Here I am in Yellowstone Park, loving it, but not so crazy about not having internet access – or cell phone capability. I would never have guessed how important those two things have become to me. Good grief! Shame on me! Complaining about the lack of those two things – with this phenomenal beauty all around us.

Here’s a tip: If you don’t have children in school, this time in September is a wonderful time to visit. We have not encountered any large crowd problems… even while watching Old Faithful – twice!

It looks like the Park Rangers have done a great job convincing people not to feed the animals. All of those old documentaries that show bears coming right up to the cars looking for food – well, that’s not happening anymore, at least as far as we can see. (Or am I remembering Yogi Bear and Boo Boo stealing picnic baskets from unsuspecting visitors at Jellystone Park?)

While on route, we went through beautiful Shoshone National Forest. It just kept getting more beautiful as we went through Bridges-Teton National Forest, then through Grand Teton National Forest, only to arrive at spectacular Yellowstone National Park. After living for so many years in San Antonio, it was a truly inspring thing to see all of the clusters of Aspen trees amongst the pine trees, as their golden leaves shimmered.

I am going to post this entry on our last day at Yellowstone, as we head out to see Little Big Horn, and then south, back to our home. As nice as this vacation has been, it will be nice not to have to deal with luggage, arranging and then rearranging our car, and, lastly our everyday “necessities” like cell phone and internet connections.

We are in Colorado Springs, which I may add, is beautiful. I have mentioned before that I grew up in an Air Force family, so I moved a lot. (I always considered my grandmother’s home in Northwood, Iowa to be my “home base”.) My parents moved out here to Colorado Springs after my father retired, and I liked it so much – that I moved out here years later. Once here, I didn’t envisioned moving out of Colorado, but life has a way of branching us into different paths.

Traveling from New Mexico to Colorado is almost magical. You have to go through an area called Raton Pass. For someone who lives in the flat plains of Texas, Raton Pass is an invitation to all things wonderful. You no longer see the yellow diamond-shaped road signs with jumping deer on the side of the road. Instead, you see yellow diamond-shaped road signs with bucks (either elk or deer) that have at least eight point antlers. The road curves, ascends, descends, and even does the ascending and descending on curves! The terrain brings to mind the wonderful lines from the 1939 Wizard of Oz movie: “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore. We must be over the rainbow!”

This isn’t to say the scenery getting to this point on our journey wasn’t memorable. Driving through long stretches of plains wasn’t all that great, but once you leave the plain plains, you go through what seems to be an old Hollywood movie set with nearby plateaus giving way to mountain ranges that were painted to look like they were miles and miles away. I almost expected to see Jimmy Stewart riding out on his trusty mare. (Can you tell I’m a fan of the Turner Classic Movie channel?)

Oh, and I am loving the weather! Such a nice change from humidly hot or hotly humid!

My husband and I are getting ready for a short trip up to Colorado Springs to visit my mother and brother. I’m looking forward to it. We won’t be staying very long, but at least I will be able to see how things are going for her, now that she is on her own.

After Colorado Springs, we are heading up to Yellowstone Park. I have never been there. My husband has been there once, years ago. It is one of the places we have wanted to go for a while. We always had hoped to take our son and daughter with us, but once they got into high school, we found out that ship had sailed. We had never relished the idea of going while school was in session, so it was one of those plans that was never realized.

My son will be staying here, holding the fort down for us. It’s not much of a job now that Sprite isn’t here. She required a lot of attention – with all sorts of special needs and medications. (I still miss that little dog, and it’s been well over a year!)

I’m taking my laptop with me, so will be checking your comments, as well as responding to them >>> when I have the time! (The place where we are staying supposedly has very slow internet connections.)