United States - September 2013

Mikey had to go to Houston for work, so we tacked on 2 weeks vacation to see some American sites.

1st up Houston

We arrived on Saturday afternoon, picked up our hire car and got reacquainted with driving on the wrong side of the road. On Sunday we headed off to Brazos Bend so I could show Maria the alligators and other animals.

Alligator besides the path

Monday to Thursday I (Michael) had to work (IT corporate meeting). One of the activities was seeing the Houston Astros vs Chicago Cubs baseball match. This was different but still enjoyable watching my international work colleagues trying to figure out the rules..

Astro's baseball match

Maria ended up having 4 days of sightseeing (shops).

Houston Gallery

2nd Atlanta
The main reason for going to Atalanta was to see Brad Paisley (massive country/rock artist).
There are two main attractions in Atalanta: Coca Cola world and Stone Mountain Theme Park.
We did both in the one day.

Stone Mountain, carvings of Confederate figures Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis

Antebellum style house

Brad Paisley was awesome in concert and the tickets in the gold section where only $70 - Bargain!!

In front of Brad Paisley's tour bus.

Waiting for the concert

The Band Perry

Brad Paisley

Atlanta Gallery

3rd Nashville via Chattanooga
We drove from Atlanta to Chattanooga, if you ever get the chance it is well worth spending a couple of hours there. It is a lovely town, the Chattanooga Train Station is amazing - like going back in time. There is a river going through the city and lovely restaurants and cafes. The bridges are very old in design and lovely - wish we could have spent more time there.

Chatanooga Choo Choo

Chatanooga Choo Choo

Enjoying some buffalo wings for the umpteenth time

We also visited Point Park, that is an historical National Park - a Civil War Battle ground.

Point Park

View of Chattanooga from Point Park

Nashville - now if you are into country music or not this place is AWESOME!

Pedal power pubs. Looks like too much hard work

They have music and venues for all tastes. This is an adult playground - Bars/Honky Tonks open from 10am through to 5am. Musician's working from one venue to the next for tips, we did not see one request go unsung.

Roberts

We found a great bar called Robert's on the strip that played Western swing (every Thursday night for 10 years) the years of talent in the band was amazing (previously played with Patsy Cline, Elvis and Willie Nelson, just to name a few).


Here I sampled my first "Fireball" shot, Cinnamon Whiskey served cold, love the stuff, and its only $20 a bottle over there!

First shot of "Fireball"

Country Music Hall of Fame
This place was fabulous! The Instruments, costumes and just the pure history of the place is so good!

The special exhibit when we were there was Patsy Cline, with costumes, jewelry,  records and videos - it was wonderful, such a shame she died so early!

I was nearly in tears at the "Walking after Midnight" video (I had never seen it before)  the sound was so emotional and soulful.

Also in Nashville I finally found a pair of boots I loved (after trying on about 200 - no joke).
We had also booked tickets to see a couple of our favorite country artist at the Grande Ole Opry (now this place is an institution  anyone who is anyone has played here over the years) They have the longest running Radio show in the world, still running to this day - Where the adverts are not pre-recorded but read out by the DJ :) which we thought was hilarious!


In the end there ended up being 6 performers singing 4 songs each, Kellie Pickler and Dierks Bentley where on last and did not disappoint. (Kellie who normally has long blonde hair had shaved her head, in support for her best friend who was getting treatment for cancer).

Kellie Pickler

Dierks Bentley

Stage from a distance

We had also purchased tickets to the the very expensive back stage tour (not, just $14), which was really interesting. It was great to stand in the circle where performers had been standing for over 70 years!

It was a great night out and get to experience a piece of country music history!
Its true what they say about the South - they are very friendly, everywhere we went, people would always say hello and smile and want to help.

At Jellystone Park, Tennessee

Maria at "Cooters" in Nashville 

Fort Nashborough est 1779

Squirrel in a local park

More Buffalo Wings

Chattanooga Gallery
Nashville Gallery



4th - Yellowstone National Park
Now for any photographer this is one of the best places in America, and Mikey had carefully picked out this week to be in Yellowstone NP. Lucky we were visiting America in September so we arranged our scheduled to be in Yellowstone for the Fall colours.

