Snowtober

It's October 30th and I'm sitting in my living room watching people clean off their cars and shovel the sidewalks after the Snowtober storm.

We started hearing about a possible snowstorm on Wednesday but I didn't think much of it. After all, it's October. I figured any snow we got would be of the "pretty" variety and not the "real" variety. I stopped listening to the weather on Thursday when their special weather map had predictions of up to 10 inches for some part of Massachusetts. After last year's winter of Snowpocolypse 1, 2, 3, and even more I really can't stand snow. I'm not alone. My fourth graders were not at all excited about the impending storm. That has to say something. I think they are still scarred from last year's six snow days.

That being said, I still didn't think the snow would be that bad. If you remember from my last post, I've been in a bit of a funk lately. I was hoping some city fun would change that. The weekend started off great. Chris van Allsburg, author of great books like Polar Express and Jumanji, was talking about the new book The Chronicles Of Harris Burdick based on his book The Mysteries of Harris Burdick. The talk was at one of my favorite Harvard Square places, The Brattle Theater. A few of my friends from work joined me and a couple of us went for dinner afterward. It was a really fun way to start the weekend and I loved the fact that if I lived back in the woods I would never have been able to go to something like this. Before the talk I stopped by EMS to check out their winter coat sale. I got a kick out of how crazy it was in there. People were ripping gloves, scarves, hats, boots, and jackets off the shelves like we were expecting a blizzard.

Saturday morning we got up early determined to carve a great pumpkin for the Inmanween pumpkin contest. We were really excited with our entry, even if we used a kit.


Unfortunately, by 4:00 it was clear the event would be canceled due to the ridiculous weather unfolding in our area. I was really disappointed since I love the neighborhood events thrown by the Inman Square Business Association. I burrowed under several blankets on the couch ready to succumb to Mother Nature.

Luckily, JO suggested we go to Top of the Hub to watch the snow fall down on the city. This was something we wanted to do last winter but last winter was just too ridiculous it made it really hard to embrace the snow. I threw on the Pufferator (my full length down jacket) and we headed out. Although it was foggy we really enjoyed ourselves. It was relatively empty so we had no problem finding seats at the bar. It was nice to turn the tables on Mother Nature for change and get my "City Mojo" back.

We woke up today to find out half the state doesn't have power and New Hampshire got close to two feet of snow. I'm really hoping this is not a sign of things to happen.

Stuck in the City

Eventually I will get back to that last day in Yellowstone. I mean...it involved Old Faithful after all.

The last few weeks have been crazy. In addition to all of the normal school crazies I got married and my best friend was in town for two weeks. I spent the next week catching up on some much needed sleep. Now that I am no longer sleep deprived it's time to get back to the city living lifestyle I love. Unfortunately I don't have much free time to work with since I'm pretty sure planning a wedding was far easier than trying to get 19 kids to pass MCAS. Throw in the holidays and I think I have one free weekend between now and January 15th. I think the stress of school and all of these meetings is really starting to mess with my city mojo. We went to the Regatta this weekend and it wasn't really fun at all.

So this weekend I am reclaiming my love for the city with Inmanween and The Great Pumpkin Festival at the CBC this weekend. I hear snow is in the forecast. It better stay away so I can enjoy these two fun Cambridge outings.

A Much Needed Night Out

I'll get back to the Yellowstone trip soon but in the meantime:

This past week seemed to drag on. I couldn't even tell you what happened on Monday...that's how far away it seems. The past weekend was so emotionally draining I just felt like giving up. The anniversary of my mother's death coupled with three financial disasters involving my father, and the 10th anniversary of 9/11 left me feeling in a funk before the week even began. Throw in the first full week of school and I was pretty much spent by the time Friday rolled around. JO and I had made plans to go to Alibi at the Liberty Hotel but after dinner I told him I just wanted to go home. He convinced me to go and I'm so glad he did.

Not only did we have a great time at Alibi, but we discovered that the Liberty Hotel has live music in their upstairs lobby bar on Friday nights. We'll definitely be going back to enjoy that again. We also decided to walk home. I'm not sure why but I'm so glad we did. We discovered a new, awesome bar called Firebred Saints. It had a an electronic etch a sketch projected on the wall and a cool display that mixed up the words from the closed captioning on the tv. We also discovered that Kendall Square has quite a few places on our "to-visit" list.

I feel like I'm constantly being told how horrible a place Cambridge is. Everywhere I go people say it's dirty, it's crowded, it's too hard to get around. Well you know what? It's my city and it's where I love to live! Tonight I was reminded why I love living here!

Marmot Pictures

As I mentioned in my last post, we had a lot of fun with all of the marmots in Mammoth Hot Springs. Apparently we only got one picture, and it's not the best. But, picture this little guy and 20 of his friends all hanging out together.

