Exploring America's National Parks

September 1, 2013.   
This is a work in progress.
If you wish to contact me about this story,
please email me directly at:
earthexplorer2012@gmail.com
- - - - - - - - - - Maria Panlilio

INTRODUCTION

This article chronicles the road trip adventures of four women through parts of America's most spectacular wilderness heritage -- the crown jewels of the Western Hemisphere: Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton National Park, Arches National Park, and the Bryce Canyon National Park.  (We had to skip Zion National Park due to time constraint, but we'll definitely return someday, as we are more than ever inspired to visit as many of the national parks in the country as we can; to name a few: the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Lassen Volcanic, Sequoia-Kings Canyon, Redwood, Mount Rainier, Crater Lake, and others. I have personally explored and enjoyed these national parks in the past with my ex-husband, now I want my friends to experience the pleasure of it all.

Skeptics say it couldn't be done; that a group of women can travel by car for many days and not "kill" each other, or at least, remain friends by the end of the trip.  We've proven them wrong, for we are still friends, and planning our next trips.  I'm not saying the road trip was perfect; otherwise, how boring that would be for a writer, as well as the reader, right?  There were verbal skirmishes one night, but that could be attributed to physical exhaustion and hunger from hours and hours of unstoppable activities, and tempers ran short.  Eventually, everything went back to normal.  To quote Cindy Lauper: "Oh-ooh-oh...girls ..... just wanna have fun."

Yellowstone National Park 
Wyoming (and part of Montana)

Linda, Jesse, MartaElena, Maria -- waiting for Old Faithful to erupt.

And there she goes, right on schedule...Old Faithful Geyser showing off.

Grand Teton National Park
Wyoming

Maria

The Grand Teton Range

Arches National Park 
Utah

Rainbow Bridge

Bryce Canyon National Park
Utah

MartaElena, Jesse, Maria -- at the Dixie National Forest

Ampitheater surrounded by Pink Cliffs

PART ONE

Can Women Survive A Long Road Trip Together?

Early this year, Jesse and I met during one of the meetings of the Women Who Travel group in San Diego, held at the Gordon Biersdorf Restaurant in Mission Valley. We immediately became friends and I introduced her to some of my other friends in the Women of the World group and the Adventurous Women of San Diego group; enjoying some indoor and outdoor activities in and around San Diego.  We discussed our passion for traveling, both domestic and international, and just like that, we decided how wonderful it would be to visit Yellowstone National Park. Additionally, we thought it would be more fun and economical to share the experience and the costs with other women.  Hence, we posted an invitation on Meetup. Because of the extreme nature and length of the event, I doubted we'd get any recruits; however, the interest and response was great, and we received more RSVPs than I had expected. We added the Grand Teton, Zion, Bryce, Arches, and other tourist attractions among our intended destinations.

Jesse and Maria during a WOW High Tea Party

I had not anticipated the amount of work involved in organizing such an event, as it demanded a lot of my time answering emails, text messages and phone calls, as well as organizing the itinerary, lodging, car rental, park fees, etc.  Jesse assumed the responsibility of estimating costs, preparing a disclaimer form, helping me find the cheapest rental vehicle, and other tasks.  Finally, I limited the number of RSVPs to seven, as I deemed it easier to manage, not to mention having to rent a bigger and more expensive van.  A week before the scheduled departure, Jesse and I organized a meeting at a restaurant with the RSVPers to discuss all the details and collect monetary deposits to assure us that no one cancels out at the last minute. Upon hearing the estimated cost at about $700 per person, one member dropped out. (We couldn't blame her; she was unemployed at the time.) Thereafter, another had a family crisis, and another became ill.  In the end, only four travelers remained.  This worked out very well for us because by switching to a full-size car instead of a van, it reduced the transportation cost.  Factoring in Linda's Groupon discovery for a high-class hotel in Park City, Utah, and using my American Express credit card and  Travel Club membership, we found other highly-discounted hotel and car rental rates.  Hence, the final cost at the conclusion of the trip was reduced to less than $400.00 per person.  This is fantastic for an eight-day adventure through some of the most amazing parts of the United States.  "I spend more than that if I had stayed at home," remarked Jesse.  "I agree," quipped Linda.  "I would have spent more than $400 on groceries and restaurants alone."  "It's unanimous," I declared, "we should travel more to save money." We all laughed about our expenditure assessment.  Seriously, we felt blessed and privileged that we had the means to do all this, physically, mentally, emotionally, and above all, financially.

