New Orleans - French Quarter Festival 09

Who hasn't felt the pull of New Orleans? The Jazz, the Cajun music, the food, the crawdads, the Mardi Gras Indians?

There's a mystic quality to this unique city. It's French influenced in an Anglo centric country. It's Catholic and bawdy in an American South full of conservative Christians. Back in the day it was the stomping grounds of the debauched pirate Jean Lafitte and he'd still fit right in today.

With the French Quarter Festival happening I was hoping to see some good Cajun music and Dixieland jazz. I got way more than I hoped for. Music is like breathing here. It everywhere and it's good, really good, and when you breathe it in you feel alive.























You also inhale slices of another time. It's an ancient and modern mix of culture; like being in a Harry Potter movie. It's a gumbo of time periods and cultures but it isn't a melting pot. Nothing is melted or diluted here. It's cultures and time periods reveal themselves to you as the veils of time peel away. French, Creole, Spanish, Caribbean, Haitian, Piracy, Voodoo, Jazz, Zydeco, Outlaws, Literary Giants, Ghosts, Vampires, Swamps, the Mississippi. They all co-mingle in a thick hot swampy jumble. Let's call it a Jambalaya :)

Jazz was invented in New Orleans by Buddy Bolden. The legendary inimitable Louis Armstrong stormed the world from New Orleans. Dr. John, Professor Longhair, the Marsalis brothers, Harry Connick Jr, The Neville Brothers, Fat's Domino and a multitude of great musicians hail from this legendary music town.

Early on I got an appreciation of brass music from my Father the trumpet player. As I watched the wailing expressions blown by New Orleans street musicians my mind took me back to my own brass band days and my Father's fire dept bands. I'm hoping he was on my shoulder experiencing this spectacle with me. God knows he would have loved New Orleans.

But enough words, check this out. It's a bit long for an Internet video but you gotta see the breadth of music the French Quarter Festival provides...for free. Dig it!




I'd never seen Mardi Gras Indians before so on Saturday night we went to see the funky 101 Runners at Waterfront Park. They were great. What a spectacle and they came down in the crowd where we all participated in their mad bacchanalia. Check it out. In the middle of the video they do a cover of the Grateful Dead's Fire On The Mountain. The crowd went wild.




Last but not least are Washboard Chaz and Doc Houlind. I loved these two moments in time.























We saw the Washboard Chaz Blue's Trio at The Spotted Cat. The Spotted Cat is a club in the Faubourg Marigny district which is just a short walk east of the French Quarter. Frenchmen Street is a great street full of music clubs where the locals go. Check it out next time you're in N'awlins. I don't have a lot of tape of Chaz because if you watch you'll see him wave me off to stop filming. The group was tight. Chaz kept a mean rhythm with his washboard. Along the bottom of it he has a wood block, two tin cans and a bell for additional percussion. Teamed with a driving bluesy Dobro player and a screaming, chugging and churning harmonica jockey they rocked it hard. I went online when I got back and bought a CD. Get one!




We saw Doc Houlind's Revival Jazz Band at Preservation Hall. The band was excellent but Preservation Hall is a star in it's own right.

From the Hall's website;
Preservation Hall is located in the French Quarter, just three blocks from the Mississippi River. The Hall has served many functions over the years. Originally built as a private residence in 1750, the hall has evolved into a tavern, inn, photo studio and an art gallery. The inside of the hall contains portraits of the musicians who first filled it with the beautiful sounds of New Orleans Jazz.

Preservation Hall opened its doors in 1961. The hall was created as a sanctuary, to protect and honor New Orleans Jazz which had lost much of its popularity to modern jazz and rock n roll. Allan and Sandra Jaffe, the hall’s founders, wanted a place where New Orleans musicians could play New Orleans Jazz, a style, they believed, should not disappear.

Today, over 40 years later, the hall is still going strong. On any given night, the hall is filled to capacity with people eager to hear New Orleans jazz played by veteran musicians in their 70’s and 80’s and younger musicians learning and embracing music that is both sweet and very beautiful.

