We were already two days late and still 700 miles away from home.  Instead of driving straight through my dad said we could camp on the beach or go visit my cousins.  I love the beach, but I chose the cousins because they are so fun and adorable.  We have the best family, I wished I could see them more (hint, hint J-Fly).   We took a scenic route down through Santa Barbara and the wine country and stopped at my Uncle Mitch’s house for the night.  We got there late so we camped out in his front yard. In the morning we got locked out of the house and I had to go pee! So I ended up tree peeing in his yard!  Think of it as fertilizer Mitch.

Then 2 hours later super Dane (my cousin) came to my rescue.  We waited for Laci to wake up and watched 101 Dalmatians.  Q-Daddy woke up and after finishing the movie we went swimming.

Laci, Rangel and Dane

We showered up and then met J-Fly (my other uncle) and his posse for lunch.

Dane, Laci, Rangel, Caroline, David & Jack

We went to Red Robbin and had a great burger.  After lunch we played Rock-Paper-Sissors and said our goodbyes, despite all my efforts to convince my dad to stay one more day.  Now we are heading home! Mixed emotions!

I collected key chains from the areas we visted and am going to attach them to my backpack to remind me of the fun we had.  Here  they are:

Wednesday was the day we were supposed to be back home.  As you have probably noticed, we are 750 miles away.  Thanks to Mom, Tamara (my dad’s assistant) and all his clients for patiently waiting for our return.  We slept in late as it was a foggy morning.  Then we rented a really warm 5/4 wet suit, went to lunch and got hot chocolate!  We came home and Ted and Renee went kite surfing with my dad while Grammy and I went to the beach. I boogie boarded while Grammy watched. Then it was time to go in. We cooked dinner and cheered on team USA at the Olympics.

Today we got up early and went surfing.  Uncle Ted swam next to me and pushed  me into the waves on his long board.  I was able to get up a few times.  It was super wobbly.  On one ride I looked over and saw a sea otter playing in the surf too!  He was just as cute as Uncle Ted in his flippers.

I made pancakes for Ted as a thank you.  Grammy and Auntie Ne went to a farm while my dad, Jazzy and I went to the Boardwalk and rode roller coasters for three hours.  Thanks Jazzy for being such a great tour guide!  After the Boardwalk it was time to hit the beach!  I love playing volleyball in the sand and swimming in the ocean.  After a while Grammy yelled “FINS.”  Three bottle nose dolphins were playing in surf.  It was very cool.

Exhausted, we had dinner and went to sleep.  Tomorrow we finally start our journey home.

Rangel & Q-Daddy.

We stopped at the Tahoe Keys Marina (my dad can’t pass a marina without stopping to look at the boats) and decided to rent a jet ski.We zoomed up the coastline and had lunch in Emerald Bay.  Here we are in the middle of the lake taking turns jumping from Nevada to California.

We got back to our camp site, cooked a delicious dehydrated chicken teriyaki, and rode our bikes down to a general store for a fudgesicle.  It was dark and a little spooky on the trail home.  The forest smelled like Christmas trees.

We were still a little tired so we went to bed early.  I fixed some awesome tasty omelettes in the morning.  We jumped on our bikes and set off to ride the 1960 winter Olympics cross country ski track.  Here is my tribute to Lady Liberty.

It was my Grandmother’s birthday so after a quick shower we drove down the mountain to Santa Cruz to have dinner with her and my Auntie Ne, Uncle Ted and cuz Jasmin.  It was fun to see everyone, tell stories from out trip and hear stories of Ryan’s recent visit with them.  More stories from the beach coming soon.

Rangel & Q-Daddy.

I thought I saw a bear so I made my dad drive the same stretch of road three times.  No bear, oops.  That night we had dinner near Jenny Lake.  I chased squirrels around while my dad cooked dinner.  The campground was full, so we decided to check into a HOTEL in Jackson, Wyoming.  The town square had these cool antler arches.    I was very happy to have a bed to myself and a shower!  I went right to sleep.  The next day went on a ten mile bike ride through the farms south of town.  I was still a little sleepy, but got really excited when my dad said it was time to turn around.  After the ride, I took my first real shower in five days.  Very nice to be clean again.  We stopped at a grocery store and re-stocked our supplies before heading west.  You can never have enough hot chocolate!