We flew into Jackson Hole airport to discover that the region had just had the worst fire in over 80 years, so the air was very smokey, so we where a little bit disappointed to begin with. We jumped in the car and headed up the main road to Yellowstone NP, it was meant to be a 4 hour drive to our accommodation  but it ended up being so much longer, due to all of our stopping to take photo's on the way.

Grand Tetons in Smoke, from Jenny Lake

Chipmunk at West Thumb, Lake Yellowstone

At Madison Junction we spotted some deer, stag and a very large bison on the other side of the river. The smoke added to the photo's and we ended up getting some great sunset shots. You have to be very aware of your surrounding in YNP because you are surrounded by wild animals and you need to keep a certain distance. We ended up talking photos for around an hour.

First Bison of the trip

Elk

Just Outside Madison Junction

Our accommodation was at West Yellowstone, a main tourist hub of the area, hotels, restaurants, tourist shops, cafe's, fuel and groceries. This entire town totally runs on tourism coach loads of different nationalities roll up get fed, do 30 minutes shopping with their English speaking guide hop back on the bus and see another designated photo spot, so high turn over!

The average temp for this time of year is about 0 to 20 degree's, so best to dress in layers.

Sheep Eaters Cliff

Rainbow at Lower Falls, Grand Canyon  of Yellowstone

Maria at the Lower Falls

Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

As well as the great wildlife and scenery, Yellowstone National Park sits on top of one of the worlds super volcanoes and is home to the highest concentration of hot springs/geysers in the world, so as you can see it looks quite mystical with the steam coming off the ground at different parts of the day.

Beryl Spring, between Madison and Norris.

Black Pool, West Thumb

Old Faithfull

Roaring Mountain

Canary Spring at Mammoth Hot Springs

Turquoise Pool, Midway Geyser Basin

Grand Prismatic Spring, Midway Geyser Basin

We ended up spending 4 nights in Yellowstone and visited most of the sights, but next time we visit it will be for longer and probably will stay at a number of different locations as Yellowstone Park is so large that you spend most of the time driving to the different point of interests an it is a waste of time travelling over the same road time and again just to get to your accommodation.

We didn't see all the animals that we wanted, but we did see Bison (lots), Elk, Mule deer, White tailed deer,  one moose (behind grass), one black bear (way in the distance), two coyotes, a small herd of Pronghorns, and lots of smaller animals (squirrels, chipmunks, birds).

Elk Heard

Bison Heard

Bison by the side of the road. Road stoppages were often encountered.

Mule Deer

Squirrel

Pronghorn

Moose by the creek. Apparently it hadn't moved for over 6 hours, according to patient photographers.

Black Bear in the distance

Black Bears at the  Bear and Wolf Discovery Center

Yellowstone Gallery

5th - Grand Tetons National Park
After Yellowstone we headed back to Jackson Hole and to Tetons Village to our accommodation at Snake River Lodge (beautiful early country styled room with spar and fireplace).

Grand Tetons

Moose crossing the road

 We only spent 2 nights (one full day) here when we really needed around 4 nights.

During the morning we went moose hunting (with camera's not guns). We ended finding one male and 2 female moose on the side of the road amongst the grasses and trees.

Moose near "Moose Junction"

Grand Tetons

 We the went for a short walk around Jenny lake at the base of the Grand Tetons before heading back to Teton Village.

Enjoying the scenery

After a quick lunch we took a ride on the Big Red Aerial Tram to the top of a nearby mountain (basically from the front door of our hotel).

The tram trip takes around 9 minutes and rises 1262m (compared to the Queenstown gondola of 450m). At the top of the mountain (3185m) we enjoyed a nice hot chocolate (Michael) and warm Apple cider (Maria) from the nice little ski cafe. Unfortunately the weather wasn't the best with rain clouds moving in.

The Big Red

Near the top, skiers apparently jump of that cliff in winter.

We then explored Jackson Hole village for gifts then had a nice dinner in an old pub.


Grand Tetons Gallery


6th - Dallas
We ended up having a 10 hr stop over in Dallas on our return flight to Brisbane. We were pretty tired at this stage so we didn't want to go far and were recommended against going to downtown Dallas or Fort Worth from the airport tourist information staff (bad road works) so we ended up going to a nearby shopping center and watched a movie to kill some time.