Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse and Persistence

Mount Rushmore, a great iconic place to visit.  Kadia said she still remembered the place from visiting there when she was 3 years old and she requested to go again.  Thus it and Canadian Rockies formed the 2 vertices of travel triangle route for the trip.  Everyone knows Mount Rushmore with faces of 4 presidents which took 14 years to carve.

On the other hand, Crazy Horse has been under carving since 1947 and with no estimated completion date.  Why it is taking so long?  Well, for one, it has been carved by one single family, started with Korczak Ziolkowski.  It is a lot bigger and Mr Ziolkowski underestimated the enormity of the project and thought it would be done in 30 years.  And there are no estinated completion date.  It is still been carved by his kids and grandkids with donation money, no government money.  It is befiting of the name, ‘Crazy’.  I admire of their family dedication and persistence.  I hope an iota of that would rub off on us.

I went back and compared a picture we took in 2006 and now in 2018.  The top photo below was taken in 2006 and bottom was in 2018.  I didn’t see any visible changes.  It must be hard, one tiny rock at a time.

Vegas, Sensors Overloaded

So the last big city we decided to stop on our trip was Las Vegas.  I was never much of Vegas fan given that I am too cheap to lose money.  However, it does have its appeal with interesting and immense casinos popping up every year with yet another gimmick to attract tourists, thus money.  Of course, many claimed it is the entertainments they offer at Vegas that attract them.  Again, I was too cheap to pay $200 to watch a Cirque du Soleil (I did pay $85 to see Mystere show there once though) nowadays especially considering I have to multiple that amount by six now.  Still I thought it would be interested to include it as a stop on the trip to showcase the ultimate human achievement vs nature has to offer.  Besides, Vegas is a happening city.

After a Korean dinner which was a disappointment, not the Korean food I am accustomed to back home, plus not so good to my stomach, we drove to Bellagio to get a taste of Vegas.   The place was packed that one cannot avoid bumping into others every second.  In 10 seconds span, we would bump into more people than people we saw the last whole week on the trip.  We went to the fountain part of the Bellagio to watch the water show.  I always enjoy this part of Bellagio where water dancing to the music.  We were there for no more than 5 minutes before my kids complained about the crowdedness of the place and wanted to leave.  I was surprised.  I thought they would enjoy the show and the festivity of the whole atmosphere but I wasn’t about to complain. I was overwhelmed myself with all the sounds and sights after a peaceful few weeks of nature.  I was glad to escape as well.

I looked up the stats on people going to Las Vegas each year which was 42 millions in 2018, compared to 52 Millions at Disney World, 6 millions to Grand Canyon and 4 millions to Yosemite.  It is sad but at the same time, I am glad.  I cannot imagine what would Yosemite be if it had 42 million visitors.  I am so glad my kids like nature: they picked Yosemite over Disneyland or Hawaii for their vacation a couple of years ago.  Simple life for simple people like us.

 

Creature of Achievement, Sunshine Meadow

One of the hikes I read was highly rated was hikes around the Sunshine Meadow.  It was rated as the best day hike at the Canadian Rockies by a few websites.  It required us to take a bus then a ski chair ride to start the hike.  The tickets for the bus wasn’t cheap.  It costed us around $70 for 6 of us but a lot cheaper than the Gondola option which would be hundreds of dollars for 6 of us.  However, given it was rated the best hike of Canadian Rockies, I plopped down the money for the bus.

We drove up to the Sunshine Village early in the morning to catch our 9 am bus.   It was a school bus.  The bus ride was about 20  minutes, probably on a green ski run during the snow season and took us up to the upper village where there were some probably very expensive condos during the winter.   According to some website, this bus ride saved us about 1700 feet elevation and a few miles of unimpressed and dusty hike.   We then took a ski lift up some more, probably another thousand feet or so up to the beginning of the Sunshine Meadow hike.

