November 2020

I was excited and relieved to join Lee at the top of Mt. Ida; the hike was rated best in the park by RockyMountainHikingTrails.com and is on the far west side of the park (sustained major damage from 2020 wildfire)

This elk did not care for the paparazzi and shortly after this photo faked a charge towards me; I wisely hid behind a big tree but was also between this elk and a female he wanted to see

The hike to Sky Pond (the top rated hike according to the trail map I had) was one of the most beautiful but also most challenging; I'm resting here at the Lake of Glass before heading on up

Of the 30 existing species of pika, the American pika is one of only two which inhabit North America; these animals like to live in boulder fields above the treeline and are generally herbivores (but do occasionally go for a tasty shoe)

At 10,887 ft above sea level rests Sky Pond (and me!) which is the end point for the best hike at RMNP; this hike has a little bit of everything - waterfalls, alpine lakes, high mountain views, and fun stream and river crossings

Glacier Creek tumbles down 30 ft at Alberta Falls; parking at the Bear Lake trailhead can be a challenge but the park offers a nice shuttle bus system that also helps with point to point hikes

To reach the west side of the park from Estes Park we took Trail Ridge Road which is the highest paved through-road in the country, with a peak elevation of 12,183 ft; the park is only 75 miles NW of Denver

In fall, elk gather in meadows for the annual breeding season called the rut; the males bugle to signal mating season but little fighting among males is involved

The hike to Chasm Lake was rated as hard (which usually means too tough for me) and had 2600+ ft of elevation gain; having gotten some difficult miles in at Glacier, Yellowstone and Grand Tetons I managed this great hike pretty well (but slowly)

Peacock Pool is an alpine tarn tucked against cliffs in a glacier-carved cirque on the east flank of 14,259-foot Longs Peak (the highest point in the park); Peacock Pool gets its name because it can appear multi-hued from the slopes above the lake

Fern Falls plunges 60 ft on Fern Creek in an area of the park that was scorched during the Fern Lake Fire in the fall of 2012; that fire burned 3500 acres and was the worst in park history until this year when a fire burned 30,000 acres

Our last day in the park, Lee and I did a less-traveled, point to point trail from Bear Lake down to Moraine Park; Odessa Lake sits just above 10,000 ft; most of the park has no cell service so getting separated is problematic

The Rocky Mountain National Park Act was signed by President Wilson on January 26, 1915, establishing the park boundaries and protecting the area for future generations; in 1976, UNESCO designated the park as one of the first World Biosphere Reserves

Marmots are the largest member of the squirrel family (especially when people feed them!); I wasn't tempted to feed this friendly marmot since it's bad for them to become dependent on people

Emerald Lake can take on an emerald color if the photos on google images are to be believed; this hike is one of the most popular in the park and passes several scenic lakes

Steller's jay is a bird native to western North America, closely related to the blue jay found in the rest of the continent, but with a black head and upper body; they can be very social with humans from whom they'd like food

Throughout the 10 mile hike to the summit of Mt. Ida (12,874 ft) we had tremendous views as we followed the Continental Divide; I had more trouble on the way back with large boulder fields and steep terrain

The elk rut occurs between mid-August and mid-October when males (they are more aggressive at this time too!) will bugle; females are attracted to the males that bugle more often and have the loudest call

Nymph Lake was covered with pond lilies when we visited but the area was heavily damaged by the East Troublesome Fire which closed the area from Oct 22 to Nov 19; the best hikes here were also the longest

We found our very own Pushmi-Pullyu!; in The Story of Doctor Doolittle Pushmi-Pullyu is a gazelle/unicorn cross but in the 1967 movie the animal was a two headed llama

Rocky Mountain National Park is the third most visited national park behind Great Smoky Mtns and the Grand Canyon; the town of Estes Park sits just outside the park's eastern boundary making for easy access

Bear Lake sits at 9450 ft above sea level and is the starting point for many of the best hikes in the park; admission to the park is $35 and, due to its popularity and the pandemic, you had to reserve a specific time to enter

Yellow-bellied marmots hibernate for 8 months of the year so they line their burrows with grasses and other food they might need during the winter; the hibernating burrows can be 16-23 ft deep and house 20+ animals

Pittsburgh was a pleasant surprise for me with its vibrant downtown, excellent museums, enjoyable neighborhoods and appealing scenery; I'm not sure I'd enjoy their winters though

