August 2010

I fully intended to make every effort to eat sensibly and exercise on our trip this summer. 

I even stuck my heart monitor in a drawer, with the full intent to wear it on walks and hikes to make sure I was getting quality exercise.

I didn’t take it out of the drawer the entire trip – so much for that intention.

But we did walk and we did take hikes.  I limited my lunch to one sandwich and a bunch of chips – and they weren’t always low fat chips, either.  Most days I had 1 small snack in the morning, none in the afternoon and another snack in the evening.  At supper, I didn’t really limit myself.  We did eat out a few times, and I didn’t really limit myself on that, other than not finishing up the half of Karen’s meal that she didn’t eat.

I knew that I might be losing a bit of weight, because I ended up on the last hole on my belt – and, on this belt, that hole had not ever been used. 

I had been tempted to take a scale along with us, but decided against it.  Space is at a premium in our small camper and I didn’t want to obsess on weight and dieting.  I usually do well when we take our trips and come home lighter or no more than a pound or so heavier – even from the two cruises that we’ve gone on.

I weighed myself after we got home and was pleased, but didn’t say anything.  I wanted to wait until I weighed myself at the gym.  My heart monitor watch has a weight diary and I update it every time that I work out.  The last entry was at the end of June.

The new entry was 14 pounds lower.

Fifty days, 11 states, and I lost 14 pounds without even trying – much.

Monday, I decided if I didn’t “get back” to the gym right away, it would soon turn into going when I “get around to it” and I would slip back to old habits – plus I’m trying to maintain my “travel diet.”

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While we’ve been gone, we’ve seen a couple of days in the 90s, a few days in the 60s or 80s, but most of the days’ temperatures peaked in the lower to mid 70s. 

In the mean time, our home state of Arkansas was baking.  Over 20 days so far this summer have been over 100°F.

Today, we drove from southern Illinois.  Much of the morning was rainy and cloudy and the temperature stayed about  73°F.  Once we got into Missouri, it started clearing and warming up.  At Conway, when we got on the interstate it was over 100°.  By the time we got to the point where we leave the interstate and head up into the Ozarks, it was 105°, though earlier we had seen 106°.  It was 101° when we got home.

We have a nicely shaded yard and a big front porch. When we left, we turned of the air conditioner, water, and hot water heater.  All the shades and shutters were closed.  We have a minimum/maximum thermometer with both inside and outside temperature instruments.  The hottest it got on the porch was 101.2°, while down in the valley temperatures were running much higher.  The house was 88° inside when we got home and the hottest it got was 89° on August 14th.  We must have gotten some rain as the yard plants do not look nearly as bad as we had feared.

Part of the reason we like to travel to the mountains is to escape the summer heat.  We certainly did that this year. 

We did anticipate cooler weather than we ran into this year.  A lot of times when we go out west, we end up spending a fair amount of time in long-sleeved shirts (or sweatshirts) and jeans.  However, we do know that it can be warm and take short sleeve shirts and shorts – which I ended up wearing more than anything else.

Our trip map is complete.  The pins indicate places we stayed (camped).  We had planned on being home no later than tomorrow.  However, camping in the heat, especially when you’re not used to it, is not fun.  So we decided to make it home in two days from Wisconsin instead of three.

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Our first hike in Grand Teton National Park was around String Lake (green line on map).  The day before, fire crews had been fighting the Cathedral Group fire in the vicinity of Leigh Lake and some of the trails had been closed.  

Before we had been walking very long, I was in the process of changing lenses on my camera and lost control of the larger lens, which rolled down a short slope… into the water.  Water got into the lens, fogging it up and, later, when dried, left deposits on the inside glass surfaces. 

Unfortunately, shortly after that, we saw a moose in the water where it was shoulder deep on him, dipping his head into the water to feed on bottom vegetation, but without the larger lens, there was no way to get a decent photo of him.

Other images from the trail:

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On July 13, we were camped at a site on the shore of Pathfinder Reservoir, south of Casper.  We planned to take a short drive and then spend the rest of the day relaxing and reading.

Pathfinder Reservoir, Pathfinder Dam and Fremont Canyon all are all named for John Charles Frémont – the 19th century military officer, explorer and political candidate.  Frémont was known as “The Pathfinder.”

Pathfinder Dam and Fremont Canyon:

The flow during the summer is usually much lower than this due to drawdown for irrigation and power production.  Exceptional rainfall combined with good winter snowpack had resulted in almost all reservoirs along the having higher levels that had been seen for several years.  Some, in fact, had campgrounds that were closed due to flooding.

Looking downstream, the bridge below us is an old footbridge:

A closer view of the footbridge and the canyon:

A view from the bridge:

We found a couple more locations downstream where we could view the canyon:

After our drive, we went back to the camper.  While we were gone the wind had picked up and, with the heat, it very uncomfortable sitting outside.  There was no power at the campground and we didn’t want to run the generator, so we decided to forfeit on day’s camp fee and move on down the road (see Wind Blown).

From Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office:

The Pathfinder Dam, is a masonry arch dam which completely blocks, from bedrock to canyon rim, the course of the North Platte River. Construction of the dam was completed in 1909. Fashioned from huge blocks of granite, quarried nearby from the same formation into which the river had trenched its canyon course, the dam stands 214 feet high, has a crest length which reaches to 432 feet, and tapers from a base 97 feet wide to a top which is no more than 11 feet in width. The building of Pathfinder Dam was a successful testing of the late nineteenth century concept of arid lands reclamation in the western United States. The reservoir basin had a shore line greater than 75 miles in extent and afforded opportunity for storage of more than one million acre feet of irrigation and industrial water to previously arid lands.

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One of the reasons we camped at Pathfinder Reservoir last month was its proximity to Independence Rock. 

Independence Rock is another landmark along the westward emigrant trails (Oregon Trail, California Trail, Mormon Trail.)

In 1841, Jesuit missionary Pierre Jean De Smet wrote, “The first rock we saw, and which truly deserves the name, was the famous Independence Rock.  It is of the same nature as the Rocky Mountains.  At first I was led to believe that it had received this pompous name from its isolated situation and the solidity of its base, but I was afterward told that it was called so because the first travelers who thought of giving it a name arrived at it on the very day when the people of the united States celebrate the anniversary of their emancipation from Great Britain… lest it might be said that we passed by this lofty monument of the desert with indifference, we cut our names on the south side of the rock under initials (I. H. S.) which we would wish to see engraved everywhere, and along with a great number of others, some of which perhaps ought not to be found anywhere.  On account of all these names, and of the dates that accompany them, as well as the hieroglyphics of Indian warriors, I called this rock on my first journey ‘The Great Record of the Desert.’”

When we climbed to the northern highest point on the rock, we didn’t know that the trails had actually passed on the south side – today’s modern highway and rest area  is to the north – so we didn’t really search for names on the south, though we did take the trail all the way around.

We did find some old name carvings on the top and, unfortunately, some more modern engravings and markings, though it is now illegal as this is a national historic site.

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