No camping out for us.  Through careful planning and shopping, we were lucky to find and stay in highly-rated hotels every night (except for one emergency time when we were forced to take whatever was available that night). The hotels all offered free breakfast, and that would practically sustain us till dinner time, with light snacks for lunch.

Yarrow Resort Hotel, Park City, UT

Buckle up!  So. . . on August 14 through 21 this year, Jesse, Linda, MartaElena and I embarked on an ambitious road trip that would take us through seven States in eight days -- from California to Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming and Montana, to explore four of America's most iconic national parks in the West.  We also discover new Buffalo Bill's type towns, reminiscent of the old Cowboys and Indians cultures, architecture, and lifestyle, such as Jackson Hole, in Jackson, Wyoming.
One of the major lodging surprises was an extremely upscale ski resort town called Park City in Utah--recently the subject of a magazine cover story, which named the town "The Best Place To Live In America".  How lucky can travelers be to stumble at such an amazing town?
(More on this exciting place later.)

PART TWO

The Jewels Of The West

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK
The First National Park in the U.S., established in 1872.
There are 1500 active volcanoes, and 7 supervolcanoes in the world. Yellowstone is one of the supervolcanoes, which can erupt a thousand times deadlier than the strongest volcanoes, like Mt. St. Helens in the State of Washington, and Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines. To give you an idea how powerful that could be: imagine a thousand atomic bombs dropping on Hiroshima.

Prismatic Basin

Our adventure to some of the country's incredible wilderness proved to be an experience of a lifetime that we will never forget. The sights were breathtaking ... all so natural. You can't help feeling spiritual about it all. The exciting and mysterious Yellowstone National Park is beyond description. Situated on two million acres of land, the park can house two States within it.  I'm not referring to the entire State of Wyoming; I'm talking about just the park alone, and every inch of it where we left our carbon prints upon its sands seemed magical.

Old Faithful Geyser, erupting faithfully ever hour

Witnessing the "Old Faithful" geyser erupt boggles the mind...just imagine that beneath the ground is a vast magma chamber of primordial heat filled with a pressurized mix of molten lava, gases and vapor causing the earth to tremble and alert the seismographers. These geyser eruptions, boiling mud pools, the fumeroles, the sulfuric air, the occasional stirrings, are haunting reminders that Yellowstone Supervolcano, albeit asleep throughout recorded human history (so far), is very much alive, and it's just a matter of time before it can erupt again -- a harbinger of not too distant cataclysm?  No one knows for sure.  Yellowstone could wake up without warning one day, yawn, stretch and belch, and destroy half of America, if not cause a domino theory throughout the Pacific Ring of Fire.  Heavens forbid! It could be at least a thousand times stronger than Mt. St. Helens' magnitude.  But then again, maybe it will remain a sleeping giant throughout this lifetime, and beyond.  For now, we should all enjoy it while it's still there for us to soak in all its magnificence and mysteries.


GRAND TETON NATIONAL PARK
 The Youngest Mountains On The Continent
The Southern Gateway To Yellowstone National Park

The Grand Teton Mountain Range

One of the most stunning places in the world is located south of Yellowstone: the Grand Teton National Park, with all its majestic mountains that seem to pierce the sky and grab the passing clouds, the untouched wilderness and rugged landscape, pristine lakes, wildlife, flora and fauna.  Imagine our overwhelmed reactions as we were driving through the park to end our Yellowstone adventure.  It was on our original itinerary, but we almost bypassed it in favor of taking the faster highway run instead of the slower scenic route. It was getting dark, and we were tired. We were so happy we stuck to our original plan, and what we encountered was something totally grand.  Those towering peaks amidst the warm, golden hues of sunset during its last vestige, their fading reflections still mirrored through the lake, dazzled our senses and took our breaths away. The moment called for a quiet immersion in all its splendor that filled our beings with tranquility. 

