Day 9 & 10 - Ketchum, ID

Day 9 & 10

May, 30^th and 31^st, 2012

Ketchum, ID to Ketchum ID

No driving today. But we did get some solid mileage in. Hmmmmm how does that work?!? You'll find out.

Over the past two days, we have been hanging at the Greyhawk condo checking out the scenery around us via bikes, running, and walking. Let the triathlon training begin!

Bob has a few sweet mountain bikes at his house so we called Wanda, a local Ketchumian, and she got us all set up with the bikes. Accessing the bikes meant we also got a tour of Bob’s entire house. Wow. Speechless. That place is so well designed and every corner of the house is perfectly decorated. It is the ideal ski lodge/summer hangout.

Here is a picture of the basement. Just to tease you all.

Ok fine… one more pic – this is Kyle hanging out in the backyard.

But the rest of the house you’ll just have to use your imagination.
Ok fine… we’ll show you a pic of the freezer.

Wanda showed us this and I could not help but take a picture this because Graeters (a brand of ice cream made in Ohio introduced to us by the lovely Caitlin Allen) is easily the best ice cream I’ve ever had. It has chocolate chucks swirled throughout all the flavors. Since Ali’s biggest weakness is ice cream, this drawer was a tempting trip to sweet tooth heaven. For all the Graeters fans out there (Caitlin, Hayley, Katie and Luke – I’m talking to you) check out all the different flavors!!!!!! Worth zooming in.

We enjoyed a quick toss of the frizbee at the cleared out ski lodge next to the Village at Greyhawk.  Nice grass in the front there. Nice day too.  The toss?  A lil short.

BIKING

We started with just a short 2.5 mile ride back to the condo so we could do some Google satellite map investigating to check out the best bike routes.

Between Hailey, Ketchum and Sun Valley (three neighboring towns) there is a great bike path network. So we hopped on that for a solid 16.7 mile bike ride. Don’t worry Momma Farr and Momma McCarty – we wore helmets the whole time! And only rudely dinged our bells at one or two slowpokes.  But hey, that's what the bells are there for!

Then the rest of the night was split between cooking and watching back to back Harry Potters. Ali’s getting her necessary dose of Harry Potter. Hopefully we’ll be able to finish all 8 by the time this road trip ends.

RUNNING… and walking too

Day 2 of tri training. Workout of choice – running.

Kyle suggested a light 10 mile run. WHAT!??!?! Kyle’s idea. Yes. That’s how it went down. Not only was it Kyle’s idea but he kicked Ali’s butt. She had to tap out at mile 8 to take a break. We then walked it out for the last mile. The true test will be who is the most sore tomorrow...

 
Kyle trying to hitchhike his way back to the house.
His calves aren't working properly at this point. Post 10 miles.

A few pics we snagged while on our running tour of Ketchum.

Japanese cherry blossoms like in DC.  Only this time they are white.

 A view.

 Cool lookin house.  Could it be featured in Dwell?
Ask Poppa Farr. I'm sure he could tell you - Yes. The April, 2002 edition, pg. 29.

Pretty close to the ski slopes. Kyle thought about climbing all the way up there to have a snowball fight. But his calves were too tired. Bummer dude.

UFO spotted! 

It vanished as quick as the wind....if only we could've gotten closer...

I guess these things are pretty regular out in Idaho...

After an epic lunch and shower we then went on a casual (aka turn off training mode ALI!) bike ride into town. Our goals included 3:

1. Find a new oven mitt to replace the one Ali… toasted. Sorry! We promise we’ll replace it. 
2. Find a post office to send out a few postcards to our biggest blog followers (whats up parents). Y’all can look forward to some high quality South Dakota cards.  
3. Find mustard. A lot of mustard. Kyle’s a big mustard fan. Ali didn’t eat mustard until about 48 hours ago.

Bob left us this amazing sweet and spicy mustard that is made locally in Sun Valley. It recently won second place in the worldwide mustard taste testing contest. No joke. Google it.

Ye Olde Sun Valley Mustard.
 Appropriate antique finish.  Instagram is totally hipster.

 This stuff is the real deal. So we bought quite a bit of it….

Kyle’s considering sharing with his family. If they’re lucky.

Bike ride back

Kyle represents the Warner Formal he went to.....oh wait....he doesn't go to Davidson, but thanks for the shirt Rachel!

BIG MOOSE raises his leg and lets out a relieving.....!! Watch out Kyle.

We passed PK's store - the main ski and sports shop in Ketchum!

At least we think so; PK what's goin on?! We thought you were from Ghana...

