Strange as it may be, this was our first trip to Yellowstone. It's only a day's drive from where we grew up in southern Saskatchewan, and we'd tried to get here in several prior trips ... but, for various reasons, such as bad weather, or sudden changes of plans ... we'd never made it here before. It was a very nice surprise too. We were prepared for heavy traffic, and that was certainly the case. But, we were very pleasantly surprised with the lack of commercialism, at least as compared to Banff National Park in Canada, and the Black Hills in South Dakota. At Mammoth Hot Springs, we were expecting a Banff Hot Springs style "commercial" hot springs swimming pool with people packed sardine style. There's no swimming pool at Mammoth Hot Springs! Just hot springs ... read more

We stayed in Durango to visit the Mesa Verde National Park. This is a pre-Columbian site where the pueblo people farmed the land (the mesa) on top and lived in their protected settlement below their farmed land. As usual the National Parks service did an exemplary job in explaining the site to the visitors.... read more

There was a major construction project going on at the Hoover Dam. A risk audit following 9/11 had shown the dam was a potential target because the main highway went right on top of it. There was a new bridge being built to bypass the dam. You can still go inside the dam on a tour, but the big generator rooms are now off-limits on this tour. The dam was one of the many projects during the "New Deal" that was designed to get the U.S. out of the Great Depression of the 1930's. It required lots of manpower and investment. Maybe the post 9/11 bypass bridge is the modern rendition of the "New Deal" in the 2008 economic crisis. A lot less manpower though. We went on the tour and continued on to the Grand ... read more