We are finally watching HDTV at home!  Well almost.  I finally broke down and bought a new TV over the weekend.  It’s a 40″ Samsung LCD, which is pretty much the largest that we can currently fit in our house.  So far I am really enjoying it, and Kim is too, surprsingly.  She wasn’t too sure of the expensive purchase at the time, but she really has grown to love the large picture, improved quality, and especially how well it fits into our room.  The reason I say we are almost watching HDTV is because I don’t have the HDMI cables yet, but I ordered them today from MonoPrice.com, at the recommendation of my friends.  My favorite part of it all is that I bought it for $150 under the suggested retail price.  Thank you price matching!

We were able to sleep in a little at the Lehrkind Mansion, as breakfast wasn’t served until 8:30.  Actually we couldn’t really sleep in anyway, so we packed up the car before heading to the dining room.  There we met two other couples who had stayed the night and exchanged vacation stories and advice.  Shortly afterward, breakfast was served.  The owners of the bed and breakfast honored my request for no omelet or egg heavy dishes, and we were served bowls of fresh fruit, pancakes with blueberries and peaches, and thick-cut pieces of bacon.  It was delicious!

After our breakfast we decided to swing past the Museum of the Rockies before leaving Bozeman.  It receives great reviews, and one of the Lehrkind owners praised the dinosaur exhibit.  I wasn’t expecting much for this museum, but I was completely blown away.   It houses the largest collection of dinosaur remains in the United States and possesses the largest Tyrannosaurus skull ever discovered.  I spent a good chunk of time in the dinosaur exhibit before realizing that there were other exhibits as well.  We had already spent hours inside, so I just briefly glimpsed at some of the other exhibits before it was time for the planetarium, featuring a movie about Mars.

Once we finally made it out of the museum, we started the drive back south toward the town of West Yellowstone via US-191.  Along the way we stopped in Big Sky for an appetizer and beer at the Lone Peak Brewery.  After our quick stop there we continued down to West Yellowstone, where we hopped on US-20 heading west into Idaho, which became my 48th visited state.  We continued south through the Targhee National Forest, before detouring on to the Mesa Falls Scenic Byway.  This not only provided views of Mesa Falls it also provided our first view of the Grand Tetons, though it was from quite a distance.

Before reconnecting back to US-20, we hopped on to Idaho Route 32 through Drummond and then Route 33 through Driggs and Victor.  We stopped in Victor at the Grand Teton Brewing Company for a few drinks in the tasting room.  While I sampled Black Cauldron Imperial Stout and Trout Hop Black IPA, Kim enjoyed some Teton Jack Ginger Ale.  It was easily my favorite beer stop of the trip.  Afterward, we had dinner at the nearby Wildlife Brewing, which consisted of pizza and grizzly fries.  Once dinner was over, we continued south and then east over Teton Pass and into Grand Teton National Park.  We eventually made it to our hotel for the next few nights, Jackson Lake Lodge, just a little later than I originally expected.

Big Sky on Dwellable

Per usual, we woke up early on our fourth day inside Yellowstone National Park.  We packed the car, dropped of our room keys, and immediately drove down to the Hayden Valley.  There we were greeted with some amazing views of the sunrise.  We didn’t see much wildlife activity so we left the area and drove over to the Mount Washburn area, which we were told is prime grizzly territory.  We completed the drive all the way to the road closing (due to the Antelope Fire) without seeing much wildlife, but that all changes once we turned around and started heading back down toward the Canyon Village.

I spotted an small RV that was pulling to the side of the road, while the passenger was reaching a large camera out the window taking pictures.  We were passing on the other side, so I quickly parked the car and hopped out to see what it was.  I was shocked when I realized it was a grizzly cub!  I sprinted back to the car as quick as possible, realizing that the mother grizzly must be somewhere nearby.  Once in the car, two cubs and their mom appeared right on the side of the road in front of us.  We watched them for well over five minutes, until a park ranger showed up to scare them back away from the road.  I captured some great pictures of the bears.