Listen to Doc Houlind and you'll hear that kicking Rag Time Dixieland sound is still alive! Doc's band is from Denmark but you'd think they grew up right here in New Orleans. It's a testament to the global appeal of this music.





One thing I really got a kick out of was a lot of bands didn't have a bass player, instead they had a Sousaphone. They use Sousaphones as basses down here!























I'm sucked in. New Orleans has captivated me. I've fallen under it's spell. My friend John told me I have the "disease". If I do, I don't want to be cured...I just want to go back.


























Next posts - We explore, eat, drink and visit the grave of Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau.

Summertime

It's 87 degrees. Even though it's only late April it feels like summertime, especially when I hear the far off fat sound of a Harley exhaust float in with the breeze through an open window.

Yellowstone, Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and a Grizzly Cub! Day 4

Day 4. This is our last day in Yellowstone. We pack and have breakfast at the diner in the Canyon Village General Store where we swap picture taking responsibilities with a nice French family.

















Molly's jazzed about taking a hike before we drive down to Jackson Wyoming. It's going to be a long day. Dylan and I are not so into it but the "boss" has spoken so we're dressed to hike.

We head down the road to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and don't we come across a Grizzly Cub!

















Having come up a steep incline he crosses the road in front of us and keeps moseying uphill. Amazing. That's the second grizzly we've seen in 4 days. Third if you count the spec we saw through a rangers binoculars. It's thrilling all over again.





I'm already not too excited to hike this morning and now we've just encountered a bear roaming around where we're supposed to be hiking! I counter that maybe we should skip the hike this morning. We don't have bear bells, we don't have bear spray, we're simply not prepared to be hiking in bear country. Mind you this is the same group (my family) who all agreed we would not swim with sharks in the Bahamas and what happened when the opportunity arose to swim where there are sharks? They immediately strapped on the snorkel gear. I stood there for a minute contemplating a scene where I watch my wife and kids get munched while I watch the trickles of blood helplessly from shore ... didn't feel good, so I pulled on my snorkel gear too. You know where this is going. We got to the South Rim trail head and hiked. :)

It was a beautiful day and the river, as it's been all along, was gorgeous! The power of the water was scary. It moved at a NASCAR pace past rocks and over falls big and small. White water highlighted the liquid sapphire. If someone fell into the raging river I don't imagine they'd last long. They be tossed around and beat up like a rag doll.
























The South Rim trail was well worn. The river was on our left and woods on our right. Every 100 feet or so we were drawn back down to the river's edge to take in another transcendent scene.

Here we are hiking the trail.




When you get to the end of the trail you are at Artist Point. When the first Europeans set sights on Yellowstone and told tales of it's wonders they were not well received. The tale tellers were thought to be exaggerating. The next wave of explorers brought artists to document the discoveries and the paintings still looked unreal, ... exaggerated. Here's Thomas Moran's painting of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone















And here's a photograph of the real place. You can see the artists took no creative liberty. It really looks like this!








































Knocked out by the bounty of Yellowstone again we reluctantly say goodbye.

But...we're very excited to be traveling to The Grand Tetons to luxuriate in swanky Jackson Wyoming. See you there

Yellowstone, Lamar Valley. Day 3

Day 3 in Yellowstone and we moved up to Canyon Village where we stayed at the Canyon Lodge Cabins to be close to the Lamar Valley and the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.






















The cabins were fine. They were basic but clean. The shower was so small however I could barely move my arms to wash myself. :) We didn't plan this move up to Canyon Village in advance though so we were just happy to have gotten a room. The landscape was different than down by Old Faithful and the geyser fields. It was nice to have a cabin in a bit of woods. It felt like we were in the middle of nowhere even though the big Canyon Lodge and a "village" of restaurants, stores and a Yellowstone Museum were a short walk away.

