decided to go check out Sundance for a few days, hit up the great Salt Lake and will return on Monday.

Laundry at a laundromat. The girls were excited about what a laundromat is…that quickly faded once we entered. But this is also part of RV living

We are now back in our RV, have clean clothes, and are figuring out what to do next.

I’m so happy my mom came on the trip. I think it was great for her and we all enjoyed having her with us. We did a speed drive to Salt Lake City to get her on an airplane. We are going to miss you mom.

The original plan was to leave this morning but after the snowy weather yesterday and the bluebird day today we decided to push it. We woke up early this morning. My mom‘s flight was at 8pm so with the 5 hour drive to Salt Lake City we wanted to be in the car leaving by 1pm 1:30pm the absolute latest. Which also meant our turn around time from the canyon was around 11am.

It was essentially just a speed drive through down to Salt Lake. We drove from Wyoming to Idaho back to Wyoming down into Utah.

Utah. State number 6.

What a beautiful day!! An amazing day actually! The forecast said it would be clear today and it was. We woke up early because we wanted to get in a hike today before we drove my mom to the airport. It was a blissful 23 degrees when we woke up to watch the sunrise over the Grand Tetons. Not a cloud in the sky. Days like this is why you are here. On our drive to Jenny Lake we saw another male standoff, this time between 2 bull elk and their harem. The one bull elk with 15 just bugled and the other elk’s 5 females went over to the larger male.

The kids were not happy to be getting up early to go for a walk, especially since it was pretty cold outside…but we could not pass up this day. It was a an amazing bluebird day. The boat rides across Jenny Lake closed last week because of weather so it added on an extra 3 miles, which I was a bit nervous about at first since my mom was with us. Our goal was to hike into Cascade Canyon, right at the base of Grand Teton and Teewinot. Along the way we hiked to hidden falls and inspiration point. I’m so happy we did not do this hike yesterday as intended because I bet we would’ve turned around 1/2 mile in since it was snowing, but to not have done it would have been a sincere bummer.

We were up and out on the trail early. We were the first ones in the parking lot. The weather was still brisk but the sun felt so good. It was beautiful walking around Jenny lake through all the aspens. Everything about the hike was great. The crankiness of the morning wore off by mile 2, we found hidden falls because the trail led straight there (not so hidden falls :)), were “inspired” at inspiration point, and made it up to the canyon, and there was not a cloud in the sky the whole time. My mom did great. So happy we stayed for today. I love it here.