Yellowstone and Grand Teton Images

We made it to Berkeley! Here are some pictures from Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons:

Yellowstone and Grand Tetons

Aside from the fact that I nearly plowed over a bison in my car and we almost died, Deepa and I had a great time exploring Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. We managed to see (and not almost kill) a black bear, cow elk, two male elk with velvety antlers, and deer. The stars at night were absolutely astounding, the mountains are glorious, and Old Faithful lives up to her name. While the pictures are better than anything I could ever write, this McDonalds internet connection is refusing them. Sorry!

On another note, if you've noticed a koala bear in pictures, it's intentional. Deeps and I are including the bear in pictures for our friend Sue from down under. :) We're off to Idaho. Yummy potatoes ahead.

Bison, Caves and Storms, Oh My!

Day two was almost entirely spent enjoying the beauty of South Dakota. We visited the Badlands, Mount Rushmore, the Jewel Caves (Custer, SD), and the Needles (granite columns in Custer State Park). Pictures are below.

Once we got over our fear of getting charged by a herd of bison, we had a great time exploring SD! The Badlands are absolutely beautiful and amazingly in the middle of prairie land. I can only imagine what the first explorers thought when, after cruising their horse and carriage, ended up among the gorgeous, but barely cross-able, Badlands!

Our day ended with a crazy storm with golf-sized hail that landed us in a hotel rather than a tent. Today, we're visiting Yellowstone and Grand Tetons!














Badlands.

Spamelot

Deepa and Catie set off on an epic journey to CA from IL, starting at 5:30am on 4 August 2008.

First, they visited the Spam Museum in Minnesota and learned that every minute 3.8 cans of SPAM are eaten and it is sold in 99% of US grocery stores in the USA.

Also, the parking spots are clearly labeled.














You can play with a spatula designed to flip a 10,000 pound SPAM burger.














Lastly, you can make your own SPAM can.




















Things just got more and more exciting. Following the SPAM Museum, D and C visited the infamous Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota. Not only does the outside of the building change each year, but you can also entertain your "corny" side.

Chicago Images

Attacked!!!!!!!!

It was a sad, dark, wet, dreary day when I was ATTACKED. Now, don't worry too much because Deepa thinks it's quite funny, and I am sure you will too (at my expense...read on, see if you think it is funny. I am sure you will too.)
Was I lucky enough to be attacked by a human? No, not me.
Was I lucky enough to be attacked by a non-slimy creature? Nooooooooooo.
Here's the story from the "Hindu Times", dated 9.11.2006

"Foreigner's Blood Sucked Majorly"
While walking through monsoon rains in the Periyar National Park, an American girl was attacked by not one, but two leeches, on her right arm. The attacks could have been much worse if she hadn't listened to her wonderful guide who made her and her friend wear special burlap socks which prevented many leeches from sucking the blood in their feet. The white girl had, at highest count, 28 leeches on the burlap socks. She was completely preoccupied with flinging them off of her pants (you see, they kept crawling up her legs. Her weird guide said "You have nice blood) the entire time while in the world renouned Periyar. She was so busy flinging them off of her that she didn't even notice the herd of elephants coming at her. Thankfully they saw her and didn't stampede and kill her.* Her friend, Deepa, laughed at her, and said "This was the first time I saw Catie lose her cool. Hahahahahaha." It was a good thing that her hotel had salt ready for her and put salt all over the enormous leeches on her arms, otherwise this wouldn't have been such a thrilling to anyone but Catie story.
--associated press

It was the sickest thing I have ever had happen to me. However, I have gained something to say to men who annoy me at the bar "Did you know I had 2 huge leeches on my arm for a few hours?" Should take care of them. Yes, indeed.

Since my traumatizing event, we've seen wild dogs, elephants, buffalo, Munnar Tea Gardens (goregous), and the Sri Manakshi Temple (Taj Mahal of the South). Can't wait to share pictures!
Tomorrow we head to Bombay to conclude our journey here. Sad and exciting at the same time. India is a great place and I will miss it tons (minus leeches) but I am looking forward to new clothes (same yucky ones for 2 months = BORING), laundry, Starbucks, dairy, and non-scary driving. Using my credit card, etc.

*Fictional. The leeches, though, are true. Eew.

Maimed people

After our houseboat adventure, we landed in Kumarakomb (those of you who are tracking me on maps, I am sure you have noticed I can't spell anything here correctly. West coast, southern India). There's nothing much written in our travel bible aka Lonely Planet about this town so we just started walking down the only road it has. All of a sudden, as if it were a mirage, a "museum" sign in big blue letters appeared. After scaling the fire escape, we found ourselves in the one and only driftwood museum. It was a riot...unique and funny. The woman who runs it gave us a very endearing tour of driftwood she's found that she has molded into shapes. Aside from showing us a group of 5 piece that was a handicapped family "See, that one is missing it's arm. That baby has a hole in it's hand" she would take her metal pointing stick at random times and hit the driftwood hard to show us it was now a fossil and prove her point: nature works in amazing ways.
We're totally writing to the Lonely Planet to have it added. It's worth seeing and funny.