On my way home...

‘Magnificently lush’ may be the best way to describe Glacier National Park. The green of everything grabs your eyes like no other park on this trip. There are the mountains that resemble the Tetons and Zion. The rivers echo Kings Canyon. The grandeur of Yosemite and Grand Canyon are evident here in Glacier. It is a park of parks and it is punctuated by all of the plants that grow through it. The wildflowers accent all of the green with purple, yellow, red, and orange. Glacier National Park is truly an artist’s paradise.

Going-to-the-Sun road was a terrific overview of the park. This road stretches from the west side through the park to the east side. The road is lined with mountains, waterfalls, valleys, and of course glaciers. Driving Going-to-the-Sun took about four hours. With so many ups and downs, along with construction, it is quite the feat to complete the drive. It is definitely a day’s activity. To change things up, I made sure to get a nice long hike in. I picked a route to Grinnell Glacier. Grinnell Glacier is one of the most famous glaciers and it is named after George Bird Grinnell, one of the people who worked hard to make the Glacier area a national park. This eleven mile hike goes through dense forest and up to alpine terrain. Along the way there are several beautiful lakes. One of the lakes, Joesphine Lake, is the craziest green color. Higher up is Grinnell Lake which is covered with ice! Of course, I had to take a little dip into the water, just to say I did J. It was incredibly cold. I stayed in for eleven seconds, my own personal record. I did, however, see a girl later that day jump all the way in…and I thought I was crazy. On the way down, I was lucky enough to see a couple of Big Horn Sheep. These creatures are so cool. The whole hike back to camp was a lovely experience; a perfect capstone to this trip!

I have officially left Glacier National Park which means I am kind of done with my trip in a way. It is very sad in one way and joyful in another. I’m sad to leave a trip where I was so lucky to see so many beautiful places. On the other hand, I am excited to be back teaching and not living out of my car J. The last six weeks have been an amazing creative period of my life. I have never been such a productive painter! The National Parks that I visited were so inspiring in many ways. Gigantic mountains, furious rivers, massive glaciers, dry desert sand, and so much more of our lovely earth have left their impression on me. I have found these beautiful places to be a place of renewal and I know that millions of other people have had this same thought. We are lucky to live in a world where people find these areas unique enough to sit them aside for viewing pleasure. If you have never seen any of these parks in the western US I highly encourage you to find the time and put forth the effort to make a trip like this come true. Cheers to an incredible experience!!!

Pictures from Glacier National Park

Big Horn Sheep at Grinnell Lake

Tiptoe-ing through icy glacier water!

View of Grinnell Glacier and Josephine Lake

The start of a painting outside my camping spot

Small waterfall on the way up to Grinnell Glacier

Beargrass in front of Grinnell Glacier

A Yellowstone Update

On the road away from Yellowstone and traffic has finally eased. Yellowstone National Park has been by far the busiest place on this trip. Long lines at the grocery and longer lines of cars at every turn could easily categorize Yellowstone, but then you must ask why. This park has an incredible amount of natural treasures to offer. Geysers, hot springs, and mud volcanoes all give Yellowstone a unique landscape that no other park has given me on this journey. I wrote a little bit about Old Faithful in my last blog entry, but there are many other geysers. The Great Fountain Geyser was my favorite. It look blew up more water than any geyser I saw and it had these terraces that made it look like the geyser had hundreds of little waterfalls. The Grand Prismatic Spring was a very colorful, very hot pool of water. Because of the high temperature of the water only a few microorganisms called thermophiles can live there. These thermophiles are very colorful little things and give the water bright orange, green, and yellow colors. The brightness of the water makes it look unreal. Mud volcanoes might be the most interesting of all. The Fountain Paint Pot was a great bubbly mess. It looked like liquid clay just boiling and popping everywhere. Very surreal!

The weather was the wildest here at Yellowstone. One night it was so cold that our breath froze to the sides of the tent. On another evening, I was hiking along at sundown and clouds started to pass over. Next thing I knew, little pieces of hail were falling out of the sky. During the daytime, it was hot and sunny and at night, very cold. It was nothing like Indiana weather. Not that I miss those 90 degree days with 95% humidity J.

For this park, I decided to paint at the Lower Falls of Yellowstone River. There is a gigantic waterfall there. The water has this awesome green color to it and the canyon walls leading down to the river are yellow, orange, and gray. Beautiful! I worked on this painting longer than any other on the trip. I had so much fun with it. While painting, I fell into a trance where I lost track of time. These times are the best. Whenever I can lose track of time because I am in love with what I’m doing is a real blessing! Photographs of the first sketches of the Lower Falls are up on the blog, but since I lost myself with painting, I forgot to take a final picture! Coming soon: Mr. Smith’s final painting of the Lower Falls.

The Great Prismatic Spring

Great Fountain Geyser (The Picture Doesn't Do It Justice)

Lower Falls at Yellowstone RIver

Four Sketches on the Back of my Canvas