Rangel & Q-Daddy

Rangel’s Homeland

Rangel finally found a place she feels at home!  Smile.  Traveling to the northwest entrance of Yellowstone National Park took us through the Shoshone National Forrest.  Everything in the area was huge, the mountains, the glaciers, the lakes, and the trees.  It was late by the time we arrived in Cook City and decided to stay there rather than try to make it to Gardner.  After checking in to a hotel, we took a short hike to Trout Lake.

After the hike we headed West to the Lamar River Valley, a wide valley with a river running through the middle.  We parked alongside the road overlooking a herd of Bison (Buffalo). 

I cooked up spinach and a black bean and cheese quesadilla as the Bison talked to us in their cool but odd gurgling roars and grunts.

We ate, Rangel had a hot chocolate and I was cleaning up.  “Dad, is that a BEAR?” Rangel asked in an excited, but somewhat scared tone.   Sure enough, she had just spotted a grizzly bear quietly moving across the ridge in front of us from our left to our right.  Here is a picture of the ridge.

Lamar River Valley Dinner

At first I said “naw, that’s just a bison  away from the heard” but then it moved and I fumbled for a flashlight.  I lit up the bear and we saw his eyes staring right back at us (it was dark so we couldn’t tell if he was looking at us for our leftovers or as dessert).  After a moment he turned and disappeared over the ridge.  With a curt “we will clean up later” I threw the rest of the dishes in the back of the Beast and we jumped in comforted by the safety of the vehicle.  It was quite dark as we returned to our hotel and Rangel was bouncing out of her seat talking about the bear when she said “STOP… FOX… I MEAN WOLF!”  Sure enough, a rare large black and silver wolf was jogging down the road.  A pack had been reintroduced into the park in 1995 and there are about 2o0 now.  That’s 200 in 2.2 million acres.  It looked the wolf from the Little Red Riding Hood story, large sharp teeth and all.  We turned around and saw him cross the road to return to his den after a day of hunting in the valley.  We had been in the park less than three hours and had seen two of the rarest animals in the park.  I know, unbelievable.

I woke Rangel up early the next day, to optimize the opportunity to see wildlife.  She was unusually cooperative considering our success the prior night.  We were rewarded with a sighting of a family of Kestrel Falcons eating a bird just past the Lamar River Valley.  Below them was a Proghorn, just eating away oblivious to the chaos on the street behind him. Then we saw a few other cars parked along side the road and stopped and we saw a Black Bear and her cub!  It was cute watching the cub poke his head out of the tall grass to locate his chubby mom.

We continued through the park getting stuck in a Bison traffic jam.We drove to the top of Washburn Mountain and had lunch overlooking the southeastern portion of the park.  On the way we saw two skinny and skidish coyotes running along side the road.

We stopped at the Roosevelt Lodge and rode horses in a large open valley.  Rachel rode Peter and Shrek carried me.

The ride went smoothly until Shrek got a little to close to Peter’s behind and Peter bucked and tried to kick Shrek.  Rangel stayed on and calmed Peter down and everyone was unharmed, except for my sore toe where Peter’s rear shoe hit me.  Thanks Maggie.

We arrived in Gardner with 20 minutes to grab a key chain and check in for our overnight rafting trip down the Yellowstone River.  Check out the lazy bums on the Gardner High School football field.We met our guide Joe with Flying Pig Adventures, packed a quick overnight bag and the three of us headed down the stairs to the river.  We floated for a couple of hours until we reached our campsite.  Rangel and I had a mean game of tether-ball and slept in a Teepee!  Pretty comfortable overall. 

The next morning we set off again for the remainder of our 18 mile trip.  We saw Osprey, a Blue Heron and a 3-4 foot snake swimming next to us.  Rangel played rafting roulette, tug of war and ride the bull with Joe, each time ending up swimming in the river to her delight.

We said good-bye to Joe and headed into the park to soak our sore bodies in the boiling river.  Not two minutes into park we saw a family of big horn sheep on top of a ridge above the road. 

We set up camp at the Mammoth Springs campground and headed back to the springs.  We soaked for two hours in hot springs mixed with river water in the cold rain moving from hot spring water to cold river water in seconds.  Again, we have to thank Maggie for this very special memory.