Before spotting the bears, we had decided to do a nearby hike to Cascade Lake.  We were a little hesitant to do it after the bear sighting, but we continued on to the trailhead and started the hike.  We didn’t see any more bears, just a few bison that were really close to the trail.  The hike was nice and flat and only around four and a half miles roundtrip.  It was a lovely day for a hike.  After the hike, we continued down to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, which seemed like the only part of the park that we hadn’t seen yet.  We spent some time viewing the waterfalls, taking short hikes to viewing points, and enjoying the nice views.  We ran out of time before we got to explore the south rim, but I feel like we saw enough of it.

With that we headed back for the car to start the drive to Bozeman, Montana.  We drove through a few parts of the park that we had already seen, including Mammoth Hot Springs, before reaching the northern entrance at Gardiner, Montana.  The rest of the drive was fairly uneventful, and we made it to Bozeman in a few hours, in time for our check-in at the Lehrkind Mansion Bed & Breakfast.  I had never done the bed and breakfast thing before, but figured how bad could it be since the house was built by an old brewmaster in the late 1800’s.  After settling in and cleaning up, we headed into downtown Bozeman for dinner.  We ended up at the MacKenzie River Pizza Company, which was awesome.  We also had an enjoyable stop at Montana Ale Works for drinks and desert before heading back to our room for the night.

Bozeman on Dwellable

After work on Friday, Kim and I met up with a group of friends at the Uptown Brothers Brewing Company.  The name would lead you to believe that the restaurant was also a microbrewery, but that is not yet true.  According to their website blog, they’ve applied for a  license and are waiting for it all to come through.  In the meantime, they do offer a fantastic selection of beers from other breweries across the country.  Just take a quick look at their current beer list, and you are nearly guaranteed to see something you love or would love to try.

To complement their excellent selection of beers, they also have a pretty long food menu with lots of variety.   I went with the Fried Green Tomato BLT served with jalapeno blue cheese coleslaw.  Kim had a chicken sandwich covered with green chiles and cheese, served with fries.  My BLT was great, and just as it sounds.  Fried green tomatoes were used in the sandwich rather than the standard red tomato.  Kim’s sandwich was also very good, as were her fries.  The only thing I was disappointed with was the jalapeno blue cheese coleslaw, which I expected to be packed with flavor.  Instead it was rather bland and very similar to a relatively dry traditional coleslaw.

Consulting the weekly stats for our bowling league that were sent out earlier this week, I had a great week last week.

I now have the highest handicap series for the league at 766, along with the highest single game handicap score.  I also have the second highest scratch series at 406, a teammate of mine has the high at 428 from the week that I missed.  I also have third in single game scratch score, 151.  In addition, my team has moved into first place in the league!

Unfortunately, last night was not one of my best.  The floors seemed to be better than last week, but I couldn’t get into a good rhythm.  My score in the first game was 109, which became 211 with my new 102 pin handicap.  Second game was 103, and third was 95.  I continued to get worse and worse as the night went on.  We played against our rival team, the only other team that has a member from our project.  My team is made up completely from members of our current project.  We squeezed out two wins out of the three games, and remain in first place.

I had a terrible showing in fantasy football this week, with loses in all three leagues.  I lost one 95-92, another 113-87, and finally 89-58.  I am currently in third place of twelve in the first league, six of ten in the second, and second of four in the last, which is actually just my standing in my division.  I had a couple of key guys out on byes last week, so this week I should definitely return to some winning.  I’ve moved up to eighth in pro pick’em, and second in college pick’em.  Also, I’m still alive in the survivor game, still playing with five others.

We woke up early again on the third day in Yellowstone to get a start on a long car ride out to the Lamar Valley, one of the park’s premier wildlife viewing areas.  Normally it wouldn’t be a long drive from the Canyon Lodge, but the Grand Loop Road was closed between Canyon and Tower-Roosevelt due to the still burning Antelope Fire.  We didn’t stop for breakfast, just snacked in the car along the way.  It didn’t take long on our drive for us to spot more bison and elk, as well as a group of trumpeter swans.  The morning sunrise provided some great photos.

