Reel Time

After another fun pancake breakfast, I noticed the clouds casting shadows on the mountain. So, I grabbed the camera and took a movie in real time. I caught a hawk flying into a bush and then out again .

Big Sky!

This is the beginning of the rainstorm over Glacier National Park. We were at St. Mary's. The lightning strikes never got out of the clouds.

mandala cake

We were inspired by the upcoming visit of the sand mandala talk, so made this cake. It is a spice cake with a butter cream icing, then "sanded" with brown and colored sugar. Very tasty!


Ms M did some fabulous design work.

Lovely girls with an inspired cake.

More Glacier-Yellowstone

Yellowstone had some beautiful flowers, too. This was in a pond that no one but us were visiting
A big guy cooling off before he took a dust bath.

A cute bear, digging on a rotten log. S/He caused a bear jam.
This black bear caused a bear jam in Glacier. S/He was frolicking in a field of flowers.

This is the meadow that actually caused a Flower Jam on the road. As many cars stopped to look and take pictures as the above bear.

Road Trip

Yes, we did camp at Glacier. No bears in our campground


But we did visit a Grizzly rescue in southern Montana. Above are Jake and Maggie.

On the shortened hike to Iceberg Lake. Grizzly sightings cut the hike short.

Sequoia

We had a lovely trip to Sequoia National Park It was a wonderful trip to take Mom to see the big Trees . I had never been to the park and was amazed at the beauty of the area. There were few people and everyone was friendly and polite.The Lincoln tree.

Headed to see the Sherman Tree.

Tree Hugging Liberal!

There was enough snow on the hiking trails to make it so we couldn't go far of the roads. This Bear and a smaller blond one were about a 1/2 mile from where we went on one hike.

The drive was nice, we missed most of the heat through the desert, got to see cousin Allen in Kingman. M got to talk Ranger with a real Ranger/Relative!

The Journey Home

After an overnight in Belen, Xian drove home from Rio Rancho. Since we did not have a camera with us, please use your inner eye to see the sights.

The Jemez river was running high, fast and muddy. After we stopped to change drivers in Jemez Springs, we saw the river gushing/shooting through the Soda Dam. Further on, there was still snow on the north sides of every hill and the ground looked like a swamp in most places. The Valle Grande had patches of snow all around and pools of water everywhere. Little streams are running all around. Then we noticed the ground covered in white. HAIL! we had missed the hail storm because we had taken a tour of the Jemez State Monument. There was about an inch on the ground. On some parts of the road there were just tracks through the hailstones. A little further on, it started to snow, then sleet. As we dropped into Los Alamos, it got pretty again.

The wildflowers should be fabulous this year!