Needle. It was a beautiful day for viewing the city from the top. The excitement started after we came down and were waiting to meet a colleague of mine from Cisco for lunch. While we waiting, I headed back to the truck to drop off my camera. When I arrived I found that my truck had been broke into. The thief had taken all of my electronics, including laptop computer, iPod and all the contents in my computer bag including back-up hard drive and Palm Pilot. With this I lost all of my data except for back-ups at home, my cell phone and all of the pictures from Alaska. They also stole my electronic key for the truck and I had to have AAA tow me to a local Ford dealer to re-cut a new key. It took me about 5 hours after all was done until I just said, “it is done. Leave it behind you and do not ruin the rest of our trip”. Side note: I have lost computers and data before. I may seem to be a great loss, but there are only a few personal items that I am really concerned about. The number one is photos, then personal contacts, iTunes, financial records and then not much more.We drove across Washington and spent
the night at a campground just in Idaho. The next day was a beautiful drive through Idaho past Coure de Lane and western Montana. When we got off of the Interstate and started heading south to my friend’s cabin just outside of West Yellowstone, we drove through a beautiful valley with a river running through it. I just loved it as I could picture running cattle through it in the open range days. We arrived at Mark and Debbie’s cabin that evening and it felt good to get out of the truck for a while. We planned on being there for three days.7/2 Next day we planned on just hanging out with Mark and Debbie. They had plenty to do there at the cabin. We took the ATVs out for a couple of rides and Amanda had a blast riding them. She was the crazy driver.
When we rode together she took off once. As
I came around the turns I would look for her and could not find her. I thought maybe she got off of the main road. When I finally caught her, I asked how fast she was going. She told me she was driving 50 MPH. Crazy girl.7/3 We drove into Yellowstone for the day. There are two basic loops in Yellowstone, one in the north and one in
the south with a common road in the middle. We decided to drive a continuous loop around both north and south. We started out seeing buffalo, mud pots, geysers, waterfalls, bears, elk and wolves. We spent 12 hours driving around the park that day. I used to think that Yellowstone was just about Old Faithful and buffalo. I was so mistaken. The geology in the park is just incredible. There are so many different sites that 
we saw just from the road.We stopped at two large areas with mud pots and small geysers. There were board walks to keep you safe and also cut down on the damage caused by so many visitors. Due to lack of knowledge, people in the past would walk on the heat ground and fall through into very hot spots and be severely injured.
Also people would drop things in geysers and that can clog a geyser and cause it react differently. Speaking of which, the national park is a nature site, the geysers and mud pots to change over the years and sometimes the time of the year.We had lunch at the Old Lodge on the second floor deck and waited for the Old Faithful. She came righ
t on schedule. The Lodge is a beautiful structure. It was nearly lost during the large fire back in the eighties. The growth since the fire is fairly spectacular. Nature does know how to recover.We
then drove on and saw Yellowstone Lake and more animals. We then came upon The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. This was my favorite area. The water falls were very grand and the canyon cut 
was incredible. We hiked down a pathway and several hundred steps to view the lower falls. We then saw bears in the fields and another waterfall, Tower Falls. 
From there we headed to the north loop and saw Mammoth Springs. This was 
another structure that is changing. The original springs have dried up, but new springs are forming. From there as you drive, te road climbs to a high plateau within the park. It was mostly open grass fields. It was here that we saw the wolves. They were eating something out in the fields.We then
finished the loop and headed back to the cabin. We talked about what we saw and Debbie indicated
that she has never seen a wolf and 
they have been traveling there since she was a
kid.On July 4th, we hung around the cabin and took
out the ATVs again. During the late morning, Mark brought out his guns and the four of us went to an out of the way area and shot different guns that Mark has collected. Amanda turns out to be a good shot. She was very consistent with the .22. We also shot clay pigeons and I learned how to hit them. We then went down to Idaho Falls for the fourth of July. They had a $1,000,000.00 display the was in-sync with a local radio station. We ate chicken on the lawn while watching the display.
07/05/2008 We drove back to Denver from the cabin. Amanda needed to be back for work the next morning. I consider the trip a very good success. We had a good time and tried many different ways of lodging and transportation. It was a learning experience for Amanda and me.
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