Yellowstone- Day 3

On the third day in Yellowstone we headed to the Mammoth Hot Springs area. I had seen one of the features in this area on a postcard and I couldn't wait to get there. We drove from Canyon Lodge and the drive was awesome. It left some of the more populated areas in favor of some of the more isolating areas. This led to plenty of wildlife sightings, including a couple of bears. Look closely, and you'll see the bear.




We weren't able to take the detour to Lamar Valley, which has been described as the Serengeti of the U.S. If we ever go back I definitely want to go there. I forget where this was, and the name of it, but this is the largest hot spring in the park.




Along the way we stopped to get this guy's picture. He was huge, and a bit too close.



Mammoth is the headquarters of the park and kind of feels like Disney World. It's very modern and there's real grass. There are also tons of marmots, that are perfectly willing to pose for pictures. After grabbing lunch we headed over to the hot spring area. Part of the trail is driveable but we decided to walk it since the traffic was a bit of a hassle.




The features in this part of the park were breathtaking. Not only were there hot springs and mud pots, but there were coral looking things that had been formed from the acidic erosion in the area.



It's weird that something so devoid of life can be so mesmerizing.


After several hours of touring, we headed out of the park for the night. We stayed in West Yellowstone which is literally ten minutes outside of the park boundaries. It's a really fun tourist town and we really had fun. We did a little shopping, sampled some local brews, and watched and IMAX movie about Yellowstone.



Our motel was super cute, and really comfy after "roughing" it at the Canyon Lodge for a few days.

Yellowstone- Day 2

Tuesday morning we had a quick breakfast before heading over to a few other viewing spots for the falls. We once again marveled at the power of the water rushing over the rocks.

We then headed out to do a short hike to the Natural Bridge. The hike was quite nice and bear
free.

We then headed back to the Lake Village area for a picnic next to Yellowstone Lake. It was quite windy but the views were spectacular!


Does everything seem normal in this picture?

Next, we drove over to the Noris Geyser Basin where we toured a bunch of the geysers, hot springs, mud pots, and steam vents. The landscape is just surreal with steam escaping everywhere. You realize you're in a really strange place. The mud pot was my favorite. It was going crazy and they had to close off a section of the boardwalk. The sign read, "Hot flying mud!" We saw a couple of small geysers. We also stopped at the Painters Pots.








Once again we had dinner at the Canyon Lodge before resting up for the next day's adventures!

Yellowstone- Day 1

We woke up early the next day to set off for Yellowstone, which is actually only about 20 minutes away from Grand Teton National Park. After sneaking one last long look at the Teton Mountain Range we were on our way.

Upon entering the park we stopped for pictures of the Yellowstone Park sign. We had done some pre-planning for the Yellowstone part of our trip but we still didn't know exactly what to expect. We drove along the road stopping at a bunch of sights. First up was a small waterfall. Yellowstone is full of waterfalls. These waterfalls are one tell tale sign that you are in an area formed by a volcano. As we continued we saw a giant elk (although it was sitting in the woods so you couldn't get a good picture), tons of bison, a gray fox, a couple of bear jams (gridlock caused by a bear sighting), and the West Thumb Geyser Basin. This is where our Yellowstone adventure truly started.










For those of you that don't know, Yellowstone sits on top of a huge volcano. Yes, you read that right. Hot lave flows 3-8 miles underground a majority of the park. The steam escapes in hot spring, mud pots, geysers, and steam vents. All of which were on display at the West Thumb Geyser basin. We had read about this basin in our tour book but nothing prepares you for the real thing. The colors are beautiful and it's so neat to see these pools of water bubbling. The neat thing about this geyser basin is that it is right next to Yellowstone Lake. If you look closely at the lake's shoreline you can see underground hot springs. This is one of the many reasons swimming in the lake is not encouraged. The cause of the beautiful colors is bacteria that can sustain life at extremely hot temperatures.







After touring the basin we continued driving along the Lake. We found a cool sandbar where you could walk out into the Lake. It was there that we really got the sense that we were on a volcano. The sand is black and there are lots of rocks that could only come from a volcano.







We continued on our travels, stopping at Lake Village for lunch. Along the way we saw lots of beautiful views. We drove all the way to Canyon Village, where we would be staying for two nights. The Village area is bustling and the Lodge itself is a blast from the past adding to it's charm. We were hungry but we decided to go to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone while it was still light out. We hiked down about 600 feet on a switchback trail to the base of the Lower Falls. Wow is all I can say! The power of the water rushing over the falls was amazing. We stayed for a quite a while because we were both in awe.



After hiking back up we headed back to the Lodge to have dinner in the Lodge's dining room. We both ordered the bison ravioli...delicious! Then we headed back to our small, but very manageable, cabin. We woke up in the middle of the night freezing because we had left the windows open. Woops! It had gotten all the way down into the 30s.