6th October - We got up late, as we stayed up until the early hours of the morning discussing careers for when we return to England, and went to a general store across from the hotel to buy items so we could take a picnic in the Park.One of the difficult things about living out of hotels is that we don't have facilities to make meals for ourselves, so everything we eat has to be bought.We have managed to acquire a knife and so we decided to make rudimentary sandwiches and other picnic food in our hotel room on the computer desk for a change!By the time we had got the picnic together and set off it was after 12 so we went straight to an area in the Park called Mammoth Hot Springs and enjoyed our feast.We then took a walk around this area, which is North America's most volatile and oldest-known continuously active thermal area.This again meant lots of steam, bubbling holes of water and mud, and that bad egg smell!We still cannot comprehend how big Yellowstone is.There is a loop road which only goes around half of the Park, and is 114 miles long.Looking at the places of interest takes such a long time as each place is so far apart.We carried on to the next area, about 30 miles away, called Norris Geyser Basin, which has a huge amount a huge array of thermal features, including Steamboat, the world's tallest geyser, and Echinus, the world's largest acidic geyser.It was lovely to walk round all these steaming and bubbling geysers and the scenery was just astounding.We carried on stopped briefly at a smaller geyser area called Artist Paintpots and then drove on for around another 30 miles to the Park's most famous geyser, Old Faithful.We pulled up in the car park and walked the short distance to see the geyser puffing steam up into the air.This geyser is the most predictable and blows 180ft of scalding water into the air every 90 minutes.We took the remnants of our picnic food, not knowing how long we would have to wait, and were told by some people who had been waiting over an hour that it was due in about 20 minutes.We ate our sandwiches and, after just 15 minutes, the geyser put on its show for us, and God was it impressive.We left, amazed by the spectacle and thrilled that we didn't have to wait too long to see it!We carried on another 25 miles to West Thumb to see more thermal steaming pools, this time the water so totally clear that you felt you could see into the centre of the earth by looking into the deep holes.Here the hot water bubbles into massive Yellowstone Lake (this Lake is so big that you cannot see the other side, it looks like a sea surrounded by beautiful snow capped mountains).We heard a coyote howling and decided that, as it was getting dark, we should get back to the car and leave the exploring for another day. The journey back was in pitch darkness, as the Park does not have any lights, just reflective strips, but we did see a racoon and a wolf and I narrowly avoided hitting a huge elk that was in the road and that I couldn't see until the last minute in the darkness.Still, the night sky was incredible without the light pollution and Ralph was actually able to see the Milky Way.Although we were well over half way back to the hotel when we started our return journey to the entrance, it still took over 2 hours to get back.

7th - We got up and went back to the Park to see the last of the areas we hadn't yet got to see.We headed straight to the River Valley area to see if we could spot one of the elusive moose, but they were still being elusive and after over an hours driving we had not seen one.On our way back on the same road we saw lots of cars stopped in the road so we did the same (it's always the best evidence that an animal has been spotted close by!) and we noticed an animal trotting straight down the middle of the road towards us.As it got closer we saw that it was a coyote and it trotted straight past our car door, totally unconcerned that cars were screeching to a halt all around it.Luckily, unlike the bear encounter, we were able to get a good picture.We carried on and saw some of the wonderful waterfalls and canyon areas in the park before taking an early finish to the day as we have covered all the areas of the park we wanted to now, and there is a Presidential debate on this evening!!We can tell we are well into the hunting season now as every place we go to has huge signs and banners welcoming hunters (it's the only real business they get this time of year) and most of the hotels also have lockable gun racks, although disconcertingly a hotel we recently stayed at had its gun rack located in the swimming pool and hot spa area, which was slightly unnerving.Everyone walks round with camouflage outfits on and we seem to be some of the only people around not here to hunt.The hotel we stayed in this evening had animal heads and animal skins all over the walls and corridors which was rather off putting, but it did mean we finally got to see a moose (head)!

