USA: Buses, bison and more buses

Good evening from the comfy little spot I've grabbed in Starbucks. Be warned: I've spent a large part of the past week on buses, but I promise other interesting things have happened too.

Want all the toys

Saturday was my final day in Seattle. First stop, Pike Place Market yet again for a brunch of currywurst. Om nom nom.

After that, I took a stroll across to Union Lake, which is kind of pretty.

It also happens to be home to the Museum of History and Industry, where I spent the rest of the day playing with interactive displays. They had an excellent exhibition about toys from the 50s through 80s on, which meant I got to play with Slinky.

Yes. I am a child. Deal with it.

Oh, and another tiny display of Microsoft related things. Including these floppy disks. Any readers remember the really huge ones? 3.5 inch ones were just on the way out when I was at school.

That is pretty much all I did with my Saturday. I had wanted to have an early night since I'd be spending about 24 hours on a bus in the near futre, but that plan was thwarted by the Night Market going on across the street from the hostel. I'm not sure why the Night Market warranted thumping bass-heavy music, but apparently it did. Ugh.

Where is the bus?

At any rate, I managed to wake up early enough to catch my 9am bus. The drive out of Seattle was lovely - out through the mountains - but once we got beyond that it turned into pretty bland rolling yellow hills. High point of the initial drive was going through Yakima, which long-forgotten GCSE Geography lessons taught me suffered from ashfall during the 1980 eruption of Mount St Helens.

Despite my initial excitement, that mountain turned out to be Mount Adams, not St Helens. Damn.

The bus then booted us all out in the middle of nowhere, aka Stanfield, Oregon, to await our connection. Seriously, middle of nowhere. Look.

I have no idea where the town/village/farm is in relation to this service station. We should have been waiting about 20 minutes. 40 at the most. The bus finally turned up an hour later. And then the driver proceeded to take a half hour break while the half-dozen of us poor buggers who'd come from Seattle stood around in confusion.

Anyway, we made it onto the bus in the end. Bearing in mind this was at nearly 5pm and we'd left Seattle at just after 9am. Boredom was setting in as anyone who's seen my Facebook feed for the period could have guessed...

Sometime after 10pm (or was it 11?) we arrived in Boise, Idaho and state number 4 on my trek, where we proceeded to wait another 45 minutes for the bus to be cleaned. So bored. So tired. Dreading at this point that I wouldn't be able to sleep on the bus.

Apparently I needn't have worried. Once we were back on the bus, I fell asleep almost straight off and stayed that well until just before we arrived in Salt Lake City just after 7am the next morning.

I slept on a bus. Oh my god.

Dancing coffee cups

I spent my Monday in Salt Lake. Most of that time, from memory, was spent in Starbucks or McDonalds, downing caffeine like there was no tomorrow. My somewhat sleep brain found this very amusing, since Salt Lake City is the heart of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, aka the Mormons and Mormons aren't supposed to drink tea or coffee.

Unfortunately, I'm also a huge fan of the musical The Book of Mormon, which addresses the above doctrine in a song called Spooky Mormon Hell Dream using dancing Starbucks cups... which in my sleep-addled state filled my brain.

This was even more hilarious when I decided to check out Temple Square and had a chat with a lovely young lady named Sister Gunther who kindly gave me a copy of the Book of Mormon and also asked if I'd seen the musical. I admitted that I'd had various songs from it stuck in my head all day, to which her response was "yes, my friend told me it was catchy." She didn't seem offended, at least.

Temple Square is actually a pretty cool area. Here is the Temple, which as a non-Mormon more than likely going to a firey hell, I'm not allowed in.

I also visited the Church History Museum. Very interesting, although I did have to resist the urge to laugh at certain things. That would have been rude and disrespectful. Some of the early history is pretty bizarre though - another testament, written on golden plates in an unknown language and script? Okay... Here is an early print of the Book.

While perusing the book selection in the shop I got talking to a couple from the Church who were fascinated by my Englishness and offered to take me to lunch. It was very sweet of them, but I worried we'd end up having a discussion about my religious beliefs (which are non-existent) and so I tried to politely turn them down. They were quite persistent.

Bless. They probably wanted to save my soul or something...