TOMORROW – On the road again!

We are off to Revo, NV to visit the famous Sam Arnow. We were planning on visiting Sarnow in San Francisco (where he is doing a summer internship), but since he does not get there until the night of the 2^nd, Sar-dood invited us to come hang in Reno.

Can’t wait to see that fool. Ali can’t wait to rekindle memories of her first and only previous trip to Reno – club volleyball nationals in 7^th grade. Imagine 1000+ middle school girls running around a town in spandex. It was madness!!!! 

We made enough left overs for car snacks on snacks on snacks. So sorry Subway we probably won’t be seeing you tomorrow.

Also – we are definitely gonna break 4000 for our total mileage. That’s a lotta miles. 

Mileage stats:

Biking: 24.2 miles

Running: 13

Total Mileage: 37.2

All on a half gallon of Orange Juice and a half gallon of Limeade. (Thanks Bob!)

Average MPG: 37.2. Not too bad for a cleaning burning juice engine.

Day 8 - Yellowstone - Ketchum, ID

Day 8

May, 29^th 2012

West Yellowstone to Ketchum, ID

Bye, bye little wood cabin. It’s been real. It’s been fun. It’s been real fun.

After Kyle jump started his morning with a sausage, egg and cheese McGriddle, we entered the West entrance of Yellowstone park for the last time. This time we were making our way from the West Entrance to the South Entrance toward Grand Tetons National Park. We got to wind through some of our favorite parts of the park. Saw a gang of Bison( thanks for the correct terminology Katie Lovett) bigger than we had before. Probably about 25 of them all together.

Bison!

And for those of you who are sick of hearing about bison
 here are some non-bison creatures! We think these were elk....

Driving down one of the open stretches in the road – Kyle had half his body out the sunroof in a search for bears since we had not seen one yet. "WHERE ARE THE BEARS?!?!" Looking backwards, the wind whips Kyle’s sunglasses and they fly right off! He ducks down into the car, "my sunglasses flew off! Turn around!" Since we were going at least 45mpg the glasses were a good quarter mile back on the road. Ali flipped a b’ on the road and headed back for the glasses. Of course, we had not seen any cars around until right when we get near the glasses. They are there, lying in the middle of the road, and five cars are coming straight for them. We watched the first car go over them. Wooooosh. Safe. Not run over. The second – safe. The third – safe. The fourth…safe but barely. And then came a mini van. Seems like these mini vans keep coming into our paths. The van was headed straight for the glasses and it looked like its left tire was going to crunch them. Wooooosh. The car passed and the glasses were still lying there fully intact. Must have missed them by mere inches. Kyle ran across the road and grabbed ‘em. Lucky boy. His sweet aviators walked away with only a slight scratch of a battle wound on the lens.

Almost to the entrance of Grand Tetons we had to make a little pit stop to go back a few decades to 1975 when Scott McCarty (Kyle's dad) spent his junior summer of college working in between Yellowstone and Grand Tetons at a place called Flagg Ranch pumping gas and busing tables. So just to get a little perspective Kyle pumped some gas and bused some tables at that very same ranch. Chiggity check out the evidence.

Or shall I say pumping diesel.

There weren’t too many tables to bus… but Kyle handled it.
 His previous busing experience at the Red Lobster certainly helped.

GRAND TETONS

Rachel Besnoff highly recommended the Tetons as this is her favorite national park. We honored her by listening to some Ludacris while touring the park.  Although there were no Phat Rabbits to be seen, the rivers certainly Splashed Waterfalls.  Bugs were aplenty as Kyle exclaimed "Get Off Me!" as a large one got in his ear.  A cool fact about the area we had just been through, and the entire state of Montana has only one Area Code. Ok. enough Luda references.

The mountains are fabulous. I think we were finally glad it had snowed since the mountain peaks looked so awesome covered in snow.

Kyle about to get run over by some intense cyclists.

We stopped at one of the lookout points to get a better view and we meet the worlds most British couple. I think they said Cheerio at least three times. They were very nice and offered to take our pictures.

Drive to Ketchum, ID HIGHLIGHTS:

• We were killing it on MPG for a while with a high of 52.1. Once we got on the highway it went down a bit…
• We hit the first desert since leaving North Carolina and got to climb back up from the Yellowstone low of 33 degrees to 78 degrees.
•  We stopped at a Subway that had a drive through!!!!! That’s almost as crazy as ice cream at Subway. Also… better late than never but the guy offered us a Subway frequent buyer card. WTF? Where was that offer about 15 sandwiches ago. For those frequent Subwayers out there – get the card! Once you spend a certain amount of subway dollars you get a free sub. 
• We passed Craters of the Moon monument. At first, Kyle thought it was just the left over damage of nuclear testing since there is absolutely NOTHING out there along highway 20  from Idaho Falls til we hit the 75.  It was weeeeeeeird lookin.   

