We're in the West again

Yesterday, we drove the breadth of the state of North Dakota, making our way from Fargo, on the eastern edge, to Medora, almost at the border of Montana.

Along the way, we saw a lot of big things -- a big flood on the Missouri River, with water extending much too far over its banks; a big metal sculpture (supposedly the biggest scrap metal sculpture in the world -- according to Guinness); and some critters with mighty big heads, buffalo. Today we saw even more buffalo, as we visited Theodore Roosevelt National Park, home to the largest free-roaming herd in existence.

While we were there, we also saw several groups of feral horses. Technically, these aren't the same as mustangs (wild horses), as these are the offspring of horses that probably escaped from ranches. The colts, with their springy long legs were wonderful to watch. I couldn't help but think of the story I'd heard in Tennessee, about Daniel Boone letting his lame horse go free. These horses looked like they could have been related to such a happy creature.

But the picture of the boots? They're from a shop in town here. And they say a lot about just how western this last third of the state has felt. It's almost as if we passed some magical line across the land that tells you it's time to put your cowboy hat and boots back on. But cowboy boots or no, we're still on the track of playoff hockey!

How do they do that?!

How long has that how-many-tons hunk of rock been balancing like that? Especially with that lean to the right, along a hillside at that... I'm just sure I don't want to be any place nearby when it gets tired of doing its trick.

Today, when we went in to Natural Bridges National Monument, we discovered that this is
National Park Week, so we didn't even get to use our fancy pass. Who knew.

But now, please forgive me, as the next post might seem like a commercial.

Natural wonder overload

Even though the weather reports hadn’t been favourable, we’d both really wanted to see Bryce Canyon National Park. Happily, our day there was bright and sunny. But because there’d been so much snow, it wasn’t possible to do any kind of hiking around. We had to drive from viewpoint to viewpoint and see what we could.

Still, it was all pretty breathtaking.

Since still more snow was predicted for the following day, we took this as a sign to head a bit southward before we start moving towards the East.

And truthfully, I’m feeling as though my eyes (and brain) are nearly saturated with all this scenery! But wouldn't you know, there's more gorgeous stuff ahead.

The right day to be in Zion

As with so many stops along this tour of ours, someone was smiling on us when we went to Zion National Park.Even the shuttle bus drivers were getting out and staring up at the cliffs. They said that the combination of snowmelt on the high cliffs and the day's bright sun were creating a day of rare sights.

The 'sun' in the photo above isn't really the sun. My photographer buddy explained that it's actually just a 'lens flare' -- a technique that real photographers like to manipulate. For me, it was just a matter of blessed good luck.

But then, that's been the kind of adventures we've been bumping into all along our trail.

The video below is something just for fun. Because our vehicle is wider than a standard car, there's no room to squeeze past any oncoming traffic. We had to have the tunnel (over a mile long) cleared for us to go through. Of course, we led a few other cars, and we all had fun tooting our horns -- great echoes! Those sounds led us on to our next national park.