We pulled over and solaced ourselves with the gift endowed upon us by the Almighty.  Religious or not, one cannot help but feel the presence of a "Great Force" that created all the beauty that surrounds us on this earth.  The Tetons are by no means the tallest mountains in America, with the highest peak elevation measuring 13,770 feet.  I have explored some of Colorado's Rocky Mountains that offer higher summits at more than 14,000 feet, but the Teton's raw, jagged and rugged, glacier-carved  peaks rising abruptly with no intervening foothills gives us the illusion of unmatched grandeur.


ARCHES NATIONAL PARK
Arches contains the world's largest concentration of natural sandstone arches.
Although over 2,000 arches are located within the park's 76,518 acres, the park also contains an astounding variety of other geological formations. 

God is a phenomenal landscape artist, a Divine sculptor sans hammer and chisel to create the natural sandstone arches preserved in the Arches National Park.  And He must have such a terrific sense of humor to give us the “Three Gossips” (or what I prefer to call “Queen Nefertiti and her Servants”).   

The Three Gossips

The Park is an outdoor gallery of living stones of about two thousand unique geological formations.  

 “Two thousand?” exclaimed Linda, after we’ve seen about a dozen of the most iconic arches, spires, balanced rocks and eroded monoliths in the area.  “And we’ve only seen a few of them things?”  She made us laugh, the same way she did when we discovered there are more than 300 geysers at Yellowstone, and we probably saw only a little more than a dozen.  We spent three days at Yellowstone; one would need to stay a week to see half of them.

 It was a hellish day in the park for exploring on foot. The mercurial summer temperature was unbearable. We thought how wonderful it would be if we explored the place during Autumn or Winter. It's a good thing we didn’t have to hike much, as most of the highlighted sights were visible from the overlook points that we could reach by car via a 35-mile paved scenic drive.  

The Organ

I call this park "God’s sculpting studio", which Hollywood seemed to believe as well.  The classic motion picture "The Greatest Story Ever Told", and more recently, the movie Buried Alive, were filmed at this location. We wanted to linger a little longer, but we felt compelled to proceed to our next destination in our itinerary: Bryce Canyon National Park.  After all, we’ve seen the best of the best this red rock garden had to offer in such a limited time.  Among them are: the Delicate Arch, Fiery Furnace, Tower of Babel, Courthouse Towers, Devil's Garden, Double Arch, the Organ, and the Wall Arch.

BRYCE CANYON NATIONAL PARK
Home for the thousands of delicately carved spires shaped by wind, water
and geologic onslaught in the eastern slope of the Paunsaguant Plateau.

Dixie National Forest

It was one of the most dramatic entrances ever.  As soon as we entered the Dixie National Forest, we were greeted by an overwhelming wall of vibrant geological structures called hoodoos.  We were so excited and immediately parked by the Visitors' Center.  We thought we had entered the Bryce Canyon National Park already.  It was actually the Dixie National Forest; Bryce was still miles and miles away.

Hoodoos at Bryce Canyon National Park

The hoodoos disappeared for a while, then started reappearing as we got closer to Bryce, which is not really a canyon, despite its name.  It's a distinctive collection of giant natural amphitheaters. Canyon or not, I know we had to look down from the viewpoints to see the pinnacles of vibrant red, yellow, gold and white rising up to 200 feet high. The Paiute Indians called the hoodoos Ankia-ku-was-a-wits, which means "red painted faces".  According to Paiute legends, the pinnacles were people turned to stone. (My wilder imagination goes further than that . . . something more diabolical, as I envision a horrible mayhem happening at the time. Lol.)

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PART THREE:  Road Trip Daily Journal -- Continued on the next blog