 

• We passed through a town named for Kyle's dog, Rigby.  He is from there and saved the town from disaster in the late 17th century from fire.  Not really. But Rigby is such a good dawg, he deserves a town named for him.

Ketchum, ID – Beyer Style

Ali’s Dad’s best friend (dating back to 7^th grade) – Bob Beyer – has a second home in Ketchum Idaho and he so kindly let us stay in his guesthouse which is an incredible ski lodge cabin right at the bottom of the slopes. The slopes are not so snowy right now… but it is so cool to see the area and it’s a great place for summer fun like biking, hiking, running, exploring, etc!

The guesthouse aka Village at Greyhawk is so well decorated and Bob truly spoiled us. We get to the house – after his e-mail with perfectly laid out directions and paragraphs describing the surrounding dining and hiking options and the house is fully stocked! A plate of baked goods, two bottles of wine, fresh chips and salsa out laid out for us. Thanks Bob! Oh and then we opened the fridge and freezer – orange juice, eggs, beer, Ben and Jerry’s. Kyle immediately said – any type of vegetable cooking and healthy eating can start... right AFTER this.

 

 

Ali was pumped to do some serious cooking! 

Since Kyle found out Ali had not seen past the 2^nd Harry Potter movie (crime!) he convinced her that needed to be done. So after cooking up a mound of veggies the Harry Potter bonanza began. I say bonanza because we didn’t just watch the 1^st and 2^nd movies that night, we then proceeded to watch the 3^rd and 4^th the next day. Truly basking in summer laziness. To all that know Ali well – it is nearly impossible to get her to sit still for more than an hour so props to Kyle and J.K. Rowling for getting her to just sit back, reeeeeelax, and watch.

Looking forward to a few relaxing, homey, non-driving days in IDAHO! Thanks again Beyer family for all your generosity. You’ve truly spoiled us.

Oh and a shoutout to Dave Soto aka the CHAMP.  He suggested a visit to Spokane. "But, be sure to bring guns. SpoKompton is dangerous year-round."  Looking at a map and realizing Kyle gets enough of Compton by going to USC, we passed.  It's the thought that counts.

Driving stats:

Drive time (from West Yellowstone – through Grand Tetons to Ketchum) 7 hrs. and 45 mins. 

Day mileage: 374

Total mileage: 3078

 

Day 7 - Yellowstone Nat'l Park

Day 7

May 28^th, 2012

Yellowstone National Park

Spectacular.  Breathtaking. 

You should stop what you are doing and go to Yellowstone now.

 This looks like one of those iPhoto background. 

But we swear on our moms its real.

Lower falls in the background.

Day started bright and early. The 100 year old room in the cozy Hostel Cabin -  it kept in heat better than expected for a wooden cabin, but it certainly did not contain the noise from our neighbors (please reference the Modest Mouse song Paper Thin Walls). For some reason, the people next door where on their computers instant messaging. You know that annoying deee dooo tone? Yeah we heard that til 1 am. Then they got up at 5:30 to bang around and use outside voices! I guess they never passed Kindergarten.  Whoops.

Anyways, we had seen a good place for breakfast the night before and that coaxed us out of bed.  Lumbering downstairs and next door, Ali proved she was more awake than anyone.  Four German guys were looking at the front door to the breakfast placed perplexed…..there are people inside, but the door won’t open….Ali to the rescue.  Walks right up and pulls the door instead of pushes it.  Bet they felt dumb.  Either way, breakfast turned out to be delicious diner style omelets and not continental.  Very nice change.  Kyle ate the Denver omelet cause it’s the closest either of us has been to Denver. Tastes better the closer you get to Denver. Noted.

Using the wifi from the hotel, Kyle was able to facetime his parents.  Cool to do when he was in 35 degree weather in ‘downtown’ West Yellowstone and mom and dad are by the beach in Ventura.  He was jealous for a minute or two before realizing the tour of Yellowstone was about to begin. You can’t see bison at the beach can ya?

Kick-starting the day with a full tank of diesel (didn’t want any scares or flashbacks to yesterday) we were able to get into the park around 10am.  Even with the holiday, the park wasn’t crowded at all.  Ali was doing the driving, Kyle was on photo patrol. We treated the park as a safari adventure. Kyle was poppin in and out of the sun roof snapping pics.