From here we made our exploration of Lamar Valley. Lamar Valley, like Hayden Valley is a spectacular place to view wildlife. Located in the Northeast section of the park you can see elk, bison, osprey, bald eagles, antelope, moose, black bears, grizzlies and wolves.

It's also prime viewing for two prominent packs ... of humans. First is the herd of telescoped binocular humans who gather to watch for wolves in the early morning and evenings. Second are the scattered but ubiquitous fly fisherman. We didn't fish here but it made me want to come back and try. My mind's eye is burned with the vision of fly fisherman in their waders, thigh high in brilliant blue water performing their upper body ballet. Laid out behind them is a scene of such grandeur it's epic. A snaking river with a purple wash of rocks at the rivers edge framed by the yellows and greens of grasses and wildflowers. Buffalo graze in the middle ground and beyond them climbing walls of lodgepole pine and rocky granite peaks highlighted by the alpen glow of the westering sun.

I spied an envious scene at one point where a guy with an RV had parked in a turn-out viewing area. He was sitting in a lawn chair, legs extended and crossed in front of him, his body almost in a reclined position with a cap precariously balanced on his head to shade the sun. He had a coffee in one hand and down beside the lawn chair he had his thermos. There he sat, back to us, watching the Buffalo and the colors of the late day change. I wanted to join him. One day I will and sit quietly for hours, nursing my cup-o-joe, as the buffalo graze and the watchful eye of the young granite peaks watch back.







































Lamar Valley is quite different than Hayden Valley. It's much hillier and the mountains feel closer, the valley is not as wide. We drove from west to east and the closer we got to the east entrance of the park the narrower the valley got and higher the peaks. It's very dramatic. I'm told coming into the park from the Northeast Entrance is an eye-popping experience as you drive through the Beartooth Highway. I think I'll try that next visit.



















The valley is wide and grassy in it's western reaches. We drove west to east out of the Tower-Roosevelt area.


















The eastern end of the valley gets very dramatic. This picture doesn't capture the scale.

We watched for wildlife but didn't see too much this day. We pulled over once where a ranger had a telescope trained on a spec of a grizzly bear having his lunch over a dead elk carcase. We also stopped to see the dry white bones of another elk that had been picked clean by the denizens of the Lamar Valley. The most prevalent animal we saw here was once again the Buffalo.

Lamar Valley has it's own herd of Buffalo. In 1907 28 bison were moved from Fort Yellowstone to the Lamar Valley to enhance the park's natural herd. These were plains bison, a distinct subspecies which differed from the park's native mountain bison. Who knew there were different species? Anyway the park herd is now a hybrid of the two subspecies and between Hayden Valley and Lamar Valley numbers about 4,000.

Here's some video we took in Lamar Valley.



When we got to the end of the valley we didn't exit the park. We turned around and drove back. We'd already driven about 50 miles that day, so we had another 50 to get back to our cabin. 30 miles back we stopped at the Roosevelt Lodge for dinner. As we entered the ranch a most western scene greeted us as a posse of horses and riders slowly came towards us trailing a plume of summer dust. Roosevelt Lodge was a very cool place. It's named after Teddy Roosevelt who came to this location to explore Yellowstone in 1904.


















On the property there's a rustic log lodge with a big dining room, a country store and scattered cabins. This is very remote. It's a great place to stay for a back country experience. They offer horseback trail riding, stagecoach rides, chuckwagon outings and it's a perfect launching point for fly fishing. We sat on the front porch waiting for a table as the sun set savoring this pristine location. The view was across a wide valley and the far mountains went from green to orange to red to purple to black. I'm definitely staying here a couple days next visit. Our meal was great, the bar keep made us some amazing margarita's with and interesting twist on the salted rim...cayenne pepper. It added a nice kick.

















Roosevelt Dining Room
Photo from Picasa web album of Diana Magor

We made our way back to Canyon Village in the dark. Molly made me drive. The road gets a little hairy over the Dunraven Pass, and to add a little coda to the day, we saw a coyote. I'm 90% sure it wasn't a wolf.. .even though I'd like to say it was. :)


To read about our three days in Yellowstone from the beginning start here. Day One - Yellowstone.

