After visiting the geysers at West Thumb we drove in the direction of Old Faithful. We got there about 15 minutes before the next scheduled eruption, which usually happens every 90-120 minutes. I don’t know what was more exciting, the geyser itself, or the collective anticipation of several hundred onlookers.

Wednesday morning we left our tent cabin in Grand Teton and headed north into Yellowstone National Park. We didn’t know what route we were going to take through the park. We didn’t know where we were going to spend the night. All we knew was that we wanted to see some active geothermal features, so we stopped at the West Thumb Visitor Center to get oriented. Turns out there were some hot springs nearby on Yellowstone Lake, so we picked up some maps and headed to the springs.

It might have been those tent cabin cots, or the morning cold, or our full bladders, but we woke up early on Tuesday eager to get out into the park. We decided to start at the Leigh and String Lakes trailhead, work our way around the north end of Jenny Lake, and then make our way into Cascade Canyon, in the shadow of “the Grand”. We planned to go as far as we could, probably about five miles, eat lunch, and then turn around and head back.

The weather, however, was not cooperating. The Tetons were even more enshrouded in clouds than they were the day before, and the sky was overcast. That said, the hike was great. String Lake emptied into Jenny Lake via a series of rapids, we walked through parts of the forest that were destroyed by a fire, we crossed paths with 6 or 7 marmots, and on the way back from Cascade Canyon, the clouds finally parted and let the sun shine through.

A panoramic view of Jenny Lake from Inspiration Point

As soon as we got our bearings in Grand Teton National Park, we called to see if we could reserve a tent cabin in Colter Bay Village for Monday night. They had availability, which meant: we were staying in Grand Teton National Park!

As an aside: I should mention that the advanced-planning for this trip consisted of only three reservations: the flight from San Antonio to SLC on Sunday, June 14, the flight from Spokane, Washington to SFO on Sunday, June 21, and a car rental to span the week. Everything else was up to us to figure out as we went along.

I should probably also reiterate something that we learned during our first trip to France: it’s no fun to stay in a place for only one night at a time when we’re traveling. If we stay put for two nights, then our trip naturally breaks itself up into full days without the stress of packing and unpacking followed by half days of traveling.

By the time we wound our way through the park and up to Colter Bay Village, we’d decided to extend our reservation for two nights, so we could go hiking on Tuesday as long as we wanted without worrying about packing up and traveling that night. Thankfully they also had availability on Tuesday night (mid-June is still early season for the northern parks) so we used the rest of Monday to unpack, treat ourselves to a fancy dinner at the Colter Bay Ranch House, and fail miserably at lighting a fire in our tent cabin’s wood stove.

Last weekend Stephanie and I drove down to Bakersfield to go whitewater rafting on the Kern River. We’d discovered the Kern coming home from Death Valley last year and made a point of going back to go rafting—which neither of us had done before. The three day Memorial Day weekend provided the perfect opportunity. We signed up for a two day trip, camping overnight on the river.

Bakersfield is very flat, not exactly what you’d consider a hotspot for whitewater. But just east is the southern tip of the Sierra Nevadas, through which the Kern River flows. After spending the night at a Motel 6, we drove along the river up to Lake Isabella, a dammed lake which forms the source of the Lower Kern.

There we met our guides from Kern River Outfitters: Ryan and Abby. They introduced themselves, both had multiple years of experience rafting the Kern, and they went over the basic orientation: wear your life-vest tight and don’t bring anything valuable on the boats. I decided I was going to take my camera in the waterproof, see-through camera bag I’d bought for the trip anyhow. Hell, if I lost my camera, that’d just give me one more reason to part with $2430.

Ours was their first two-day rafting trip on Lower Kern of the season, and we were a relatively small group. It was just Stephanie and I plus a family of 6. With Ryan and Abby, that meant 5 people per boat. They took us down to the launch site, we helped them get the boats into the water, and then we went through our second orientation, the serious one: how to survive an “out of boat experience.”

Finally we were in the boats, Stephanie and I went with the two parents and Abby, and the four kids with Ryan. At the beginning the water was calm, so we practiced our strokes, which meant taking commands from Abby who told us what to paddle when. “Forward-one”, “forward-two”, and “forward-three” will be burnt into my memory forever.

It’s hard to actually describe the rafting part other than to say I liked it when I got splashed! It was not a continuous series of rapids, but rather several distinct and short sections of Class II, III, and IV rapids punctuated by longer sections of smoother water. I also found out that it was well-nigh impossible to take any pictures while you’re actually going through the rapids, because you’re busy paddling like crazy. So most of my pictures on the boat are in calmer waters.

I knew this trip was going to be really special when we stopped for lunch. While we gulped down cold juice, Ryan and Abby prepared a gourmet deli lunch on one of our rafts, flipped upside-down. They put out several kinds of whole grain bread, sliced avocados and tomatoes, sliced cheddar and pepper-jack cheese, romaine lettuce, deli ham and turkey, with like eight different condiments, including pickles, roasted red peppers, two types of mustard, mayo, and horseradish. There was plenty for all of us to make heaping sandwiches and come back for more.

After an afternoon of paddling (now just a happy blur in my memory), we stopped for the night at their private campground. Ryan and Abby immediately set to preparing dinner in their fully outfitted cooking area. They put out some “hors d’oeuvres” (chips, salsa, bread, and homemade spinach dip), while we explored their game library.

Dinner was ridiculous. I mean that in the best way. Somehow they managed to make a fresh salad, garlic bread, roasted vegetables, pasta salad with sun-dried tomatoes and pine nuts, smoked chicken, and tri-tip. I started joking that this was really an outdoor cooking trip with a little bit of whitewater rafting on the side. They even had beer!

There were sleeping decks situated through the campground, along with inflatable sleeping pads. The weather was warm enough that we didn’t need our tent (which we had brought just in case). We slept in our sleeping bags, under the stars, with the sound of the Kern River below us.

The next morning we had another gourmet camping meal, toasted bagels, cheesy eggs, bacon, fruit salad, coffee and tea. We packed everything up, and headed down to the river for our second day of whitewater, this one had a little more Class III and IV than the previous day. Once again it was a blast. They’d even stationed a photographer at one section of rapids so we got some great shots of us going through the whitewater.

Totally awesome.