After many more hours mooching around or drinking tea wherever I could get my hands on it, I finally got on another bus. Yes. Another bus. Off one in the morning, onto the next one at 10pm.

This one took me as far as Rexburg, ID and then I had to spend 3 hours waiting in the lobby of a hotel where a friendly staff member offered me breakfast. Lovely lady.

When I finally got onto the next connecting bus, I was knackered. I hadn't slept as well on the way to Rexburg and had only managed an hour or so at the hotel, so I wasn't all that surprised when I awoke at West Yellowstone, 2 hours after leaving the hotel with aches in weird places because I'd clearly fallen asleep as soon as I got in the seat.

It's fucking freezing

West Yellowstone is not within Yellowstone National Park. It sits in Montana, just a mile or so from the park entrance. Indeed, it's the main gateway into the park. I'd like to say that's why I chose it, but it's not - it's just the only place I could find almost reasonably priced accomodation, courtesy of the Madison Hotel which has a couple of dorm rooms.

Pretty cool place, the Madison - it's one of the earliest hotels catering to the park and in the early days even hosted a couple of presidents of the USA.

Anyway, I was too knackered to do much that first day and despite a suggestion from the lady at the hotel desk of a walk down to the river, it was much too cold venture out. There was snow on the fricking mountains. Instead, I first visited one of the tour companies to get a trip planned into the park and then checked out a film about the park at the IMAX. Not too bad.

The Yellowstone Historic Center Museum was much more interesting. It's housed in the old Union Pacific train depot from the days when most of the park's visitors came in by rail. Really fascinating little place and great for killing a few hours. Covers everything from the park's foundation in 1872 to the 1959 earthquake at Hebgen Lake and the devastating 1988 wildfires.

That's Snaggletooth the bear, once a famous fixture in the park until 2 idiots inexplicably shot him.

I then spent the evening reading and trying to convince my brain to go to bed at a sensible time so as not to bugger up my body clock. Somehow I succeeded...

Get him, Bison, get him

On my second day in West Yellowstone, I took a bus trip into the park, driven and guided by the excellent Laurie. Yellowstone is beautiful. Really, stunningly beautiful. There's wildlife everywhere, from elk grazing by the Madison river.

To bison calmly sitting in the many meadows alongside the road.

Of course, with the wildlife so close by, it makes for some great photo opportunities. It also makes for human stupidity. Such as the guy we spotted taking a photo of a bison at the side of the road. He was out of his car. The bison was maybe 5 metres away. They might look dopey, but they can run fucking quick when they feel like it.

Laurie up front started chanting "get him, bison, get him" before we spotted a ranger coming down the road ready to chase the guy back into his car. Stupid man,

We stopped at several of the park's famous hydrothermal features during the day. One of my favourites was the Fountain Paint Pots area, not so much for the features themselves, although they were awesome, but for these trees.

They're known as bobby socks trees because of the white patch at the bottom of the trunks. They're dead, killed off when the hot, acidic water from the nearby hot springs changed course and flowed around them. The dead trees still soaked up some of the water, which is rich in silicate minerals and this turned their bases white.

Of course, this being Yellowstone, we also had to check out Old Faithful, the most famous geyser in the park.

I finally got that photo after waiting about half an hour. It's pretty impressive - the eruptions last about 3-5 minutes on average. Glad I arrived well before the predicted eruption time though - look at the crowd.

Also, contrary to popular belief, Old Faithful isn't all that faithful. It goes off every 92 minutes on average, but that's give or take 10 minutes, hence why I made sure I got there early.

Brits looking for good geysers - go to Iceland. Strokkur goes off every 10 minutes more or less. Means less time standing out in the cold.

Our final big stop for the day was at the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. And yes. It is grand and it's a canyon. It's also likely where the Yellowstone River, for which the park is named, got its name.

It's yellow. No filters required. All that hydrothermal activity has chemically altered and stained the rocks over the years and now the whole canyon is streaked with these amazing colours.

So, yeah, Yellowstone is beautiful. I need to go back when I get a chance. There's so much more of the park to explore.

You're back again!