Yellowstone, Hayden Valley & Buffalo. Day 2

Hayden Valley is a stunningly beautiful and wide valley in Yellowstone National Park. The Yellowstone River snakes it's way through the valley and entices in a way Eve would understand. The valley was long ago once part of Yellowstone Lake and it's moist sandy glacial sediment stops the encroachment of trees allowing for a beautiful vista.

When we arrived it was still early in the morning.

















Gorgeous








































The valley is one of the best places in Yellowstone to see bison, elk and the occasional grizzly bear. In addition there is an abundance waterfowl, including ducks, Canadian geese and pelicans. I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me but it's true. There are pelicans in Yellowstone. Who knew? They're American White Pelicans. The only pelicans I've ever seen were in Florida or along the Gulf Coast but apparently American White Pelicans do their summer breeding on lakes throughout the northern Great Plains and mountains in the West.

Scattered along the valley too were my favorite. Buffalo, American Bison, or in the tongue of the Sioux, Tatonka. Once numbering from 60-100 million the Buffalo was almost hunted to extinction by the 1880's. At that time there were only a few hundred left. Today it's estimated there are about 350,000 Buffalo in North America.

The only continuously wild buffalo herd in the United States resides within Yellowstone National Park. This herd, now numbering about 4,000, is descended from a population of 23 mountain bison that survived the mass slaughter of the 1800s by hiding out in the Pelican Valley of Yellowstone Park.

These magnificent creatures are the largest mammals in Yellowstone National Park. Being strictly vegetarian they graze the grasslands and sedges in the meadows, foothills and high-elevation forested plateaus of Yellowstone. Males can weigh upwards of 1,800 pounds and females about 1,000 pounds. Both stand approximately six feet tall at the shoulder. They are literally as big as a small vehicle and can move with surprising speed. They can run as fast as 35 miles per hour and have the unexpected agility to leap over a standard barbed-wire fence.

Buffalo appear docile but between 1978 and 1992, nearly five times as many people in Yellowstone National Park were killed or injured by bison as by bears (12 by bears, 56 by bison). We could see the aggression. Starting the end of July and into August the Yellowstone buffalo converge on Hayden Valley for their annual rutting (mating) season. Competition between bulls for female cows gets intense. There's a lot of jockeying, posturing and grunting. Two bulls locked horns and went at each other right in front of us. They lowered their heads into each other maneuvering for position, kicking up dust and thundering downhill with the crack and crunching of tree limbs telegraphing the fight back up to us. When one of the buffaloes came back up the hill he was moving pretty fast...right at us. We ran for the car and jumped up on the roof!

Dylan, on the roof of the Jeep, a little wary of the buffalo.

Here's another video of buffalo swimming the Yellowstone River. A couple get swept away by the current!



We passed through the Hayden Valley multiple times in our visit to Yellowstone and we were always in awe of the buffalo.























































Buffalo are one of the touchstones of ancient America. They are a symbol of the American West. They used to roam the great plains in unimaginable numbers. The plains and western mountains were America's Serengeti. It'd be nice to see that again. The plains States are losing population now and there is a movement afoot to let the land go back to natural prairie and create what would be called the Buffalo Commons where the natural flora and fauna could repopulate. I think that would be magical....and probably a HUGE tourist attraction.

It would have been one of the great tragedies of all time to lose one of North America's greatest animals. To see them in the wild like this in such a grandiose landscape is a great privilege and a little heaven on earth.

Next, another of the great valleys in Yellowstone. The magnificent Lamar Valley.

Yellowstone - Looking for Animals!

I got everyone up at 5:30...in the morning! Uncivilized I know but I wanted and needed to get out early to spy the four legged bounty I'd heard inhabited Yellowstone.

Two days ago we were in The Black Hills of South Dakota. The Black Hills were a big surprise. They were so beautiful and there was abundant wildlife. We don't get to experience big game animals in Boston so I was hooked by the thrill. Like a drug addict I had to get another fix. I had to be out for prime time viewing.