Once we were at the top, within 5 minutes, we were treated with a spectacular alpine view with mountains and lakes.  The hike on the top was mostly flat and relatively easy and views were pretty good.   We spent about 5 and a half hour on the top.  There were quite a bit of mosquitos and bees thus making the hiking not as enjoyable as otherwise it would be.  We always had to move like fugitives, cannot stay in one spot to enjoy the scenery.  I tried to hike the trail led to Mt Assiniboine and hoping to catch spectacular views but it was too far and we turned back after about 20 minutes.  At the end, Logan, Tia and I rode the chairlift a few times just for fun before taking a van down the mountain.

I asked myself why I was searching for more spectacular views.  It was because I was never impressed by what I saw so I was searching for “The Best Canadian Rockies Hike” scenery.  I asked myself why.  Why was it that made it so underwhelming?  I believe it was because it was made easily accessible.  Anyone can do it.  There was no pain of hiking up, basically the journey of getting there: the memory of the whole process, the roses we smell along the way, etc.  This reminded me of a story I wrote on our last trip to Taiwan about the Point of the Journey  By getting to the top without going through the effort of getting there, it cheapened the whole process.  It made this hike non-spectacular.  The best hike in Canadian Rockies?  Definitely not.  There were many much better such as Sentinel Pass Trail , Lake O’Hara , Plain of the Six Glaciers, or even the guelling Ha Ling trail  just to name a few out of the hikes we did.  we would do a couple of days later.   Would I rate it higher if I didn’t have to pay?  Still no but I would recommend as an easy day hike in that case with before mentioned bugs warning.  But as it stands now, I would not recommend this hike with the amount of the money they charge for hiking and the enjoyment one would get out of it.

Our Planned trip vs Actual trip

It is always interesting to go back and look at what was our plan vs what actually happened.  This was the planned tripplannedtrip

And this was acutal tripactualtrip

We followed the original plan for a few days then we started to deviate from it, discovering a few unknown places but still visiting the two major places for the trip: Canadian Rockies and Mount Rushmore.    It was liberating without having a real plan so we could truly relax and went places as we went along, mixing in some cities with nature.  It was a great trip.

Creature of Goals, Highline Trail, Glacier NP

Bucket List.  Everyone this day seems to have a bucket list.  In case you don’t know what bucket list is: it is a reference to the movie, “Bucket List”, featured Jack Nickolson and Morgan Freeman.  I don’t remember much of the details other than it was a list of things one wants to do before he/she kicks the bucket.

For a while, I have some items on my bucket list such as visiting all the national parks in United States, visiting all the continents, hiking the Machu Picchu trail, hiking the Milford track, etc.  Over the years, they have become less important; I don’t have to do them in the sense that I will make extra effort to make them happen but if an opportunity present itself, I will definitely do it.

For this trip, I looked up trails to take in Glacier NP and one of hike, Highline Trail, came up often so I put it on the bucket list of this trip.  After the long hike the previous day to Iceberg Lake and Hidden Lake, I wasn’t sure if others would be gung ho about doing another long hike, the Highline Trail.  They weren’t of course but I said we would only go for a couple of miles then turned back so they agreed to it.

We decided to take the shuttle to the trailhead as it is located at the Logan Pass Visitor Center which is packed during the day and with its parking lot often closed because it is full.  It took almost 50 minutes to get there on a shuttle at the St Mary Vistor Center vs 20+ minutes in our van the previous day, cutting precious time we had to hike.  We were lucky to see a bear cub eating on the side of the road during the shuttle ride though.

The first part of the trail walked along high ledge on the side of the mountain with chains to hold on to.  It wasn’t scary at all and I didn’t understand the need for the chains.  It made the trail looks more dangerous than it actually was: hey, if they provided a cable chain, then it must be a dangerous hike.  The trail was about 1/2 way up on the mountain following the Going to the Sun Road.   We were able to see the ‘Going to the Sun Road” twists and turns below us and had a great view of valleys as we hiked the whole time.  It would have been more spectecular if we couldn’t see the scenary at all without hiking but we have already seen them earlier when driving on the Going to The Sun Road the previous day, enforcing the golden wisdom of anything that is worthy required efforts.

We turned back when we reached the saddle, missing the chance of going up to see Grinnel Overlook to see a memorable hike we did 12 years ago.  I think the trail may get more interesting but would have to wait for another trip to find out.  In the meantime, cross out a half of an item on my bucket list for this trip.