As we said earlier we expected Yellowstone to be like Yosemite.  Lots to look at, good weather, it’s all about the natural features of the land and hikes. Yellowstone was BAM! Surprisingly different. First off, everyone drives through the 2.2 million acre park and pulls over at the “lookouts.” Some of these lookouts were really worth the look.

Okay, okay – I know all of you that have never been to Yellowstone are dying to hear about OLD FAITHFUL. Omg. Well we hit that up first after a few bison dodging sessions on the way to the Old Faithful part of the park.

First step: figure out Old Faithful’s schedule.  The only scheduled event, and arguably the most important, cannot be missed.  So Kyle stopped in at the Junior Ranger station to ask for information.  He got a quick geology lesson while waiting in line and found out Old Faithful had just erupted.  Good.  Then we had a solid 90 minutes to get there (about 30 miles away). This allowed us ample time to see some of the sights on the way.

Some smurf with a scarf decided to intrude on this nature pic.  

it got really cold out there.

Firehole Falls

 Kyle almost fell in but luckily he grabbed onto that handy branch.

 Ali asked where the bison were. Kyle thought she asked where are the biceps?

After smelling sulfur and enjoying the weird sights of bubbling mud, we headed for Old Faithful.  We got Helga the perfect parking spot.  Shoutout to Poppa Farr – 0% percent chance of door ding.

 

Yeah… we’ll wash the back of the car soon. Don’t you worry Dad :)

We got there early to ensure we didn’t miss anything.  We walked all around the geyser to see a couple different pools/steam vents.  One was this gorgeous crystal clear ‘stingray’ pool.

Note the shape.  We named it.

Getting back to prime seating for Old Faithful’s eruption, we stopped by to hear a park ranger give a talk about the foundation of Yellowstone and the fierce fight (on the park ground and in Congress) to protect not only the park’s vulnerable bison population but all animals on the property.

Here are a few shots from Old Faithful.

 

 

 

Ooop we only took like three cause its really not the best thing since sliced bread. The rest of Yellowstone is.

Ok. We take it back. Old Faithful was cool it just gets too built up.

We took a great video of it erupting! If you haven’t been to Yellowstone don’t watch it so it can be a surprise someday. For those seasoned Yellowstoners – have at it.

http://youtu.be/6eJp3vxJe5I

Tip of the day – if you go to Yellowstone you MUST go to the Upper and Lower falls. Hands down.

Upper Falls Rainbow.  Pretty pretty goooooood!

Ali thinking about just how high up we were.

Looking downstream and downcanyon at the Yellowstone River

Lower Falls absolutely breathtaking at 308ft

We stopped on the side of the road for lunch.  

Here's the view from this sweet lil turnout on the north side of Lake Yellowstone.

An idea of the wildlife we got to see... Imagine all of this being said to you in Morgan Freeman's tone of voice or a lovely British accent. 

1. Bison calves contemplating crossing the river. 

 2. Op! They're in. 

 3. Will they make it? The current is getting strong. 

 4. Rejoice! They made it across. 

5. Isn't this almost as cool as Planet Earth?

 Yet again imagine the appropriately accented narrator. 

 1. There is a large male bison blocking our desired path - let's call him Bruno. 

 2. A curious Ali approaches Bruno to investigate 
the likelihood of him clearing the path. 

 3. Bruno lets out a big GRUNT and 
Ali realizes their differences in size and bolts for safety. 

4. Bruno then basked in his dominance.

After an exhausting day of surreal sights and getting in and out of the car we headed back to our little wooden cabin room. (see MPG stats below)

We couldn’t decide what we wanted to do for dinner so Ali volunteered to go on an evening run and run by all the local establishments and do a little restaurant creeping. After running around all of West Yellowstone in search of something a little healthier than a “Buffalo Burger” Ali ended up at the grocery store and came back with an entire bag of spinach, cottage cheese, and carrots. Kyle got take out Mexican food and let Ali enjoy her rabbit food. Divide and conquer.

We're gonna miss out little log cabin hang out because there was so much wildlife there too... just not as wild anymore.
(The Hotel is called Madison Youth Hostel if anyone wants to Google it!)
http://madisonhotelmotel.com/

PS. Kyle saw the first California license plate!  Free Subway for the rest o the trip!!!!! WOOOT.

Drive Data: All around Yellowstone

Time spent in park = 7 hr. 30 mins

Miles = 106

MPG = 49.1 Wooooo! We're back folks.

TOTAL MILEAGE: 2704