This trip was excellent, not just because of the stunning natural sceneries, but also because the whole trip was so well-planned, with every single detail taken care of by the senior students and their wives. And I must thank them at this point. Yosemite National Park was a well-know collection of beautiful natural sceneries. However, in my opinion, it's not as wonderful as Yellowstone, although it's said that the time I went to Yosemite was not the perfect season. I'm not saying Yosemite was not beautiful. It was, in fact. The blue sky, the green trees, the gray granite cliffs and the clear streams showed a colorful painting. Running squirrels and flying birds animated the painting. Nonetheless, such a painting could be seen at many other places, while a lot of the sceneries and the creatures at Yellowstone were unique as far as I had ever seen. I had surprises everyday at Yellowstone.

D1

• [Salt Lake City] Street sceneries
• [Salt Lake City] Salt Lake Temple
• Great Salt Lake

D2

• Elk antler arches
• Grand Teton National Park
• Old Faithful Geyser
• Midway Geyser Basin
• Night at West Yellowstone

D3

• Waterfall in the mountain
• Grasslands
• Bisons
• Mud Volcano Area
• Wild fire
• Yellowstone River
• Other sceneries
• Rodeo at Cody, WY

D4

• Sceneries on the way
• Uncle Tom's Trail and Lower Yellowstone Falls
• A bull elk
• Bleached Cliffs
• Rest by a restaurant
• Boiling River

D5

• North Entrance - Roosevelt Arch
• Mammoth Hot Spring Terraces
• Some deer bones by a stream
• The Norris Area
• 3 deers
• A lake scenery before sunset
• Cow elks

D6

• Leave Yellowstone
• Bingham Canyon Mine

Browse all photos in Photo Gallery...

See also:

• Yosemite National Park (Mar. 23-27, 2008)
• Su's blog about this trip (Chinese)
• Xi's blog about this trip (Chinese)

Before boarding the back flight, we visited the Bingham Canyon Mine near Salt Lake City.

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We drove back to Salt Lake City from Yellowstone on the last day.

A rest station on the way

Ants by the rest station

See also:

• Previous topic of this trip: [D5] Cow elks
• Next topic of this trip: [D6] Bingham Canyon Mine
• Other topics of this trip

We came across these elks when we were approaching our hotel.

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See also:

• Previous topic of this trip: [D5] 3 deers
• Next topic of this trip: [D5] Cow elks
• Other topics of this trip

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Another place with geysers

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See also:

• Previous topic of this trip: [D5] Mammoth Hot Spring Terraces
• Next topic of this trip: [D5] The Norris Area
• Other topics of this trip

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A hot spring goes into a cold river, forming this boiling river. A lot of people were swimming in it.

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↓↓A cow elk↓↓

↑↑A cow elk↑↑

↓↓A kid in a Beijing Olympics T-shirt↓↓

↑↑A kid in a Beijing Olympics T-shirt↑↑

See also:

• Previous topic of this trip: [D4] Bleached Cliffs
• Next topic of this trip: [D4] Boiling River
• Other topics of this trip

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Dandelion clocks. Each one is as big as a tennis.

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$17 for more than 2 hours' performance. What a great deal! And we learned 2 new words "bucks" and "does" on restroom doors.

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The wild fire can be seen from the river

Little fish in the river

See also:

• Previous topic of this trip: [D3] Wild fire
• Next topic of this trip: [D3] Other sceneries
• Other topics of this trip

There's a pretty low chance to see a wildfire while traveling, but this time we saw one. This was the 2nd time I closely saw a wildfire. The 1st one was in Southern California.

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A lot of geysers were erupting mud in this area. The H₂S smell was extremely bad.

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Bisons are arrogant animals. They walk along and across human's roads, totally ignoring the cars, which by the way are made by steel. However, such strong animals still become human's food. 6oz bison steak was sold in a local restaurant at $23. Although it's expensive, I didn't let go this chance.

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See also:

• Previous topic of this trip: [D3] Waterfall in the mountain
• Next topic of this trip: [D3] Bisons
• Other topics of this trip

See also:

• Previous topic of this trip: [D2] Night at West Yellowstone
• Next topic of this trip: [D3] Grasslands
• Other topics of this trip

The sky after sunset and the moon were extremely beautiful.

See also:

• Previous topic of this trip: [D2] Midway Geyser Basin
• Next topic of this trip: [D3] Waterfall in the mountain
• Other topics of this trip

A place full of geysers. A lot of Canada geese were walking in and out of the fog.

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Yellowstone is a geographically active place, with more than 2000 earthquakes every year (much less than California, though). Hot springs with H₂S flow underground and erupt at some places and thus form geysers, which are similar to those in the Great Boiling Valley in Japan. The most famous geyser is the Old Faithful. It erupts every 92 minutes (10 minutes inaccuracy). Each eruption lasts a few minutes and goes up to 20 more meters high. We were so lucky that it started to erupt right after we arrived there.

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Grand Teton National Park is to the south of Yellowstone National Park. On our way to Yellowstone, we visited Grand Teton. We hiked along Jenny Lake up to Hidden Falls, then took a ship back.

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We stayed at Jackson, WY for the first night. In the early morning of the 2nd day, we visited the elk antler arches in Jackson.

See also:

• Previous topic of this trip: [D1] Great Salt Lake
• Next topic of this trip: [D2] Grand Teton National Park
• Other topics of this trip

Before sunset, we went to the Great Salt Lake. It was so peaceful that it looked like a mirror. A lot of seagulls were resting on the lake. Ocean's smell strongly embraced our noses.

