Oops! It is Quake Lake we were talking about which is in Montana. It isn’t a National Park, but is in a National Forest. It’s pretty close to the border of Idaho and Montana and Yellowstone. Crater Lake is in Oregon and is part of an old volcano. It is a National Park. Sorry for the confusion!
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When I first saw Quake Lake, DH & I thought it was the ugliest, most crude dam we had ever seen. Once we realized it was because half the mountain came down, it became a lot more magnificent!
As I’ve said before on the coronavirus thread, nature does not care about our little human sensibilities.
There is a great little book about it called “The Night The Mountain Fell,” if you read it now, you can look for all the sites it mentions when you get here. Most are still there, like where the highway was ripped away, the huge fault scarp that separated campers from their families way up the valley, etc.
Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, Denmark…We were fortunate to stay in this lovely city for 5 days and were staying across the street from the park that inspired Walt…The rides were just ok…more carnival like…but the grounds and the dining establishments had great food and theming…At night the place was magical.
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We went to Copenhagen just before the Gardens opened for Christmas. I think that would have been so lovely!
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Just a little update on travel to the Northern Rockies- the biologists at YNP & Glacier have been noticing the animals are much more visible than usual, possibly because of the very low tourist volume. And we have seen an uptick in grizzly attacks outside the park, although that’s probably just due to greater bear numbers overall. Most attacks do occur outside the parks.
The latest one involved a biker not too far from YNP, and was very serious, he was taken by Lifeflight to Billings, although I hear he’s going to make it. This attack occurred in a developed area, I have hiked Ousel Falls several times. So be careful out there!
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I want to see a bear in the wild so bad. But from a distance. A long distance. LOL
I heard that Yosemite is also hopping with animal activity in the absence of visitors! Makes me kind of wish they could have more space from us. But on the other hand, these are magnificent places to visit.
When we went to Yellowstone a few years ago, we rented some bear spray and watched a bear safety video at one of the visitors centers. But we ended up not doing any real hikes. There was so much to see that we did some short walks but didn’t really get into an area where bears were more likely to be. Of course, one of the staff told us that the week before we were there, a bear was walking on the boardwalk around Old Faithful. So you never know.
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No, you really don’t know. People definitely have had bear encounters right in the parking lot. A jogger fended off a young grizzly by squirting it with water, right in the cabin area at Grant.
I friend today told me she saw a grizzly bear right by I-90 between Billings and Bozeman. They have never been that bold before. I think there are a lot more of them than there used to be. When we bought our place in our small town six years ago, people laughed at me for taking down my bird feeders in the summer. They don’t laugh now!
I live in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, the park borders don’t mean anything to the wildlife.
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Coincidentally, this popped up on the interwebs today. Brown bears are the same species as grizzly bears:
Although I’m no bear expert, far as I can tell, this boy and his family did the right thing- and have nerves of steel. The bear was not threatening, was curious, and no one panicked. The only thing I think he should not have done was to look back, but that’s understandable.
Also, who the heck was filming this? if that was my kid, I would be too scared to do anything like that.
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Live very close to Kings Island and love it. However I may be a little bias as I did work there for 15 years. They have the best kids area outside of Disney. Since being purchased by Cedar Fair have really expanded the leave of thrill coasters. We spend a lot of time there.
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Six Flags over Texas. I love the rides. And the price. Season Pass is $62 if you wait until it is on sale. $85 Dining pass which gets a Freestyle cup - free refills for the year, plus two meals and snack per day every visit all year. That is $85 for the entire year. Wish they had that when I was in college nearby.
The rides are awesome! I love them all except for the double-loop one. Not a fan of loops.
I will admit to being biased. I grew up there. As a teen, practically everyone I knew either worked there or the ball park. I was at the ballpark in AC.
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@shawthorne44 - Six Flags over Texas looks like such a great park! We look forward to visiting one day. Doesn’t that park have the original log flume ride? Or is that another park in Texas?
It has a super-duper old flume ride that is still awesome. But I don’t know if it was ‘the original’ I wouldn’t be surprised. Our season pass also includes the water park nearby.
Unfortunately our daughter is a wimp who doesn’t like the stomach feeling of a roller coaster drop. So, DH and I schedule a weekday ‘adult day’ for the two of us to go on all the trill rides that she won’t go on.
At the moment, they are open requiring reservations and masks. I think they have mobile ordering. We’d planned on going to the water park and Six Flags on their opening days. But, I got a bad sinus infection so I couldn’t go. Was crushed.
If you do visit, I’d recommend around Halloween. They do a totally awesome job. Plus the weather is almost always great then.
Our favorite is Discovery Cove. We always have an awesome time and it’s extremely relaxing swimming around and just chilling.