I spent my final day in quaint West Yellowstone exploring the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Centre. The centre operates as both an educational facility, bringing people up to speed with the habits and dangers of bears and wolves and also as a rescue centre for bears removed from the park and surrounding areas for safety reasons. The wolves came from a breeding facility for movies. Poor things. They're gorgeous creatures.

The bears also help out with testing supposedly bear-proof containers. I'm sure this sleeping looking dude could get into most coolers in a matter of seconds if there was something yummy smelling in it.

Despite being a pretty small place, I spent a good 4 hours there. OK, so that might be partly because I got into a staring contest with one of the wolves...

But I also went to three of the naturalist talks, where I met this lovely owl, who is tiny.

And this gorgeous rough-legged hawk.

Oh, yeah, the centre rescues birds too. They have a trio of bald eagles who reminded me very much of the vultures in The Jungle Book...

Not a bad way to spend my last day in the area. After that, I took a brief walk around the historic part of town, which included the pretty cool Dining Lodge that was owned by the Union Pacific to feed the many rail passengers when they got off the train.

Also, this row of buildings which includes my hotel.

Looks just like something out of the Old West. Much of it is original, having been built in the early 1900s.

Sadly, I had to abandon the town to get yet another bus back to Rexburg. The 2 hour journey was rather more interesting than the one inbound, given that I was more awake and also the only one on the bus, so I ended up having a conversation with my driver who mostly wanted to know about differences between the US and UK. I tried to explain the concept of the monarchy and the Royal Family, but I'm not sure he quite got it.

And then I had to spend 6 hours in the hotel lobby at Rexburg waiting for my connection. There was no mention of this when I booked the ticket, otherwise I might have booked a different bus. Fortunately, one of the staff members said I was welcome to help myself to the free hot drinks and then the friendly lady from my previous visit popped in again. Her response was "you're back again!" Followed by a suggestion that I should try to get some sleep. She also said it was nice to see me again, which was a lovely little comment for my sleepy brain.

Screaming children, everywhere

At any rate, I got my bus and arrived back in sunny and hot Salt Lake City bright and early on Friday morning. I wasn't able to leave my bag at the hostel, so I had to lug it onto the Trax light rail and take it with me on the suprisingly long trip up the hillside to the Natural History Museum of Utah.

That place is awesome. I was expecting a pretty small museum, since it seems to be attached to the university. It's actually quite a big place - I easily spent 4 or 5 hours there. The collection includes a great selection of fossils, courtesy of Utah's famous fossil beds. Here is a wall of ceratopsian skulls.

Harold was not impressed about nearly being fed to a Deinosuchus...

There's also loads of interactive displays. I would have played with them a bit more, but the place was crawling with school kids. Obnoxious, rude school kids who didn't understand the concept of not pushing and actually giving other people a turn.

Also, the small child who pretty much shoved me out of the way so he could play with a thing about the tree of life that was way beyond his age range. Yeah, kid, if you know the terms eukarya, archaea and prokarya at the age of 4, then I'll accept that you'll understand this display.

I am not at all annoyed because a tiny child stopped me from playing with the geekery...

As always, I found the one gallery not full of children was the small minerals and gem section. Apparently kids aren't interested in shiny  rocks.

There's pretty good views from the terraces around the museum as well. If you squint, you might be able to pick out Great Salt Lake towards the right hand side of this photo.

Unfortunately, the haze made it a bit difficult to photograph anything with any precision. I know the lake is there, but even without looking through the camera it only showed up as a faintly blue sheen through the haze.

Tomorrow I have one more day to spare in Salt Lake City and then I'm on my way south to Monterey in California where I hope to go whale watching.

Just got to survive 2 more days of buses first...

USA: 1am is a great time to fly...

Woo, 2 weeks done in the USA! I am now in the lovely city of Seattle, Washington, enjoying the remarkably good weather.

So, things that have happened in the last week.

Hablo un poco de Espanol...

Yeah, last Saturday was spent learning yet more Spanish. I am excusing myself for not doing much that day because my roommate managed to keep me awake until gone midnight with rustling around packing her bag. I was knackered on Saturday morning and pretty sure I was coming down with something.

So, yes, I spent all day learning Spanish and trying to get blog in order.

