Moving to Alaska: Day Ten

Now I am starting a fun few days. What I mean by that is more hiking, exploring and less driving. It starts in the morning outside Ogden with some hiking up near Snowbasin ski resort. It was where the skiing events were held when Salt Lake City hosted the Olympics, though luckily the trails I was going to be on were not that far up the mountain. It was a fantastic morning for walking since it was cool mountain air and I was there just after the sun came up. But after a few hours, it was time to go back to the hotel to pick up the cat and continue north.

What is north you say? State #50!!! I have now officially been in all of them and of those, 48 were within the last twelve years (sorry Nevada and Michigan). It wasn't something I was trying to complete until the last couple years and is a big part of the strange driving route to Alaska. So now I am on to the next list which is to plant and find letterboxes in all of them. I have some catching up to do on that though. Currently I have planted in 25 states and found at least one in 44 states (plus DC). But my real goal is to find at least ten in each state and pending some final verification, I believe 35 of them on that list.

Most of the afternoon was driving across Idaho and along the way I stopped at what I think is a great rest area near Blackfoot. It is called Hell's 1/2 Acre and is an interpretive trail through the lava fields that is run by the Bureau of Land Management (federal agency in charge of national forests and wilderness areas). I really enjoy stuff like that so spent probably an hour at the rest area walking the two trails. What is interesting is that they have a long loop and a short loop yet on them, the signs are the same. I guess they don't expect most people to do both of them and even notice that...

The day finally ended at what most brought me to this part of the country; Yellowstone National Park. OK, technically it took me to the town of West Yellowstone since I did not go to the park today but I will be out rather early tomorrow.

Of course, rather early is an interesting concept. As you know, I am travelling with a cat. Unfortunately the cat does not understand time zones so I seem to be getting up far too early most days. And he is not free fed, meaning he gets a set amount in a bowl twice a day. So it requires my filling that bowl twice a day, on the schedule of his stomach which still thinks it is in Atlanta. He is getting a little better but seeing as how I still have to more time zones to enter, it is not going to be a fun transition.

Start: Odgen, Utah

Stop: West Yellowstone, Montana

~330 Miles Driven

~7.9 Miles Walked
16 Letterboxes Found

3 Letterboxes Not Found

1 Letterboxes Planted

Pictures will be posted on Facebook in this album (and the link will be included in all future posts for this trip):

Moving to Alaska Photos