Once we made it out to the Lamar Valley, we immediately saw a ton more bison, by far the largest herd we had seen in the park.  Further down the road, a group of people were all sitting at a roadside pullout with scopes pointing toward a nearby treeline.  We stopped to checked it out, and were told that there was an animal carcass at the treeline that had attracted both grizzlies and wolves in the past days.  We sat for a while hoping to catch a glimpse but left once it was too late in the day to expect much activity.

We then drove back toward Tower-Roosevelt and checked out the northern parts of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, along with Tower Falls.  Back on the road towards Mammoth we spotted a very playful coyote that provided some great photo opportunities for a few minutes.  Back in Mammoth, we were greeted by a few elk who had claimed their place on the manicured lawns of town.  We stopped for lunch at the Mammoth Hot Springs Dining Room for what became the best meal we had in the park.    After lunch we walked around the Mammoth Hot Springs area before continuing the drive back south to make the loop toward Canyon.

Along the way we stopped at the Sheepeater Cliffs, before driving all the way back down to the Hayden Valley.  As it was already approaching sunset, we were quickly greeted by a large herd of elk, along with a bull who appeared to be the largest we had seen in the park.  We also spotted a few more coyotes while staking out the valley for wolves.  We did spot the same wolves as the night before, but again they were very far out and impossible to photograph.  To round out the night, we drove all the way down to the Lake Lodge Cafeteria for dinner.  Even without table-side service, this cafeteria proved to offer better food than available in the Canyon Lodge.  The drive back to Canyon was dark, but we still were able to spot more elk and coyotes along the way.  It was a great day of wildlife viewing.

Yellowstone on Dwellable

After waking up at the Old Faithful Inn on our second day inside of Yellowstone, we quickly grabbed breakfast at the Old Faithful Dining Room.  We rushed through eating so we could run outside and catch an early daylight eruption of the Old Faithful Geyser.  Unfortunately, the predicting clock inside the Inn was not accurately updated, so we only caught the tail end of the eruption.  To make sure we wouldn’t miss anymore eruptions, we next made a quick stop at the brand new Old Faithful Visitors Center, which predicts six of the many geysers in the geyser basin.

We were told that Daisy Geyser would be erupting soon, so we quickly walked the mile long trail to it.  We waited for around a half hour for the eruption which lasted a few minutes.  It was our first of multiple eruptions that we would catch.  From there we continued walking a little farther out to the Morning Glory Pool, the first of many colorful, bacteria filled, hot spring we would see.  We then continued to walk throughout the Upper Geyser Basin, taking the longer route back toward Old Faithful.  Once there we waited another fifteen or twenty minutes for another Old Faithful eruption.  Pictures don’t really do the geyser much justice, but it can shoot up to 180 feet in the air!

After having our fill of Old Faithful, we packed up the car and drove over to the Black Sand Basin area.  Before exploring that area, we actually walked back over to the Upper Geyser Basin that we had already seen, so that we could catch an eruption of Riverside Geyser.  We found a nice place to sit and wait for Riverside, which is only predictable to within an hour or two.  While waiting we were fortunate to catch an eruption of Grotto Geyser, which was quickly followed by the Riverside eruption.  We didn’t get to see a rainbow at Riverside, which is what makes it famous, but it was still another cool eruption to watch.  Having our fill of geysers for the day, we continued back to the Black Sand Basin area for a quick visit, and then on to Midway Geyser Basin.

The primary attraction at the Midway Geyser Basin is Grand Prismatic Spring, which is the park’s largest and deepest hot spring.  A friend told me that the view from the geyser basin wasn’t very good, but we decided to check it out anyway.  He couldn’t have been more correct though.  So we backtracked to the Fairy Falls Trailhead, for a two-mile roundtrip hike up to a ridge for unbelievable views of this very colorful thermal feature.  I would highly recommend this short hike for some of the coolest scenery you can see in the park.