I also nearly fell into having the gun debate with one of the American guys who worked at the hostel. Fortunately, we both went "uhh, let's not have that conversation" and moved swiftly on. In my defence, I didn't set out to have the debate with him - he made some comment about how back home in Texas, folks shoot their guns in the air on New Year's Eve and I made a perfectly innocent comment that we don't have anything like that in the UK. At which point we realised where the conversation was heading and both did a swift subject change. Well done, us.

Wolves and tigers and bears, oh my!

I spent Sunday at the Alaska Zoo. It was lovely. The zoo is more of a sanctuary, taking in injured and orphaned animals from across Alaska and the US. That said, they do have a few animals that aren't rescues - the aforementioned tigers, for a start.

The zoo is mostly focussed, due to its nature as a sanctuary, on Alaskan fauna. I have to say, though, I think this alpaca was my favourite.

Alpaca just have such expressive, silly faces.

Urgh...

After thinking I was back on track with actually doing things and not sitting around all day,  I woke up on Monday feeling disgusting. It was absolutely pissing down, which didn't help, but as the day wore on, I was definitely coming down with something.

This of course meant that I spent yet another day doing bugger all aside from learning Spanish. Oh, and this might have been the day where I booked absolutely all of my transport and accommodation for the rest of my time in the US... maybe. I don't remember.

The one good thing about this day was having a long chat with one of the English guys at the hostel who is possibly interested in meeting up with me in Peru. That'd be nice.

ALL THE GLACIERS

My time in Alaska came to a glorious end, fortunately. Yep. My final day definitely made up for the many wasted days that came before. It started with an early walk to a public bus stop, where I did my best not to look like a petrified tourist. This was followed by, courtesy of me arriving way too early in the city centre, with a cuppa from a little cafe.

At this point, I discovered that the concept of a cuppa is somewhat lost on Americans. Maybe not all of them, but in the nearly 2 weeks I've now been here, the vast majority of my bought cuppas have been a styrofoam cup with a tea bag handed over separately...

Anyway, there was nothing wrong with the cuppa, not that I would have noticed because I was in desperate need of caffeine.

Then I boarded the Magic Bus. Yes, that was it's name. No idea why. Anyhoo, the Magic Bus, driven by former pilot Tim, was going to take me to the tiny town of Whittier on Prince William Sound. Along the way we stopped a couple of places. First at this little pull in to see if we could spot any beluga whales.

I think I might have seen a couple. Beluga are white, so even through the rain, they should have shown up reasonably well. And I'm pretty sure I saw a couple of white backs that weren't just rough water. Indeed, the water was pretty calm, hence why I'm fairly sure the white patches were whales. I would have liked a better view though.

After that we pulled in for a rest break, at which I successfully resisted the call of the delicious smelling bakery. On mentioning this to Tim, he offered to buy me a doughnut, which sorely tested my resistance. Still not sure how I managed to say no. Possibly because I was somewhat embarrassed by the idea of my sweet old bus driver buying me a doughnut...

Then a stop at a pretty glacial lake. I think it would probably be a gorgeous colour like the lakes in the Rockies - I could see a sort of blue tint - but the clouds were drowning it out.

Our final stop of the morning was at a little platform overlooking a river to see the salmon running/spawning. These salmon are up the river quite late in the season, I believe and you can see that they're well past their best. All of those salmon are probably dead by now.

After that, it was just a case of driving through the tunnel to Whittier. Only... well, the tunnel to Whittier is shared with the train. It only has a single lane. So, on the hour it opens to let traffic out of Whittier, often followed by a train. On the half hour, it opens in the other direction to let traffic into the town. Also often followed by the train.

Much to my disappointment, we didn't get followed by the train, but it was kinda cool driving on top of the rail tracks.

From there, it was just a case of getting onto the boat. Yup, time for a cruise - my first boat trip in quite a while (not counting canoeing and rafting in the Rockies). First things first, I had to find my table, which I turned out to be sharing with a family from Indiana. They were very welcoming, which was great.

And then off to see some glaciers! To begin with we couldn't see much - the rain was still coming down and there was heavy fog in the Sound. Did spot a few sea otters, but the cute fuzzballs moved too quickly for me to get any photos of them.