...and so we pulled out of the parking lot at the Old Faithful Inn at 6:00 AM. It's cold. There's dew on the grass and car windows. The sun is showing it's pink crown to the east. We have entered an earthen landscape exhaling it's crystallized breath as the sun sends it's natal reds & oranges across the transient scene like footlights at a theater.

































Wow.

Here we are driving past the Upper Geyser Basin and out onto the park road.




We drove north from the Old Faithful area towards Madison. For a while we're alone on the road floating through the lodgepole pines like 19th Century pioneer rafters traveling on pristine rivers. We pass Gibbon Falls on our way to Norris and turn towards Canyon Village were we immediately see two Elk. Cool! I was starting to think we might strike out seeing anything on this morning's safari.


















Bolstered by the Elk we keep our eyes peeled and beyond all notions of luck we spy a Grizzly freakin' Bear! The bear is foraging in a meadow. A ranger pulls up to make sure bear and humans keep the proper distance but this is a magic moment. To see this majestic animal in it's natural habitat is affirmation of true wilderness. He is the occupant, we are the interloper. Many times I wanted to sit still and quiet in Yellowstone and let the pulse of the earth and nature fill me and revive me. Let it reintroduce me to the primal currents that flow through all living things, plant, animal & mineral. This was one of those times.

It's no wonder Native Americans worship Mother Earth with ancestoral generations having been suckled and nourished off the bounty & beauty of North America before we "tamed" it all.

We'd traveled about 42 miles this AM when we reached Canyon Village. Thrilled with our Grizzly sighting we head south and in front of the Canyon Village Lodge Cabins' see a big rack swaying back & forth as a Bull Elk has his breakfast.

Elk and Grizzly on video. Check it out.




As we start to make our way back south to the Old Faithful Inn we enter one of the big wildlife viewing areas in Yellowstone. The Hayden Valley. The Yellowstone River cuts through the center of the Hayden Valley and this is where one of the biggest herds of Buffalo in North America live...and we all know how I feel about Buffalo. I love them! It's the most magnificent animal we saw on our wild west road trip. They are incredibly majestic, broad shouldered and strong. A true American icon.

Next post - Hayden Valley and Buffalo!

Old Faithful, Yellowstone - Day 1

Leaving Cody Wyoming on Rt 20 we made our way west. Adios cowboy country and hello mountain man terrain. We drove through a big gap in that continental vertical wall we call the Rocky Mountains and entered an alpine world leaving the great plains and arid prairies behind. Further on Buffalo Bill made his legendary presence known to us once again as we passed by his hunting camp. I had to stop in for a quick tour.

















Buffalo Bill Cody's hunting lodge. The Sioux called it Pahaska Tepee, "Longhair's Lodge".

Further on we continued through tight forested valleys and over rushing streams. In the distance smoke plumes billowed and tilted in the calm wind while bands of US Forest Service fire rangers watched and monitored their leanings . Rt. 20 follows the North Fork of the Shoshone River through the scenic Wapiti Valley to the East Entrance of Yellowstone National Park. It's 56 miles from Cody to the East Entrance and before we knew it we were entering the park. With the sun at our back we drove through Sylvan Pass and entered a high plateau. This wasn't a high desert or prairie but a a giant lodgepole pine wooded valley surrounded by distant mountains. And upon further, discovery Yellowstone National Park turns out to be a giant ancient caldera!















The caldera measures about 34 mi by 45 mi. Geologists refer to it as the Yellowstone Supervolcano!The most recent lava flow occurred about 70,000 years ago. The last full-scale eruption of the Yellowstone Supervolcano happened about 640,000 years ago. Currently, volcanic activity is exhibited only via numerous geothermal vents scattered throughout the region, including the famous Old Faithful Geyser. And that's where we're headed now .... although it's a little unsettling to know we could be blasted to bits by a geologic time bomb!

