Camping at Mt. Rainier

We spent last weekend at Mt. Rainier, our first time tent camping with the boys.  It was great!  The one-nighter was an excellent starting point... you don't need a ton of gear, the food can just be done ahead of time and kept in a cooler, and there's not much a person can't put up with for 24 hours so it's a harmless way to learn your needs.  Mt. Rainier is gorgeous and only about two hours from home.  We had a wonderful campsite next to a stream bridged by multiple fallen trees.  Jordan took up logwalking.

I found it somewhat terrifying to watch, but he loved it and was doing great, so I just ... didn't watch.  Instead I looked at the deliciously green surroundings.  I love the temperate rainforest.

Aaron, mercifully, preferred to sit on the bank and make mud towers.  It's glacial-silty stuff, excellent for drippy building.

In between logwalking and tower-building, there were hikes and "picnics" (which I would have just called "eating," since we didn't have an indoor option, but the boys liked picnics better).  Note presence of dog:  He rode down with us in the Camry, on the passenger seat floor.  Actually it was fine.

Doctor visits

Jordan and Aaron both had pediatrician visits this week.  No shots!  That's all they need to know.  The rest is fun.  Aaron, who was terrified of the doctor's office the last time we were there, had no trouble this time. He didn't want to lie down on the paper-covered table, but he liked the doctor's suggestion that he stand up on it, instead.  He was very entertained when the doctor pretended to look for mosquitoes in his ears.

Jordan, who went the next day, discussed nutrition at length, explaining that he knows green foods have lots of vitamins so he tries to eat a little bit even though they're not his favorite, and that he does like broccoli, and kale if he's eating it right in the garden.  Jordan is 47.5 lbs and 47.5 inches, a meaningless coincidence which is common for six-year-olds.  This makes him tall and thin.  He asked how the blood pressure cuff works:  the doctor gave such an age-appropriate-yet-sophisticated explanation, I was bowled over.  Now I bet Jordan understands it better than I do.

He also went to the ophthalmologist for a checkup.  All is well; we keep patching him for at least another three months, though, because they like to see things stay stable for some time before they ramp it down. Here he is doing a test for stereoscopic vision, which can be impaired in kids with amblyopia if the eyes go out of alignment.  The tech is one we've seen several times and she's terrific; she really makes it fun, which means she gets terrific compliance and thus accurate results.  She says Jordan is an excellent patient.

Bathtub science

The kids are in the bathtub; we hear water pouring.

Jordan: Now who felt it?

Aaron: Maybe me.

Jordan: Who felt it on his foot?

Aaron: Maybe me.

Jordan: See, that’s an experiment.  You pour it on both and you see which one feels it.

Aaron: Okay.

Jordan: Okay, so what we’re going to do is put this in the water, press down on it, now Aaron, you put your legs inside my legs.  Aaron do this, do this.  And I’ll do this, okay?  So we’re trying to do an experiment.  We’re going ot pour some right here in between my feet, and who feels it the most.  Actually we’re going to pour it right here, and with this suction cup, and these two legs are supposed to go up.  Now it has a certain vibration.  So it can go in here and over here, or through here, or this way.  Let’s try it.

Aaron: Oh, I feeled it!

Jordan: Now where did you feel it?

Aaron: On my feet.

Jordan: Now we’ll try it over here.  I know exactly where to put it.  Right between these two legs.  There, did you feel it?

Aaron: Yeah.

Jordan: Did I feel it?

Aaron: Yeah.

Jordan: Right, I did.  Now let’s do this, I’ll make a circle with my feet.  I do the pose.  [Pours.] 

Aaron: I feeled it!

Jordan: Did I feel it?

Aaron: Yes.

Jordan: No, this time I did not feel it, actually the water went right through.  Now Aaron, look right here, get right in here.

Aaron: Noooo,

Jordan: But Aaron it’s an experiment.

Aaron: I’m going to be a –

Jordan: It’s not an “I’m going to be a” game, it’s an experiment.  You go right here.

[I stopped transcribing, but it went on for a loooong time.  After the science lesson there was yoga class.]