One of my favorite stops in Pittsburgh was the National Aviary; it is the country's largest aviary with birds from all over the world such as the Palawan peacock pheasant

Roberto Clemente played 18 seasons with the Pittsburgh Pirates and became the first player from either Latin America or the Caribbean to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame

Originally the headquarters for ALCOA, this 31 story building opened in 1953 and was the first skyscraper with an all-aluminum facade; now, in addition to offices, the tower has 241 apartments

From Grandview Point you can see the Alleghany (top) and Monongahela (bottom) Rivers join to form the Ohio (off to the left); Pittsburgh is known both as Steel City for its 300+ steel-related businesses and as the City of Bridges for its 446 bridges

The Tribute to Children monument, opened in 2009, showcases an 11-ft bronze statue of Mister. Rogers sitting down and tying his sneakers, as he did at the beginning of each episode; it's a rather contemporary look for Mister Rogers

Randyland is widely regarded as one of America's most colorful public art landmarks; the artist responsible has helped rejuvenate an area neighborhood of Pittsburgh that was blighted

This African penguin at the National Aviary spotted a couple of friends and tried his hardest to get closer to them; the aviary has a breeding program for many species and the first two African penguin chicks hatched in February 2012

This fountain in Point State Park (where 3 rivers meet) serves as the western terminus for the Great Allegheny Passage which is a 350-mile recreational trail between DC and Pittsburgh

At only 5 ft 2 in wide, the Skinny Building is one of the narrowest commercial buildings in the world; the narrow lot was created in 1903 by a street widening project and the building put up in 1926 to spite the neighbors

The Fort Pitt Block House was constructed in 1764 as a redoubt of Fort Pitt, making it the oldest extant structure in Western Pennsylvania

Heinz Field, home to the Pittsburgh Steelers, sits where Three Rivers Stadium used to be; attendance for the 68,400 seat stadium has sold out for every Steelers home game, a streak which dates back to 1972

The Mellon Institute building (1937) is noted for its neo-classical architecture, with its signature monolithic limestone columns (the largest monolithic columns in the world); the upper parts of the columns show how bad air pollution used to be

St. Paul's Cathedral, built in Gothic Revival style and completed in 1905, was inspired by the Cologne Cathedral; Pittsburgh has roughly 300,000 residents while the metro area has 2.3+ million

Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall is the largest memorial in the United States dedicated solely to honoring all branches of military veterans and service personnel; dedicated in 1910, famous speakers here have included Obama, Mandela and Trump

Standing 535 ft, the 42-story Late Gothic Revival Cathedral of Learning is the tallest educational building in the Western hemisphere and the centerpiece of the Univ of Pittsburgh campus; it is also the 2nd-tallest gothic-styled building in the world

At daybreak on February 2, Punxsutawney Phil awakens from his burrow on Gobbler's Knob (near Pittsburgh), and famously decides if the US is going to have 6 more weeks of winter

Students at the Engineering School at Carnegie-Mellon University created several of the first artificial intelligence programs; this campus with 15,000 students is adjacent to the Univ of Pittsburgh campus which has almost twice as many students

The 1895 Carnegie Library is the main branch of the city system; more than 2500+ libraries were built worldwide between 1883 and 1929 with funds donated by Andrew Carnegie

General George Washington, Noel Le Mire, 1780; Washington volunteered to survey French holdings in the winter of 1753 with his findings helping to ignite the French and Indian War; he's credited with founding Pittsburgh

Meriwether Lewis, William Strickland, 1816; the Lewis and Clark Expedition started from Pittsburgh that established sovereignty over the Louisiana Purchase and helped to strengthen the American concept of manifest destiny

Andy Warhol, Hans Namuth, 1981; this Pittsburgh-native's visual exploration of mass marketing and consumerism created a new genre of American art, pop art

When it opened in 1916, the 23-story William Penn Hotel was described as the grandest hotel in the nation; famous guests include Presidents JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Eisenhower and Truman

PNC Park is home of the Pittsburgh Pirates; it is considered one of the best ballparks in America because of its location, views of the Pittsburgh skyline and Allegheny River, timeless design, and clear angles of the field from every seat

The unique Fulton Building (named for steamboat inventor Robert Fulton) was completed in 1906 overlooking the Alleghany River; I didn't stay here as I opted to stay in the suburbs where parking was free

The entire building is dedicated to everything Andy Warhol; much of the museum is focused on his early years with special exhibits on the women who influenced his art

Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown calls Randyland an essential for the Perfect Day in Pittsburgh; I wasn't that impressed since most of the items collected were from dumpster diving

Self-Portrait, Vincent Van Gogh, 1887; admission to the museum is $25 (unless you buy the City Pass) and art fans could easily spend an entire day enjoying the vast collection

A Sunday on La Grande Jatte - 1884, Georges Seurat, 1884; one of the most famous paintings in the world (and one of my favorites) is absolutely huge at roughly 10 ft by 7 ft

Shot Orange Marilyn, Andy Warhol, 1964; the Andy Warhol Museum in his native city of Pittsburgh is the largest museum in the United States dedicated to a single artist

Small Town by Day, Georg Scholz, 1923; a work I really liked by an artist I'd never heard of, Scholz populated an idyllic German town with a cast of sordid characters

Woman with Dog, Katharina Fritsch, 2004; her work is known for its ability both to capture the popular imagination by its immediate appeal and to be a focal point for the specialized discussions of the contemporary art world

Spanish Dancer, Natalia Goncharova, 1920s; the artist was commissioned to design sets and costumes for a ballet company that was touring in Spain

Untitled, Keith Haring, 1981; the artist, whose pop art and graffiti-like work grew out of the New York City street culture of the 1980s, was only 31 when he died of AIDS

The Bedroom, Vincent Van Gogh, 1889; the three versions of this composition are the only record Van Gogh made of the interior of the Yellow House, where he lived while in Arles

Alphabet, Jasper Johns, 1959; the artist had worked with stencils of alphabet letters since the 1950s, yet this is his only painting that shows a single sequence of letters from A to Z

Woman in Tub, Jeff Koons, 1988; his works have sold for record auction prices by a living artist: $58.4 million for Balloon Dog (Orange) in 2013 and $91.1 million for Rabbit in 2019

Two Sisters (on the Terrace), Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1881; Renoir's paintings are notable for their vibrant light and saturated color, most often focusing on people in intimate and candid compositions

Young Clergyman Reading, Martinus Rorbye, 1836; I see an exceptional work like this by an artist and wonder why I'd never come across him before

Portrait of the Architect Isidro Gonzalez Velazquez, Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes, 1821; immensely successful in his lifetime, Goya is often referred to as both the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns

Vase, George Woodall, 1885; the museum's collection of European decorative arts includes some 25,000 objects of furniture, ceramics, metalwork, glass, enamel, and ivory from 1100 AD to the present day

Paris Street, Rainy Day, Gustave Caillebotte, 1877; this large painting was another of my favorites and has been described as the great picture of urban life in the late 19th century

Fishing Boats with Hucksters Bargaining for Fish, Joseph Mallord William Turner, 1838; a child prodigy, Turner studied at the Royal Academy of Arts from 1789, enrolling when he was 14, and exhibited his first work there at 15

View of Genoa, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, 1834; it was amazing to have room after room of masterpieces where any one would be the standout piece in a lesser museum

Elephant Candelabrum Vase, Sevres, 1758; this was my first visit to Chicago in 20+ years yet I didn't think the city had changed much in my absence

The 1893 Chicago's World Fair inspired the city of Columbus to create a horticulture building modeled after the Exposition's Glass Palace; this glass structure, built in grand Victorian style, was erected in Franklin Park and opened to the public in 1895

To this day, Franklin Park Conservatory is the only public botanical garden in the world to own a signature collection of Chihuly's magnificent glass artworks, which represents 3,000+ pieces of glass

Visitors walk under Persian Ceiling which has two locations in the Himalayan section; the greenhouse species were well-labeled but there are virtually no species outdoors

Originally built in 1895, the Franklin Park Conservatory is on the National Register of Historic Places; it is surprisingly small and not nearly as impressive as others I've visited

The Franklin Park Conservatory would have been a poor use of $19.95 were it not for their permanent display of Chihuly glass art; when Chihuly pieces were first shown here in 2003, attendance increased 182%

I had not seen Chihuly glass prints before but thought they were a complement to the exhibition; Eddie Rickenbacker, WW1 fighter pilot, was born and raised here

Torchier; Chihuly pieces are spread throughout the conservatory, both indoors and in its courtyards, placed to interplay with the surrounding plants, shrubs and trees

In the fall of 2013, the conservatory hosted an exhibition by internationally recognized British artist Bruce Munro; Light at Franklin Park Conservatory featured 10 large-scale light installations and gallery works

In 1976, while Chihuly was in England, he was involved in a head-on car accident during which he was propelled through the windshield; he was blinded in his left eye as a result