As we continued towards Old Faithful, Yellowstone Lake appeared on our left. I didn't realize it was so big. 136 square miles. At Fishing Bridge we got out of the car. Fishing Bridge spans the Yellowstone River where it drains Yellowstone Lake. If there is a prettier river in the entire world I haven't seen it. The crystal clear fast moving water reflected the blue of the sky and cast off shimmers and sparkles beckoning us down to the river's edge where we drank from the cool mountain run off. It was so clear you could see the rocks and bowing vegetation on the river bed. I desperately wanted to jump in but swimming was forbidden here and we had to keep rolling.

By the tip of the West Thumb of Yellowstone Lake we turned directly west for another ten miles where we eventually drove up to the majestic Old Faithful Inn.















































The lodge is a spectacular log and limb building with a stunningly massive (500-ton, 85-foot) stone fireplace in the middle of it. The inn is a prime example of the "Golden Age" of rustic resort architecture, a style which is also known as National Park Service Rustic. Initial construction was carried out over the winter of 1903-1904, largely using locally-obtained materials including lodgepole pine (the bark was later removed in 1940) and rhyolite stone. When the Old Faithful Inn first opened in the spring of 1904, it boasted electric lights and steam heat. The structure is the largest log hotel in the world; possibly even the largest log building in the world.

Molly took a tour of the lodge and was told the Old Faithful Inn originated the concept of Rustic Architecture. The tour guide obviously didn't know who she was talking to as Ms. New York State informed the tour guide that the Rustic Style appeared in the Adirondack Mountains in the 1870s, creating the style known as Adirondack Architecture and that this was the primary influence that park architecture modeled itself after the year 1900. ....that's right. You don't mess with the Great Camps. :) OK back to Yellowstone.




















Main Lobby














Massive Fireplace



















Second Floor lobby. To the left outside is the front deck.



















Interior Hallway




Across from the Inn is Upper Guyser Basin. There are boardwalk paths through the guyser & mudpot fields. You MUST stay on the boardwalk. You definitely do not want to fall though the crusty earth anywhere into boiling water or mud!










































































There's one thing I gotta tell ya. It's a big secret they don't tell you about Yellowstone. It smells like rotten eggs. Yup. Rotten eggs. It can stink to high heaven sometimes. The geothermal areas reek of sulfur! It smells like the time my mother left eggs on the stove to boil and promptly fell asleep leaving the eggs to burn, fume and permeate everything in our house with that stinky rotten egg smell. Yuck. Still, you gotta go. It's one of the rare places on earth we can see the firey heart of mother earth manifest itself on the surface. Here's a video narrated by Drew as he tours the guyser fields.




Dylan & I went to watch Old Faithful go off. It was just he & I ...and about 1,000 tourists from all over the world. They show up in big buses, get out, watch the explosion, go to the gift shop and leave. :)























As the shadows stared to grow longer and the sky blended to yellow and orange in the west we headed to the front deck of the Inn. It's a second story deck, open to the sky, that overlooks Old Faithful. It was very relaxing. The air was clear & crisp. We drank Bayern and Moose Drool beer and met a group of about 10 Brits that I thought were Kiwi's. Interesting accents they had. They were riding motorcycles from Alaska to Nashville. "That's amazing" I said and asked how they could rent motorcycles in Alaska and drop them off down south. They said they didn't rent. It was cheaper to ship their own motorcycles to Alaska! That blew my mind. Of course the British Pound was worth 60 % more than the dollar in the summer of '08 so their money went a looong way.

Here we are on that luxurious porch.



Eventually we turned in. I can't remember why but we all got to laughing so hard in our room that we got in trouble from our neighbor. He banged on the door like he was trying to put his fist through it. I open it and he yelled at us. I blame Molly's cackle. We laughed a bit more at being yelled at and went to sleep. The goal was to be up at 5:30 AM the next morning to hunt for wildlife.

Would we see Bears, Elk, Buffalo? Click here to find out. Day 2 - looking for animals.