Yellowstone: Food

There is nothing remarkable about the food at Yellowstone, except that the menus include a lot of bison meat, as they do in Montana.  Bison meat is supposedly healthier than regular beef (lower in fat and cholesterol) and tastes very similar.  The majority of bison in the world are raised for meat; some are pastured, some are raised in feedlots.  There is no sourcing of any of the meat on the menus at Yellowstone, although some of the hamburgers are advertised as “sustainable,” whatever that means.  Some of the seafood is marked as being certified by the Marine Stewardship Council, which I think is meaningful, and some other menu items are marked with a little logo designating them as “including sustainable or organic ingredients,” which I think is not meaningful.  There is an overall effort (on the part of the hospitality company that runs the place) to appear environmentally conscious, which is laudable if it’s real.  “Yellow Is The New Green!” was the slogan.  However, the much-touted recycling bins in the rooms were not useful to me:  recycle what?  Cans and bottles, surely, but paper?  Plastic?  And then there was the bar of soap with the hole in the middle, eliminating that wasteful soap chip.  That was just odd.

Back to the food:  I arrived with the grim expectation of eating nothing but fast food all week.  Fast food offends my body and my soul but I can’t bring a week’s worth of food on the plane, or cart it in from Bozeman, so while a guest of Yellowstone (or, rather, the resort company that runs provides all hospitality services) I was prepared to make do.  The food turned out to be a variety of institutional food, ranging from junk to fairly classy hotel food.  The menus were almost the same at each lodge.  I assume it was all factory food.  I don’t claim to know how one might serve fresh, high-quality food to so many people in such a non-agricultural location, but I long for the day.

When I got home, our garden was bursting with produce and I stood in the yard eating fresh English peas.  Home sweet home!

Yellowstone: Thermal features

[Still trying to catch up... this is old, but I feel like I can't post anything newer until I get this up!]

I can’t stop thinking about what it must have been like to encounter this place by surprise – to be out on a journey and find…. holes in the ground roaring sulfurous steam?  Fountains of boiling poison water blasting a hundred feet in the air?  Gentle (boiling poisonous) springs trickling out of terraced pools sculpted from mineral icicles, colored with algae?  Not to mention the gorgeous mountains and lakes and waterfalls and canyons. The whole thing is superlatively dramatic. 

We started at Mammoth Hot Springs, where the hot water carries dissolved limestone that deposits onto the surface, changing the ground shape by an inch or more per month.  You walk on long boardwalks through the moonscapes of the dry areas.

Then, in the areas with active springs, multicolored “thermophiles” (heat-loving microorganisms) tint the water in strong oranges and yellows.  Their intricate growth combines with the crystal buildup of the limestone to make boggling patterns, like things you might find on another planet.  And in fact they think we might find them on another planet: scientists study these specialized chemical environments for clues about possible extraterrestrial life.  Super weird.

Everywhere you go there are hot springs, geysers, fumeroles (steam holes), and mud pots.  The hot springs are often really beautiful, with twisty tunnel shapes in the clear blue depths, looking like the coolest swimming pool, only it’s hot. 

At mud pots, the sulfuric acid in the water dissolves the rock into gloppy mud, and the gas blurps up through it.  Rather like boiling pudding.  The kids find it hilarious and actually so do I.  [We took movies, but Blogger can't seem to handle them, sorry.]

Geysers can bubble, spray, or just steam ominously.  Fumeroles are just holes in the ground where gas escapes, but somehow they are the spookiest of all; they often make cavernous hooting or roaring or rumbling sounds, and you wonder what the hell is about to come out of there.  Aaron does not like them at all.  He doesn’t like anything that steams, in fact, and has to be carried long distances when we are among geysers.  It helps a lot if he calls them by different, non-scary names:  beysers, gweisers, schmeisers, etc.  (Language is so weirdly powerful.)  Jordan, on the other hand, cannot get enough.  To him they are volcanoes, and wonderful.  He wants more geysers every day.

Yellowstone: Wildlife

When not at the inn, we do long “game drives” punctuated by stops to see entertaining thermal features or other big sights.  Here we are in our rented minivan:

Here is a much better picture of us at a picnic on a lunch stop:

Dale is a completely awesome guide and driver, somehow able to both smoothly transport us from place to place and also spot wildlife - either far away and thus small, or up close and thus almost already behind us.  He really made it great.  Dad kept a list of all the wild animals we spotted on the trip:

American Bison

Bighorn Sheep

Black-tailed Deer

Chipmunk

Elk

Grizzly Bear

Ground Squirrel

Mule Deer

Pine Squirrel

Pronghorn Antelope

Yellow-bellied Marmot

American Crow

American Robin

American White Pelican

Bald Eagle

Black-billed Magpie

Canada Goose

Clark's Nutcracker

Common Raven

Green-bellied Swallow

Mallard

Mountain Bluebird

Osprey

Red-tailed hawk

Sandhill Crane

Trumpeter Swan

Western Gull

I am especially enamored of the buffalo.  Not only do you really not see them anywhere else (in the wild), but they are so… big, and unique, and powerful-looking, and implacable.  Yesterday we saw a couple sitting right by the road, uninterested in the gawking tourists.  We watched them from quite close up for quite some time.  In the binoculars, they are downright monstrous.  On what I think of as “buffalo day” we saw a herd of hundreds of them spread out over a giant rolling valley, with lots of calves.  They were pretty far off, though, and not much in a photograph, which just doesn’t give the sense of scale.  Years ago, a friend of mine was surrounded by a moving herd at night, in his car, and that sounded pretty major.  I would kind of like that.  Unprotected by the car, though, I find them pretty scary at close range.  There are signs all over that overconfident tourists are regularly gored by buffalo and to keep your distance.  Yikes. 

Later we were in a classic Yellowstone buffalo traffic jam.  They just stand there in the road, probably enjoying messing with us. 

I wonder what the deal is with the buffalo, because the ones we have seen have not been avoiding the heat at all; in fact they sit right out in the sun, in their impossibly shaggy wool, and not even on the cool grass but in dirt sand-pit type of things that maybe they made themselves, maybe for dust baths.  These are called “bison wallows” and, according to Wikipedia (which I can only use now that I have internet again), may be used wet or dry, for reasons that scientists only guess at.  The fields are dotted with them.

The fields are also dotted with buffalo poop, which Jordan and Aaron find thrilling.  Here they are seeking it out.

They also love their new binoculars (presents from Grandpa), even though we think they have not actually figured out how to use them.  Aaron especially loves to describe the wonders he’s seeing, as he holds the binoculars onto his nose.  His other favorite activity is hunting (see below).  We keep explaining that there is no hunting in the national park.

Yellowstone: Lodging

We are staying at the Old Faithful Inn, a multistory log cabin kind of place whose rough-hewn beams are worn smooth by generations.  Beautiful and elegantly rustic.  It’s supposed to look like it grew here, and it does:

Those beams are all the natural forms that were cut from trees in the area.  The inner lobby is the whole height of the building.  The common areas on the balconies surrounding the lobby are really wonderful.  Big old leather-and-wood chairs and couches overlooking the central area, and people actually fill those spaces right up, because the rooms are too dim to hang out in or even read in.  There’s also a giant deck, from which you can watch Old Faithful.  Or you can walk over to the geyser viewing area and watch from closer up. You can tell when it’s about to erupt by the accumulation of tourists.  Our room is charming and rustic with bare wood walls and dim electric lights built to imitate candles.  Early visitors apparently expected electricity, as well as running water and central heat. 

I love the sink in the room.  However, they are not original… they were added in the 1980s, apparently.  Before that people only had bathrooms down the hall.  Shared toilets and showers are still there, and are actually very nice.  

We toured three of the other lodges in the park and each has its own totally unique style.  The Roosevelt Lodge is a hunting-lodge type of place with a “great room” in the main building and the lodging in tiny little cabins.  The Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel is practically Grecian, with its pale buttery colors and classical clean lines.  And then there is my secret favorite, the Canyon Lodge, an “ugly strip-mall” according to my dad’s guidebook but to me, a marvelous example of modernist architecture.  Maybe it’s so out it’s in.  Look at the awesome clock in the lounge. 

Yellowstone: We went!

I have no idea when was the last time I was without internet so long and one of the serious difficulties was being unable to blog during our first family visit to a national park!  Dad got the bug from seeing the Ken Burns series, “America’s Best Idea,” and he thought it would be much more fun to go with us, meaning particularly our children.  We gladly signed up, as did Jes, Deena, Sue, and Bill, and it was a great week.  We stayed at a terrific place, saw tons of wildlife, gaped at geysers, and got along great.  The children were inestimably patient with all the driving and walking and restaurants, and really enjoyed themselves, very much fulfilling Grandpa’s vision of the whole thing.  In what follows I’ll blog on what I think are the important topics: lodging, wildlife, thermal features, and food.  (Food is always an important topic with me.)

[I’m still struggling with the pictures, so I’m going to post the text now and keep adding in the pictures as I can.]