First photographed spot of the day was a group of Steller's Sea Lions on a rocky haul out.

Following a passage between an island and the mainland, we also spotted some bald eagles. More fuzzy photos...

And then, finally, we started seeing glaciers. Loads of them. I'm not sure we saw all 26 as advertised, but we saw a pretty decent number of them. First up, Harriman.

Followed by Surprise. I have no idea why it's called Surprise. It did have some pretty fucking huge icebergs.

And finally the trio of Cascade, Coxe and Barry.

After that, it was pretty much just a case of heading back to port. Of course, this being Alaska and the weather being seriously changeable, the sun decided to make an appearance as we were motoring home. So we saw another glacier or two.

Also, this beautiful waterfall.

Pretty good end to my time in Alaska, I'd say!

Although, that wasn't quite the end... after all, I had to get to Seattle. Which meant getting a flight, because the ferries are bloody expensive. So I had to get another bus on arrival back in Anchorage, this time to the airport.

And there I sat for a good two hours, because in a moment of genius I had decided it was a great idea to book a flight that left at 1am. I probably figured that meant I'd have, in effect, an extra day in Seattle. Never mind the fact that I find it nearly impossible to sleep on planes.

Or that I figured I couldn't check in for my flight until 2 hours before departure. And I turned up at the airport just after 8. So I dossed for a couple of hours, learning Spanish and reading, before I finally gave up and approached the ticket counter. To my utter joy I found that they were checking in my flight, so I pootled off through security (which required removal of jumper, belt and boots, ugh) and then went in search of somewhere else to doss for another couple of hours.

Oh, and there was also the fact that I hadn't eaten since about 1pm and it was at that point approaching 11pm. So I ended up in Maccie D's. I haven't had a proper "meal" as such in MacDonalds for a very long time, so chicken nuggets and chips was... interesting. I'm sure the portion sizes over here are bigger...

Anyways, after another hour or so at the airport, in which time I somehow snagged an exit row seat (woo, short legs and ALL THE LEG ROOM!), I finally got on the plane and proceeded to try to sleep.

Don't ask me how, but I succeeded! I took the lead of the girl across from me who settled down with her tray table pulled out, head and arms resting on it. I figured I'd try the same in the vague hope that I might catch a few minutes doze and woke up nearly 2 hours later. This is pretty amazing for me.

It is too early

Of course, that 2 hours was still only 2 hours. First stop at Seattle airport was a cafe where I drowned my fatigue in a massive cup of tea. Somehow I managed to then stumble out to the light rail station and get on a train to the city centre. I even managed to get off at the right stop, despite getting motion sick and having to force my eyes to stay open.

Obviously I was too early to check in to the hostel, but I did arrive in time to make the most of the free breakfast. More tea for me! I then made vague plans to head to the Seattle Art Museum until my room was available, figuring that the museum wouldn't require too much brain power and I could just look at the pretties.

Said plan got scrapped after I got talking to a fellow guest who invited me to join him for the day. Fair does. As long as it keeps me awake. So I toddled out with him in search of the first Starbucks.

Oh, yeah, I should mention that Seattle is the birthplace of Starbucks. Also; THEY ARE EVERYWHERE.

I had no idea where the place was, so just followed my new friend, which meant we ended up getting directions from a friendly guy at a glassblowing studio. Said friendly man also gave me a whole load of suggestions for places to check out in the city. Nice guy.

Anyways, we ended up at the Starbucks eventually. It's in Pike Place Market, an awesome public market near the waterfront. While my companion joined the hideously long queue to grab a coffee, I decided to support the local economy and grabbed a cuppa from a place a few doors down.

I have no idea how I was even awake at this point. Possibly my brain had pulled its magical trick where it gets so tired it wakes up again. Anyways, we spent some time wandering through the market and then made a stop at the lovely Rocky Mountain Chocolate shop just down the road where I had yet another cuppa and a big slab of gooey chocolate brownie.

Oh my god, the fatigue. At this point, my brain pulled a big fat nope on me, decided it needed to sleep and ordered me back to the hostel. So I had to abandon my guide and head in search of bed.