8th - We paid our last visit to Yellowstone National Park (the admission fee of $25.00 gives you 7 consecutive days admission to this and Grand Teton National Park which adjoins it to the south) just to drive through it to Grand Teton National Park where we were still on the lookout for moose, but for which we were once again disappointed.The Park is beautiful, but overshadowed by the incomparable Yellowstone, but we enjoyed seeing the glacier carved jagged granite spires reaching up high into the sky.It was a warm day but the peaks still had snow (or perhaps ice) on top and shortly after leaving the Park we left the state of Wyoming and crossed the border into Idaho (famous for potatoes!).The journey from there was quite a long one through mountain ranges to a place called Idaho Falls, which is literally just a sleep over destination as its close to the first of the two places we want to see tomorrow, Craters of the Moon National Monument.On arrival at the hotel and connection to the internet we found out some upsetting news from Ralph's sister that Ralph's mum has been taken into hospital.Ralph phoned the hospital to get an update (we are just so lucky that after having no phone signal at all for the last two weeks we finally got signal as we arrived in Idaho Falls) and then we decided to stay up until 2 a.m. (9 a.m. UK time) so that Ralph could call his dad and the hospital again, so we had a really late night.

9th - After Ralph spoke to his dad today at home and his mum in the hospital we drove through hours of nothing (there is really not too much to say about Idaho!) to Craters of the Moon National Monument.This area, created by volcanic lava, has been described as "the surface of the moon as seen through a telescope…where the dark craters and the cold lava were nearly destitute of vegetation", and, although the ground is certainly made up of black pieces of lava, we didn't really agree with the description as there was lots of vegetation in places, making it quite green in places.It was therefore more like bushes and plants had been planted into a black landscape.Either way Ralph wasn't impressed at all, and said "I have never been so disappointed in anything in America!"As you can guess, we didn't spend much time there, and so drove on to Boise, the capital of Idaho.Amusingly this place is pronounced Boycey, like the character from Only Fools and Horses -cue numerous impressions of him whenever we saw a sign!We went straight to the state capitol building but it was closed to the public for renovation works and it was too late to visit the only other thing we wanted to see here, the Old Idaho Penitentiary, as it closed at 5 p.m., so we went out for tea and then went to the hotel and spent the evening watching t.v., catching up on e-mails, looking for jobs etc.

10th - After Ralph spoke to his dad and the hospital (Ralph's mum has now been moved to a different in hospital so that she can see a specialist who can try and find a solution to the problem) we had to wait around as the Penitentiary did not open until noon (due to fall/winter opening hours).Once we were let in we watched an orientation video about the Penitentiary, which was opened in 1872 and closed in 1973.During this time it held female prisoners as well as male prisoners, and executed people following their stay on death row.You can tell that the place hardly has any funding, as its truly falling to pieces and, rather sadly, at least half of the buildings have either been torn down and so all that remains is rubble, or they have taken all the original items out of the rooms and put in museum displays which have nothing to do with the penitentiary at all (such as a display on electricity conductivity!).The really sad thing about this is that the buildings and rooms that have been left are fantastic - they have been left just as they were when the last prisoners left the place.I think this is more to do with lack of funding than anything else, but it creates a much more realistic experience as bedding is still on the beds, playing cards are still on the tables in cellmates rooms covered in inches of dust, clothing is still where it was last dropped, and the writing and drawings on the cell walls remains, including rudimentary calendars scratched in to the walls with nails so they could tell how long they had been there and how long they had left.You get to see the showers, laundry area (still with a prisoners sock stuck on the wall waiting for its mate), cellblock, solitary confinement (called Siberia), recreation area and, most interestingly yet most disturbingly, the gallows, the noose mechanism, the leaver pulled to open the trap door, the trap door, the death viewing area and the drop area, where the body would drop down on the noose and then be carried away to the morgue.The Penitentiary was an interesting place to visit but its obvious that it needs a big cash injection and a lot of work doing to it, plus it would help if it was run by someone who has a clue about preservation and tourism.We then went to a supermarket (few and far between in these remote areas of America) to get some much needed fruit (we are desperate for vitamins at the moment as we are certainly not getting any from the meals we are eating) and a card for Ralph's mum, and then set off on the next stage of our journey to Hell's Canyon.On the way our trip was brightened up considerably by some young boys (you have to remember that they are legally allowed to drive from the age of 16 here!) who kept driving past us waving, pulling stupid faces, headbanging and sticking their arms out of the windows and flapping them as if trying to make the car fly!!We arrived at Hell's Canyon, America's deepest gorge (deeper than the Grand Canyon) and were treated to stunning scenery throughout our drive through.However, we wouldn't know because the satellite navigation system took us on the scariest "road" thorough the canyon that we have ever been on.It took over 3 hours to drive through the area and the majority of the "road" was just a tight rocky mountain path that was only worth attempting if you had a super reliable 4x4.Obviously we, in our Ford, didn't have this advantage, and so we struggled on up the steepest climbs we have ever been on, clinging to the edge of a massive canyon drop whilst Ralph navigated his way through massive rocks which had broken away from the mountains, deep crevices which were deeper than our tyres and snow and black ice once we were over the side of the mountain away from the sun.At one stage the car started to smell like something was burning, probably as a result of the engine having to tackle the steep climbs and evasive manoeuvres (at one stage off the "road" and literally having 2 tyres (tires in America!) up the side of the mountain to avoid a ditch there was no where we would have got out of).We tried to make light of the situation, talking about ringing AAA telling them we had broken down, somewhere in 649,000 acres of canyon, clinging to the side of it, and then really started to get concerned as all the work the car was having to do was really using our petrol and we weren't sure we had enough to get to civilisation.We even talked about stopping the car at the side of the road and sleeping in it (we have a duvet in the back) in the hope we would be found in the morning (what, by a deer?!!).Still we battled on and eventually, after over 3 hours of torture in a stunning setting, we found the littlest town on the edge of no where and managed to get on a proper road.What a relief!During our journey through the mountains we passed into Pacific Time and so are now 8 hours behind the UK.

