Long weekend trip...

Finally got to edit the gabazillion video clips from last weekends trip and compiled them into one!

It has almost become a ritual to haul the family to some remote wilderness at least once or twice a year during the long weekends (if we are not in India or Australia to meet family!).

The drive through the mountains of Montana was by far the best scenic driving experience I have had. The drive to rainbow point at Bryce canyon, the scenic Route 1 in California and the Great Australian drive are close contenders! Rolling hills, mile after mile for a few hours at an elevation of 6000+ feet with a view of the snow capped mountains in Glacier and Yellowstone national parks...words escape me!

You can also see the hotel we stayed in! Open the window and you see a raging river rush by, mountains all around. I was telling San that maybe we should retire here, and she promptly replied that I would get bored if I stayed here for more than a week. She is probably right.

And last but not least, the Trains from the Northern railroad that joined us during parts of our highway drives. They had upto four engines and this is the first time I actually got to see these huge engines in action, puffing away.

Jr. and baby being Thomas train fans, enjoyed the sight of these trains immensely. Without confessing, let me just say that the train was moving away from the camera at a relative velocity of around 130-140 miles per hour and we didn't even cross two thirds of the coaches in a 30 second clip!

I have convinced everyone here that our next long weekend summer trip will be to Glacier National Park to see the Great Northern railroad trains.

Until then..

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Yellowstone in Panorama..

Yet again, the appeal for a new Canon SLR were rejected due to budget constraints!

So, on came the Stitch mode in the old Canon S30.

I started taking sequential shots to be joined together using the software!

To me this is a poor mans wide angle feature. Considering that I always had to trek anywhere from 0.2 to 1.5 miles to certain viewpoints by myself or with my brother-in-law (with the constant threat from the Mrs. to get back soon to the little ones waiting at the trail head!), some shots were not as successful as the rest.

On the whole I did get some good ones. You cannot even find out that I stiched them unless you do a 400x zoom.

Yellowstone basically has :

1. Free roaming wild animals in a 2.1 Million Acre National park. There is a a road that loops inside the park with trails going off from this road to various points. These include trails at the rim of the canyon which I did not dare explore! The wild animals are a topic for a separate post. Apparently the largest number of species in any single park in 48 states (do not know which parks have more than this.. alaska is one bet). The bisons by the way are bigger than a small car (think larger than Ford Pony, Suzuki Swift, Maruthi 1000!) They weigh on an average 2000-3000 lbs and can run three times faster than a man at peak speed! I saw one run and it scared the daylights out of me.

2. Hot springs, geysers, smoking mountains, etc. In essense, thermal features. Out of the worlds 20,000 or so thermal features, more than 10000 are in this one national park! So we had to pretty much watch where we stepped. There was always a chance that you step on a thin crust of earth only to find out that your feet are going to be scalded by steam and Hydrogen Sulfide!!

3. Lakes, rivers, creeks, waterfalls, cascades etc. especially since we were always at an elevation of 6500 feet or above! I will post at least one sample of each in a videoblog. This was the first time I saw a real cascade. It was breathtaking!

4. Tons of Desis and Chinese people during a long weekend! There were as many Indian "mami's" in Sari's and Salwar's as there were Bisons and Elk! I am sure the Bisons are equally surprised by the Desi mami's as the Mami's are by the Bisons! I still haven't figured out what it is with Chinese and Indian folk who decide to take their parents and kids to national parks for long weekends!

So, without further ado..

The lower falls viewpoint is fantastic. You can see the river meander through the canyon..

Inspiration point basically has a view of the Yellowstone Canyon and a rock outcrop that projects but is almost not visible, just like the one in Indiana Jones and the last Crusade!

The mammoth hot springs are a sight to behold. The top part is still growing and consuming trees in its wake. You can see what happens to the trees when the sulfur rich water eats them.

Here is another close up stitch version.

Here is the view from the bottom of the mammoth springs. This is just one side of the bottom area that still has water flowing down!

This picture is named old faithful, but is really another hot geyser in the upper basin! I am glad my camera survived the fumes as I took this set.

Finally, swan lake. A serene pool of water with snow covered mountains in the backdrop.

It is going to be one tiring week, or what is left of it! Until more pictures, so long...

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