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Salt Lake City is an important Mormon city. According to the religion, some Mormon believers fled to a place where is now Salt Lake City. They started to cultivate the fields and plan crops. However, locusts came up destroying their harvest. They prayed to God. Then a lot of seagulls flew from California to eat up the locusts and thus saved their harvest. After that, the seagulls stayed at the Great Salt Lake, which is now a proof of the miracle.

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From John Wayne Airport at Orange County, we took a flight to Salt Lake City on the 1st day. Meanwhile we adjusted our watches for the 1 hour time difference.

I thought Salt Lake City is just a regular city, but I found that it's very different than other US cities. Here roads were broad so that the city looked less crowded. Buildings were mostly short and white, unlike other cities which have tall and gray buildings and look depressing. The guided buses looked comfortable and efficient.

↓↓The guided buses↓↓

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(Click the pictures to see their bigger versions)

Yokohama (横浜), Japan, 360-degree-panorama (taken on July 30, 2003):

Lujiazui (陆家嘴) in Shanghai, China, 180-degree-panorama  viewing from the Bund (taken on Oct. 3, 2003):

Liuhua Lake Park (流花湖公园) in Guangzhou, China, 120-degree-panorama (taken on Jan. 24, 2004):

Xinghai Concert Hall (星海音乐厅) in Guangzhou, China (taken on Feb. 25, 2004):

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I want to thank Shiwei, Yuyu, and Zheng Z. for organizing this trip and driving. I had a lot of fun.

• D1 Drive to Vegas and the Palomino Club
• D2
  • Grand Canyon
    • Skywalk
    • Lunch by the canyon
    • Condors
    • Ants
    • Helicopters and airplanes

  • Las Vegas
    • PH Spice Market Buffet
    • The Strip
    • The fake Venice in the Venetian Hotel
    • Stratosphere Tower - standing on the 109th floor of Vegas

• D3 Brunch, gambling and driving back

See all the photos in Photo Gallery...

See also:

• Las Vegas (Dec. 18-21, 2006)
• Las Vegas and 3 national parks (Jan. 19-21, 2008)

Early in the morning (5am), we started our Grand Canyon West Rim bus tour ($94 + tax, skywalk admission not included). Although we heard that the South Rim had better views, we wanted to experience the famous glass skywalk in the West Rim. The canyon was spectacular, but the skywalk turned out to be nothing but junk.

Going through the Hoover Dam, crossing the border between Nevada and Arizona

• Skywalk
• Lunch by the canyon
• Condors
• Ants
• Helicopters and airplanes

At 5pm, the bus took us back to Las Vegas.

See also:

• Hoover Dam (Jan. 20, 2008)
• Previous topic of this trip: [D1] Drive to Vegas and the Palomino Club
• Next topic of this trip: [D2][Grand Canyon] Skywalk
• Other topics of this trip

Checked out the hotel rooms, we had a brunch buffet ($17.23 including tax) just at the hotel we stayed - the Stratosphere Hotel. Again I had a lot of king crab legs. They were just so tasty.

Then we gambled a little bit. I put in a dollar to play a little poker with the computer. When I almost lost it, the other guys urged me to leave, so I pushed the "maximum bid" button, expecting to lose more quickly. However, I won twice in a row. Then I pushed "cash out". As a result, instead of losing the dollar, I won an extra quarter. Yay!

On the way driving back, we encountered a very serious traffic jam:

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After visiting the fake Venice, we went to a dancing club, but we failed to get in and play together. Then I wanted to go on top of the Stratosphere Tower with 2 other guys, who had the tickets and got stuck in the traffic jam on the Strip.

The tower was going to close at 2am.
1:35am, they still couldn't get back, so I decided to buy another ticket ($13.95) and go by myself.
1:40am: I rushed to the ticketing place. The seller told me tripod was not allowed on the top, but I didn't have time to put it back, so I went directly towards the tower entrance, pretending I didn't know tripods weren't allowed.
1:43am: At the tower entrance, I had to pass the security check. I took the keys, cell phone out, and walked through the security door. It beeped, but the man said, "you're fine." I thereupon ran to the elevator.
1:45am: The elevator was so fast. I think I stayed in it for less than a minute. Then as the door opened, I walked out of the elevator and was already on the 108th floor. Since there's not too much time, I immediately climbed up the stairs to the 109th floor. At the same time the broadcast was shouting, "we'll be closing in 15 minutes."

Soon after I started taking photos, a security man stopped me using the tripod. Well, then I needed some handhold tricks, and I still got some good shots.

On the left of the picture is the 2nd highest thrill ride in the world. It dangles you over the edge of the tower and then spins in a circular pattern at approximately forty miles per hour.
Refer to the 5th photo in this post to see the 3rd highest thrill ride in the world.

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There's so much fake stuff in Vegas. This fake Venice is a huge indoor shopping mall, with a fake river and fake Venice-style constructions.

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At night, the traffic on the Strip is extremely bad. Instead of driving police cars, the cops ride bikes to pull over cars.

See also:

• Previous topic of this trip: [D2][Vegas] PH Spice Market Buffet
• Next topic of this trip: [D2][Vegas] The fake Venice in the Venetian Hotel
• Other topics of this trip

Back from Grand Canyon, we took a break in our hotel rooms. Then some of us went to PH Spice Market Buffet for dinner. That was one of the best buffets I had ever had in Vegas. The price was $28 including tax. My favorite food was sushi and king crab legs. The best thing was that the crab legs were cut well so they were very easy to eat.

See also:

• Previous topic of this trip: [D2][Grand Canyon] Helicopters and airplanes
• Next topic of this trip: [D2][Vegas] The Strip
• Other topics of this trip