Not excited about fixing dinner in the rain, we drove back to Gardner to have pizza and watch the opening ceremonies of the Olympics.  GO USA!

The next day we had a quick scrambled egg breakfast and checked out a few animals on our way.  Our first stop was a short hike down Uncle Tom’s trail to the bottom of Yellowstone’s Grand Canyon.Over the course of the day we saw, heard and smelled mudpits, caldrons and geysers, including the world famous “Old Faithful” which didn’t disappoint.

At last our time was up and we headed out the South entrance for a beautiful drive through the Grand Teton National Park.  Goodbye Yellowstone.

General Custer could have saved many lives by not being so aggressive, not underestimating his opponent and having more patience.  Instead, he left this.

Back in the car we continued to Billings, Montana where we had a wonderful lunch at Montana Rib and Chop House.  Maggie, our hostess recommended the ribs, which Rangel described as a 20 on a scale of 1 to 10.   Maggie was from our next destination, Gardner at the north entrance to Yellowstone so she gave us a ton of ideas, many of which we will describe in subsequent posts.  Thanks Maggie!

Q-Daddy & Rangel

Rangel in Wyoming Grasslands

So yesterday we spent alllllllllll day in the car.  Even slept in it!  See the Logistics page on the top bar for my dad’s description of our moving hotel and restaurant.  The picture is me wearing my grandpa’s hat in the grasslands of Wyoming.   Belive me, there are lot of grasslands, like 10 hours of them.

But today was super exciting!  First we got up and had cheesy scrambled eggs. Then started our day by walking around the one thing I really wanted to see, Mount Rushmore!  It was really big.  We saw a big, white, fuzzy, bighorn sheep with a beard longer than my dad’s.  Did you know Mt. Rushmore is only half done?  Lincoln Borglun (the artist) died and his workers did not get to finish the sculpture.  Here is me with Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln.

Rangel at Mt. Rusmore, South Dakota

And here is a different shot of Washington.

Washington in the Crack

Then we had lunch down the road next to a pond with small turltes pushing a fish around the edge.  After a relaxing lunch we went on a nice 2 mile hike on the Centenial Trail.  We saw hundruds of trees all different shapes and a thousand shades of green and splashed ourselves in a small creek next to the trail.

After leaving Mt. Rusmore we drove through the Black Hills National Forest.  It was nice to see trees again after so many hours of empty grasslands in Wyoming.  We had dinner at Humphrey’s Bar and Grill and I had the biggest cookie skillet desert you have ever seen.

A Big Cookie From Humphrey’s

Rangel & Q-Daddy

We drove north most of Saturday passing up the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument and other National parks so we could get to Park City.  We stopped in Scipio, Utah to see a rodeo.  Not many people were wearing t-shirts and flip flops with a bike rack on their car.  My mom pulled off a late night save when our Internet went down and got us a nice room.  We got to the hotel pretty late on the 21st and slept really well.

Then today was a whole different day with no driving.

Rangel and QDaddy putting our moves on the Olympic Ice

1st we went ice-skating and I learned some rad moves from my new friend Midge.  Don’t worry, we are not ready for the Olympics, yet.   Surprisingly I only fell 1 time!!!

2nd we went 4 wheel driving in a Razor in the mountains overlooking Midway, Utah (ok so we did drive a little).  It had great views but was bumpy, dirty, and when we were done we looked like pigs!!  In the picture below you can still see patches of snow in the mountains (and why you should always where a seat belt).

QDaddy getting wild in the Razr

Afterward we had dirt and mud everywhere so we went to a nearby lake for a swim.   We also practiced kite surfing thanks to my Uncle Ted hooking me up with a kite.  Here is me flying it -

Rachel Kiting in Miday, Utah

3rd we had dinner at a little pond in Midway that my family went to last year.  It had a great view of the mountains we were four wheeling in earlier.  We ate a dehydrated meal of chicken fettuccini alfredo which was good, but not close to grammy’s.  We played in the grass as sun set and watched a lady learn to fly fish.  I couldn’t stop laughing when she hooked her husband!

And now we are back at the hotel and it’s pouring rain just as we pulled in!  Very tired.

Rangel & Q-Daddy