11th - We drove around 4 hours to Spokane in Washington State.Our guide book had said that Spokane was surprisingly stylish, but we couldn't have disagreed more.The place was full of concrete and, even on a sunny day like this, it was empty and had no atmosphere whatsoever.We parked up and walked to Riverside Park, which Spokane boast as one of their main attractions.We weren't really that impressed though as the park had signs that it wasn't that safe (there were homeless people everywhere, everything that could be locked up was and even the soda machines were behind cages).It was also covered in too much concrete which made the pretty parts of the park less so.We took a skyride gondola over the Spokane Falls (entirely unimpressive) which took less than 10 minutes, and would have taken even less time if it had not stopped 4 times, dangling us over concrete car parks below).We left the park soon after and went to Steam Plant Square, which is a 1916 steam generator which has been converted into a chic space.We had been informed that this place was mainly a shopping area but the way we went in (we later found out that there were 3 other entrances and we might have had better luck with one of those) meant that all we found was one restaurant and the rest was all offices.It was beautifully done inside but utterly pointless for tourists and so, after a brief look up into the smokestacks, we drove to our hotel, had lunch and then spent the rest of our time responding to e-mails and looking for jobs ready for when we return to the UK.

12th - We got up and after Ralph did his usual morning call to his dad to check on his mum's progress, we started a 4 hour drive to Leavenworth via the Grand Coulee Dam. The dam is bigger than the Hoover Dam and is really impressive despite being a giant wall of concrete in the middle of the pretty Columbia River gorge. Its main task was irrigation for an area that was formerly a dust-bowl and then hydro-electric power plants were added which now generate about a billion dollars worth of electricity production every year. The visitor centre shows good documentaries about the depression and the vast public building projects that ensued but we had to cut them short to catch a tour of the dam. The tour was really informative and, after security check, we walked along the rim of the dam and then took a funicular (train/elevator) into one of the three hydro-electric plants to see the generators. Up close the size of the place is monumental and, in the clear blue skies, the whole scene was beautiful. We then drove on to a ski resort called Leavenworth which is a German-styled town with pretty Alpine buildings and accordion music in the town centre. Apart from the signs with English writing on them and occasional American flags, you really could think you were in Austria or Germany. There's no snow yet but the cold is coming and we made straight for a pub/restaurant for bratwurst and beef before sampling the bierkeller offerings, where we got talking to a lovely couple from Michigan for most of the evening.