Mm. Sleep is lovely when you're that tired. Unfortunately, I then woke up at about 7pm starving hungry and with no idea where to get food. I ended up at one of the many Starbucks nearby and downed yet another cuppa. And then straight back to bed. Hurrah.

Eating my way through Pike Place

Even through my sleep-deprived fog the previous day, I'd managed to notice the many food options at Pike Place Market. Which meant first stop the following day was back there for breakfast. I settled on Piroshky, which sells... well, piroshky. These are basically stuffed pastries from Eastern Europe - in the case of this store, Russia. Their potato and mushroom piroshky was delicious as well as being super filling.

Hunger satisfied, I toddled up the road a ways to the Seattle Art Museum that I'd meant to visit the previous day. They have a pretty cool collection that ranges from Renaissance to Native American to modern art. There's even a small gallery of Aboriginal Australian contemporary art. A few favourites include some awesome masks used by a clan local to the Pacific Northwest.

An amazing and sometimes bizarre range of masks and headresses from across Africa.

And of course, I saw some ancient Mesopotamian artefacts, so I have to include some cuneiform.

I have a weird fascination with cuneiform script. No idea why. It's not like I can read it.

After spending the morning in the museum, I popped to a cafe across the road to meet up with John, who I lived with for a while when I was at university. We spent a couple of hours catching up, which was nice, plus I got even more suggestions of thiings to do! I'm liking this whole "being able to talk to people" thing.

By the time I left John it was approaching 5pm. My piroshky had gone a long way down and I didn't really fancy cooking. So I made my way back to Pike Place Market and grabbed a pot of clam chowder to take away. Amazingly it stayed hot all the way back to the hostel and it was delicious. Yum.

And then I spent the evening chatting to another of my fellow guests. Definitely getting good at this.

All the geekery

Friday began with taking advantage of the free breakfast at the hostel again, where I was told by a Canadian lady that I'd gone about my US trip planning wrong and was going far out of my way... I'm not sure I agree with her, because I know there's logic behind why I'm going to the places I'm going in the order that I'm going to them, but I wasn't in the mood to argue over breakfast. And she was otherwise very nice.

Anyway, stuffed with free bagels, I went for a walk along 5th Ave and up to the EMP Museum which had been suggested by several people (John and the guy from the glassblowing studio for starters).

It's a pretty cool place. It was founded by Paul Allen, co-founder/creator of Microsoft and hosts an awesome array of geekery, from horror to sci-fi, fantasy to music. As a fan of most of those, I managed to spend most of the day there. I even enjoyed the horror film gallery, partly because the props in the collection are pretty awesome. I mean, they have the stake known as Mr Pointy from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I love Buffy. This is cool.

In the fantasy area there are props from The Princess Bride and Lord of the Rings, which meant much squeeing from me because these are among my favourite films. Look, they have Inigo Montoya's sword, used to duel the Six-Fingered Man.

Also, Gimli's Axe, Sting and Anduril from Lord of the Rings. Bearing in mind these are all original props from the films, please attempt to understand why I was so in love with this place.

The sci-fi gallery was also amazing. A huge range of stuff in here, including lightsabers, costumes and this Dalek.

And then onto the music galleries, which focus on Jimi Hendrix and Nirvana, for the obvious reasons that they both originated from the area around Seattle. There's also this awesome sculpture made out of guitars and stuff.

Which leads nicely into a little gallery about the evolution of the electric guitar. Some pretty cool things in there for those with an interest. There's this early Gibson experiment.

I finished my visit to the EMP Museum with a trip into their current special exhibition which is all about Star Trek. Seriously, this place is amazing. Although, stumbling across Data's head in the floor was just a little bit creepy.

But again, they've got loads of original props and costumes. Oh, and a case of tribbles. They should probably do something about that...

Completely overdosed on glorious geekery, I headed back to Pike Place to grab something for tea. I ended up this time with delicious falafel. Om nom nom. And then I actually braved a supermarket and stocked up on supplies. And Tim Tams.

Yes, Tim Tams. You can't get them in the UK as far as I'm aware and I thought you could only get them Down Under. Turns out they have them here and I couldn't resist. More deliciousness.

One more day in Seattle and then I'm getting on a bus to Yellowstone, via Salt Lake City.

Any tips on how to survive long distance bus travel?