Camping at Bryce Canyon

As we came across more canyons, we enter Bryce Canyon. I was so excited to go to Bryce Canyon for the second time of my life, Bryce canyon is was special to me because my name cam from it. When we got into the park it was extremely hot. Bryce canyon is a national park formed from rock formations called hoodoos, it was formed by wind and rain carving it out.

We went to a campsite at Bryce Canyon to stay over night, so we planed for the kids to sleep in the car and have our parents sleep in the a tent with tee-ehhh. We all agreed and cooked dinner, when we were done we set the car up and went to brush our teeth.

We went to the car to make our cramped seats into our beds for the night.  We opened the windows for ventilation and proceeded to sleep.  I had a bad night sleep:(

Entering Canada

As we drive through the road we come across a big building, when I see a big word that writes CANADA. I was so exited because in my memory I never entered Canada. So we had to go through this check thing, we have to show our passport and they ask questions, then we can go through.  I was so happy and really exited to see what Canada is like, it t was not impressive in till we got into Canada more. I think that Canada is really cool in the more popular places, so that is what I think about entering Canada.

Zion

As we zoom across the road I see a sign as we approach it we stop. So I started to read it, Zion National Park, the sign was a lot different than most other national park signs, but I like the sign to. As we come across a mountain there was like a zigzag pattern on the mountain. Then my dad asked if we wanted to go climb the mountain, we said yes and we got off the car and pun on sneakers so it is easier to climb. we started to play a game of we were mountain loins as a family, we had lots of fun when it looked like it was going to rain so we hid under a rock. Soon we had to leave but it was fun climbing the mountains, I hope I can do it again soon.

KOA

On this trip we have stayed at a decent amounts of KOA’s (Kampgrounds of America).  And I would like to talk about them, I want to talk about how I feel about them.  I think most of them are great because there are no bears and there is stuff to do at the KOA’s.

SO there are 4 types of KOAs and I think we stayed at 3 of  the types.  They all have pancake breakfasts, pool and a playground.  They are Kampground, Journey, holiday, and Resort.

Kampground is just for camping and RVs.  There is not much to it.  When we got to the campground all the campsites were bunched together.  Journey may have water-parks and more.  when we got there there were little campers but a lot RVs. But finally the resort, they have gold panning, bouncy house, sport courts, many pools, water park stores, restaurants, and more.  I think The Best is either the journey or resort.  The other one, Holiday the one that we did not go.

But I think overall All the KOAs were great.

Denver, Mile Cube City

Denver!  Finally there was a chance to visit Denver.  It is known as the Mile High City.  I know it as the city of Denver Broncos, Denver Nuggets, Colorado Rockies and Colorado Avalanche.  After the disappointment of Cheyenne, we were looking forward to Denver.  With all the sports team it has, it must have something to offer.

So this time, we decided to stay in the downtown area so we can enjoy the downtown instead of camping or AirBNB in outskirts of the town.  As we drove in Denver on Interstate Highway, 25 and got off on Speer Blvd.  Right away, I noticed a stadium which I assumed it was the football stadium, Mile High Stadium.    I looked on the google map to confirm it and was surprised to find that Pepsi Center (where Nuggets and Avalanche play) and Coors field (where Rockie plays) are just around the corner.  Then there was the Elitch Garden (formerly known as the 6 Flags), the amusement park.  This is like packing San Jose SAP center, Oakland Coliseum, ATT Park, Great America and Oracle Arena all within 1 square mile.  That’s packed.

Denver is known as Mile High City now with everything packed within one square mile, we can call it Mile Cube City.  Everything is there in the cube.  It is great for the city and business there but I just wonder what the area looks like on a day where everyone is playing.  It must be a commute nightmare.  We enjoyed the downtown, especially the 16th street where one can hop up and down busses as they shop along the street.  It is a big shopping street with free transportation (and frequent).  We all love the city.  And it is the Capitol of Colorado and its capitol was great.  We even got to see a live press conference while in it.  A 1^3 city!