From there it was on to the Lower Geyser Basin to check out the Fountain Paint Pot, and a few other geysers and pools.  The Fountain Paint Pot is a mud pot, which is basically a mud filled hole that has many vents through it causing the mud to create gooey bubbles.  Again, photos don’t compare to actually sitting and watching this feature for a few minutes.  It is by far the weirdest thermal area in the park.  From here we had definitely had our fill of thermals for the day, so we started the drive over toward the Canyon Village, where we would stay for the next couple of nights.

Along this drive we encountered many bison, some of which were just standing in the middle of the road.  They seem to be completely fearless animals, but it provided for some nice photo opportunities.  We also made a couple of detours to check out the Firehole Falls and Virginia Cascade, before finally reaching the Canyon Lodge.  After checking in, we ventured back out and drove south toward Hayden Valley, which is a great wildlife viewing spot.  We spotted many more bison along the way, and even some wolves far out in the distance.   Once the sun had set, we headed back toward Canyon and had a mediocre dinner at the Canyon Lodge Dining Room before retiring for the night completely exhausted.

West Yellowstone on Dwellable

Saturday evening Kim and I drove up to Louisville, Colorado, a town that neither of us had ever been to before.  SoundRabbit was playing a little gig at the Art Underground for the Louisville Arts Hub event.  We hadn’t seen the band play in awhile, so it was nice to hear their familiar sound again.  The show itself was a bit odd being in a small room that usually serves as a church but for the day was a studio for various artists and their works.  The band tried to quiet down their sound for the intimate performance, but maybe it would have been better as an acoustic duo show.  Regardless, I enjoyed hearing them play, as did the dozen or so children in attendance.  I hope our son enjoys music as much as these kids did.

Afterward, Kim and I met up with one of the band members at a local restaurant and bar called Waterloo.  The band had takeout from here earlier in the day, which they enjoyed thoroughly, so we thought we would give it a try.  Kim went with the pulled pork sandwich with coleslaw and ranchero beans, while I ordered the grilled chicken with pepper jack, bacon, and avocado along with a side of fries.  The chicken sandwich was standard, but very delicious thanks to my selections of toppings.  The fries were perfectly hand-cut and flash fried, delicious!  The pulled pork was also very good along with the beans.  The band raved about the hamburgers, so those must be good as well.  If I were to ever make it back, I’d definitely want to try the gorgonzola cream sauce for fry dipping, which I am reading great things about now.  We had a great meal and would definitely go back if we ever find ourselves in Louisville again.

Last night was my second night in our work bowling league.  The league played last week, but I missed it due to our vacation.  Anyway, the night started off really bad for me.  During warm-ups, I noticed that the floor wasn’t very slick and my front foot wasn’t sliding like normal.  I threw gutter ball after gutter ball.  And then to make it worse, on one throw I tried to slide my lead foot but it stopped suddenly.  To catch my balance my other foot swung forward and landed past the foul line.  Though the front of the floor isn’t waxed, the lanes are very slick, so my second foot immediately slipped on the lane, which sent my body falling out on to the lane.  It was pretty embarrassing, but I tried to get up and off the lane as quick as possible.

Fortunately, the rest of the night went really well for me.  My first week average was 100, making my handicap 120 (not 130 like I had guessed earlier).  My first game last night I shattered my previous average with a scratch score of 151, including a turkey!  With my handicap that score became 271, and I think might have been the high for the night.  Another guy bowled a 172 in the last game, but I don’t think his handicap is as high as mine.  Anyway, the second game was mostly back to normal with a score of 115.  Just like my first week, the second game was my worst, which is opposite of what I thought was normal.  My third game last night ended at 140, taking my three game total to 406, which I’m pretty sure was the highest of the night for the entire league.  I hope this progress continues into future weeks.