Chihuly began experimenting with glassblowing in 1965, and in 1966 he received a full scholarship to attend the University of Wisconsin; in 1968 he received a prestigious Fulbright Fellowship

As of 2018, Columbus has the headquarters of four corporations in the U.S. Fortune 500: American Electric Power, L Brands, Nationwide, and Big Lots

No reliable history exists as to why Columbus (after Christopher Columbus, who had no connection to the city or state of Ohio before the city's founding), was chosen as the name for the city

The conservatory has featured Chihuly Nights where all of the installations are breathtakingly lit; to this day, the conservatory has the largest Chihuly collection in a botanical garden

The Silvered Plum and Cobalt Polyvitro Float Chandelier, actually made of a kind of plastic rather than glass, hangs in the entrance to the conservatory; I hadn't seen a Chihuly piece like this before

Examples of Chihuly pieces were on display in one of the conservatory galleries; the Friends of the Conservatory bought the entire 2003 Chihuly exhibition for $7+ million after seeing how much attendance increased

Sunset Chandelier; famous people from Columbus include Jack Nicklaus, Simone Biles, Archie Griffin, Jesse Owens and Dave Thomas (the first Wendy's was in Columbus)

The conservatory had its best year ever in 2018, attracting a record 353,399 visitors, up 57 percent from the year before; Chihuly has been a marketing genius resulting in a very profitable business empire

The Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River drop 308 ft; this point marks where the harder volcanic rock shifts to softer hydrothermally altered rock

The Upper Falls of the Yellowstone River drop 109 ft; both the Upper and Lower Falls are easy to see with new parking areas and boardwalks

The colors in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone are a result of hydrothermal alteration; most of the yellows in the canyon are the result of iron present in the rock rather than, as many people think, sulfur

The Yellowstone River is considered to be one of the greatest trout streams of the world; anglers catch brown trout, rainbow trout and native Yellowstone cutthroat trout as well as Rocky Mountain whitefish

We were up early every morning and captured sunrise over the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone; the canyon is 24 miles long, between 800 and 1,200 ft deep and from .25 to .75 mi wide

Crystal Falls is an impressive 129ft waterfall that could be easily overlooked by its powerful neighbors on the Yellowstone River – Lower and Upper Falls

The Artists' Paint Pots is a group of 50+ springs, geysers, vents and especially mud pots; they exhibit varying shades of blue, gray and brown, and have a range of textures, with the behavior changing depending on the amount of subterranean water

First recorded in 1882, Blood Geyser was named due to the high concentration of iron oxide in the water which stains the surrounding rock red

In the late 1800s Mud Geyser erupted every few minutes spewing water 50 feet into the air; by 1927 the eruptions stopped but now steam vents are active again so maybe the geyser will come back to life

It was surprising that some of the thermal pools were right next to the Firehole River; the river produces excellent fishing early and late in the season but becomes too warm during the hot summer months

Grand Prismatic Spring, 370 ft in diameter, is the largest hot spring in the park; it is difficult to appreciate up close but this view from the Fiery Falls Overlook gives the best impression

Bison sure don't look like they can run 35 mph or jump fences; Yellowstone's bison are special because they have not been hybridized through interbreeding with cattle

Runoff from the Excelsior Geyser crater; the geyser was very active in the 19th century but the powerful eruptions damaged its internal plumbing system, and it now boils as a productive hot spring most of the time

Grand Prismatic Spring stretches 200+ ft across and is usually cloaked in steam due to its 160 degree temperature; it was one of my favorite sights in the park

The Excelsior Geyser pumps 4000+ gallons of boiling water every minute into the Firehole River; in the 1880s the geyser erupted in bursts 50-300 ft high

Silex Spring's water is very hot as evidenced by the clear blue color; Silex is Latin for silica, which is a major component of rhyolite, Yellowstone’s most common volcanic rock

Clepsydra (Greek for water clock) Geyser erupts nearly continuously to heights of 45 ft; prior to the 1959 Hebgen Lake earthquake, it erupted regularly every three minutes

The aspens were already brilliant yellow in mid-September; we saw small groups of sandhill cranes but only from a distance

We tend to use buffalo and bison interchangeably but bison is preferred for formal or scientific purposes; this guy was waiting for us right next to the Hellroaring Creek trail

One of the many herd of elk we saw with the dominant male keeping watch; we often would hear their bugling which is most common during the rutting season