Professor in training

Jordan gets a report card from religious school.  He got "yes" marks in all categories, which include a dozen or so things like "I can retell the Bible stories we learned in class" and "I'm a good listener."  His teacher wrote the following comment at the bottom:

"Each child brings a special gift to our class.  Jordan is our "professor in training."  He has a great sense of humor but when delivering information to the group it is done with great seriousness and intent."

Thank goodness professors can still have a sense of humor.

Jordan's birthday

As the first-born Jordan gets to be the leader in many things, but in birthday timing his comes second... so I have a lot less to say. :) His party was originally planned for Matthews Beach, but with the weather cloudy and cool we relocated to here, thus it felt a lot like Aaron's party. But with only one guest in common! How great is that, that we have enough friends for two completely distinct parties? More than enough -- lots of people were out of town this weekend that we'll have to catch up with another time.

The kids mostly played by themselves upstairs while the grownups sat around the living/dining room and chatted... it may as well have been a grownup party?! amazing how the youngsters have become so independent. We had tasty tacos for lunch. There was some outdoor soccer:

And there was cake. Pretty cool, no?

Cake math

Jordan and I are in the midst of baking his birthday cake (even as I write, the layers are in the oven) and we encountered some interesting math situations in the process. He requested a red, white, and blue cake, one layer of each color, with white frosting, and raspberries and blueberries on top. Very seasonal. So he and I made up a big batch of cake batter. He was entertained to learn that it is a 1-2-3-4 cake: 1 cup butter, 2 cups sugar, 3 cups flour, and 4 eggs. We needed three layers and I only have two nine-inch pans, but we can handle that. When the batter was prepared, though, we found ourselves with a puzzle. How would we make three different-colored layers all the same size?

Jordan: I know! Split the batter into three halves. Put one half in one bowl and make it red, the other half in the other bowl and and make it blue, and leave the third half where it is.
Rachel: Great idea. Now, this is going to be a little tricky, because see my three bowls? They are not the same size. So how will we make sure each one gets the same amount?
Jordan: Fill them up to the same height.
Rachel: Hmm. But if I do that, this bowl is bigger so it will get more. See?
Jordan: (blank look)
Rachel: Here, I'll show you. See this little bowl and this big bowl? If I fill the little bowl up to the top, and the big bowl up to the height of the little bowl, the big bowl has more.
Jordan: OH! Because it's wider.
Rachel: Right.  So what should we do?
Jordan: Put less in the bigger bowl so that it comes out the same.  Not as high.
Rachel: That would be good.  That's what I was thinking I should do.  But it would be hard to know just how much less, you know?  So I had another idea:
(I show him my kitchen scale.)
Jordan:  A waiter!!  (Weighter, I guess.)
Rachel: I suggest that we put the same amount of batter in each bowl by weighing it.  Now, here is a trick: I just want to weigh the batter, not the bowl.  So I put the bowl on the scale and press this little button to make it be zero with the bowl on.  Now, I don't know how much to put in, so I will just guess. Here, can you remember this number?
Jordan: Twenty!
Rachel: Twenty ounces in bowl number one.  Twenty ounces in bowl number two.  What will it be in bowl number three?
Jordan:  Twenty!
Rachel: Well, I want that, but I don't know if I did it right.  Maybe twenty was too much in the other bowls and there's not enough left.  And look, it's not enough, this is only twelve.  What should we do?
Jordan: Take some from the other bowls to make twelve, so that it will be twelve, twelve, twelve.
Rachel: That would make it even.  But then we would have leftover batter, and I want to use all the batter.  Hmm.  Okay, here's my idea.  How much batter is there all together?  Twenty plus twenty plus twelve, can you do that?
Jordan: No.
Rachel: Twenty plus twenty?
Jordan: Forty!
Rachel: And then forty plus twelve?
Jordan (intense look):  FIFTY-TWO.
Rachel:  Wow, awesome!
Jordan: Mommy I thought about the forty and the twelve and the ten part of the twelve goes with the forty and that makes it fifty and then there was the two part of the twelve and I remembered it was fifty and two more after fifty is fifty-two!
Rachel: Fantastic.  That is some great addition.  Now, we have fifty-two ounces, and we want to put the same amount into each of the three bowls.  How much should we put?  Can you figure that out?
Jordan: No.
Rachel: I don't blame you.  That is a tough one.  I can figure it out and it's between seventeen and eighteen.  So we will take about two ounces out of each of the bowls of twenty, and put those in the bowl of twelve, and that will make them just about the same.

That's a lot of math.