Yellowstone National Park

We had an awesome trip to Yellowstone National Park last week. My parents and my brother & sister-in-law (Rob and Sarah) met us there and we all camped together in the Norris campground. We had a fantastic time reminiscing about past family trips to Yellowstone and showing Mike and Sarah the park for the first time.

Here are a few favorite photos:

A glimpse of the Tetons on our way to Yellowstone
At Norris Geyser Basin on our first morning in the park
I love that I caught these two mid-laugh. Aren't they fun?
(Yes, those are my parents, even though they look waaaay too young to have adult children like me.)
This is one of the most beautiful things about Yellowstone -- steam rising amid the dark green pines.
And here's the other most beautiful thing in Yellowstone -- the grand canyon and the falls are stunning.
Mammoth Hot Springs
Dad & Mom cooking breakfast. We ate really well on the camping trip: stuffed French toast, grilled salmon, corn on the cob, homemade ice cream, s'mores. Yummy.
Here's the obligatory Old Faithful photo. It really is stunning, but also so crowded. This year Yellowstone National Park set a new record for attendance: 2.5 million.
And here are the wildlife photos. We saw tons of bison, but just a couple of elk, some deer, and a wolf (though it might have been a coyote).
On our way out of the park, Mike and I saw a grizzly bear with a cub! I have to admit, that was the most exciting wildlife sighting of the trip. And I didn't even get a photo.
On our last night together, it snowed. Pretty hard. Mom & Dad and Rob & Sarah were staying in Mom & Dad's tent trailer, so we all ate dinner there together, played cards, and ate popcorn. It was great fun.
Mike and I felt pretty tough sleeping in our tent after it had snowed for a couple of hours. But we were really warm and cozy, and when we woke up the next morning most of the snow was gone.

The trip to Yellowstone was great. We're planning to make another family trip there in a few years and hopefully everyone can make it then. It's such a beautiful place. Being there with the family brings back great memories.

(I didn't get a photo of the whole group together at the falls. Mom or Sarah, if you have one please send it my way!)

12,000 Feet

In August Mike and I camped in the Snowy Range and hiked to the summit of Medicine Bow Peak, the highest point in the Medicine Bow range at about 12,000 feet. Here are a few photos from our adventure.

This is our new tent on its inaugural run. Camping at about 9,000 feet is a little chilly, even in August, but we stayed warm.
Here's where our hike started.
And it ended at the top of that peak. It was a steep, rocky climb.
We had this view from near the top. Gorgeous!

Mike's B-Day!

Last weekend, Melissa and I spent my birthday in Denver! We had a great time going to the Denver Art Museum (DAM) and a Colorado Rockies baseball game. The major attraction at the DAM is a King Tut exhibit. We saw some fascinating statues and artifacts from ancient Egypt. Photography was not allowed inside the exhibit, but if you'd like to see some images of a few of the artifacts we saw, you can check out this exhibition preview.

Here are a couple of cool photos of the DAM:

The building on the left is the newer part of the museum.

The above building is the older part of the museum.

Some photography was allowed outside the King Tut exhibit. Here are a couple of interesting pieces of art from the DAM:

Here are a couple of shots of Coors Field, one before the game and the other mid-pitch.


The Rockies beat the Cubs that night with an exciting 9th-inning, tie-breaking home run. It was a thrilling finish!

Simone in the Sink

This morning we found Simone hanging out here:

Simone says, "I'm here for a nap, not a bath."

Institute for Information Literacy, Burlington, Vermont

I was lucky to spend a week at an intensive information literacy retreat in Burlington, Vermont in July. The location was beautiful and I learned a lot -- some of it I'll put to use immediately at work and much of it will be useful to me as the information literacy program at my library matures. It was an awesome experience. One attendee described it as, "a vision quest minus the peyote." I met some amazing instruction librarians who are working on issues similar to mine, and much of what I brought home came from conversations with my cohort. Here are just a few photos:

The Institute was held at Champlain College. This is a view from the 3rd floor of the library. You can see Lake Champlain in the distance. Burlington is such a beautiful place!

Church Street, Burlington's downtown area
Of course I went to Ben & Jerry's. It comes from Vermont!
Some of my new friends from Immersion celebrating democracy (which is, in part, what librarianship is all about).
Most of our time was spent working . . . .
But on the last day we had a special performance by the faculty. Ha! Respected and esteemed librarians singing and dancing -- love it.
Speaking of singing and dancing, we had an outing to the Von Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, Vermont.
Where we had an Austrian dinner (yum)
And a singalong. (You can see the harp accompanist in the distance.)
I was very excited about the singing, and even jumped up for a solo rendition of "Edelweiss" (a la Georg Von Trapp at the Salzburg Music Festival)
What can I say? I'm a giant fan of The Sound of Music.

Alaskan Adventure 2010, Part 2

Here are a couple more pictures of Denali:

Our day in the park was so beautiful!

After spending a day and a night in Denali National Park we traveled to Anchorage, and from Anchorage to Whittier, where we embarked on an afternoon cruise in Prince William Sound to see some glaciers:

This is Surprise Glacier, which we saw calve! (Calving means it loses a chunk of ice into the water.)

While in Anchorage, we also hiked up to Thunderbird Falls. So pretty!

We had a great time on the trip, spending time with family and seeing new sights. Thanks to Sheri for hosting all of us and planning the trip!

Bob and Emily (Mike's brother and sister-in-law) traveled with us to Alaska, and they've just posted an 8-part series on the trip on their blog. Bob took some amazing pictures that you can see on their blog: http://bibbidibobilyboo.blogspot.com/

Alaskan Adventure 2010, Part 1

The parts of Alaska that we saw last week were so beautiful. There was rainforest, taiga, tundra, and boreal forest. There were moose, sea otters, seals, and all kinds of birds. We had a fantastic time with half of Mike's family (Sheri, Nick, Bob & Emily) and we missed the other half (Garth, Rachel & Jacob). It was light for 21 hours of the day! We arrived at 1:30 a.m. on Saturday, July 3rd and were totally disoriented by the weird twilight (it looked like maybe 4 or 5 in the afternoon).

Here are some favorite pictures, from our various stops along the way:

Mike loving his kettle corn at the Fairbanks farmer's market
At the Alaska Pipeline near Fairbanks
Downtown Fairbanks (check out those hanging baskets!)
Some of the Terrys at Pioneer Park in Fairbanks (hanging baskets again)
Mike with Santa at North Pole, AK
Mike riding a salmon at the Salmon Bake (yum!)
University of Alaska Fairbanks, Library
Sheri's dogs, Zeus & Ziggy, rode around with us a little in the Yukon
We took a Riverboat Discovery Tour on the Chena River. Beautiful!
We saw this racing dog team while on the river. They're Iditarod champions!
Our riverboat tour stopped in a (replica of an) Athabascan Village. Here's one of the cabins. The sod on top works great as insulation.
This old Polaris replaced a dog sled team. But, some of the dog sledders told us that dogs are much better because they don't break down or run out of fuel.
After spending a few days in Fairbanks, we went to Denali National Park. Mt. McKinley, aka Denali, aka "the mountain" was visible, but I didn't get a great picture of it (see above). At 20,320 feet it's the highest peak in North America!
Fireweed in Denali.

More on Denali, Anchorage, and glaciers in the next post! Coming soon . . .

For even more photos, see our Alaska 2010 set on Flickr.