I have been meaning to write a post on this problem for a loooooong time but never got around it. I wanted to make sure that I get it on my blog before end of this year and that makes me come to this blog today to make it in before 2015 comes around :). Anyways, enough of excuses from my side, here is the solution for the error.
"The user profile failed the logon. User profile cannot be loaded.".
I have seen this error when I have tried to log into my account on Windows 7. Luckily, I have 2 admin accounts, so I was able to login on my Administrator account successfully to correct this error. I really don't know what causes the problem because it's been at random times.
I searched up on google and found some useful information on couple of sites that are mentioned :
1) http://cherrybyte.blogspot.com/2007/07/fixing-user-profiles-in-vista.html
2) http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/130095-user-profile-service-failed-logon-user-profile-cannot-loaded.html
3) http://windowsitpro.com/windows-server/q-what-meaning-state-value-name-users-registry-profile
I was able to solve the problem by following the instructions listed on #1 site above. The instructions are very straightforward but I will still list the steps here for my records just if I need to reference them again for myself. Hope these instructions help you out too.
1) Log in to another Admin account on your computer (if you don't have it, then you might be able to create one by going into safe mode).
2) Go to My Computer -> C: Drive -> Select Users folder
3) You should see a folder "TEMP" (this is the folder that was created temporary). This is the folder that you would be removing along with its registry entry that was created temporarily by the system (replacing your original account registry entry).
4) Click on Start -> search for program 'regedit' and enter
5) Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList
6) You might see the original registry entry with ".bak" extension and the temporary entry with the original registry name:
For example: You might have one entry ending with "....1000.bak" and the other one ending in "....1000". In this case the one with ".bak" extension is the original entry. You can confirm this by clicking on that entry and checking the "ProfileImagePath" which should point to your users account (and not TEMP).
7) To get the original registry entry back to normal, first rename "...1000" to "...1000.bak2" and rename the ".....1000.bak" to "...1000" (removing the .bak extension). After renaming, I just remove the ".bak2" entry.
8) Now, you need to check the "RefCount" and "State" value. Make sure they're both 0 (if not, you can modify them and make them 0). If they're not 0, that's what caused the "User profile" error.
9) Go back to the "Users" folder in My Computer and remove the "TEMP" folder.
10) After making these changes, restart the computer and you should be able to log in to your user account.
Alright, I hope these instructions help you out as they have helped me out. Check out the sites I have listed because they have helped me out and I am sure they will give you the info you need.
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Monday, December 29, 2014
Aspen, Mesa Verde, Durango-Silverton Railroad - Day 3
Hello Hello,
The last day of my Aspen trip came to last destination activity which was to ride the Durango-Silverton Railroad. This was something that came up as one of the top "things to do" when I was searching up online for things to do in Durango. This was something that I had to book ahead of time (about $100/person with discount) since the railroad timings are fixed and the tickets sell out pretty quickly. Another thing we had to decide while booking was whether we wanted to do a full day or a half day trip. The full day trip is basically a roundtrip in railroad vs. a half a day trip is one-way railroad trip and one-way bus ride. We decided for a half-day trip since full-day would have taken almost an entire day, coming back to Denver after midnight! So, doing a half-day trip would be much more preferable with 8 am train to Silverton and then bus ride back to Durango station around 1:30 pm.
To catch an 8 am train, we had to leave house by 7:15 am (30-minutes drive and 15-minutes to find parking) and in order to leave by 7:15 am, we had to get up by 6:15 am. This is where all the friends were separating in 2 groups since only half of the people were coming for the railroad. We barely got any sleep since we slept late the previous night and got up really early for this train ride.....!! We packed up the car, settled in, and got to the railroad. Unfortunately, this was not the day of sunshine and instead it decided to pour down rain, slow and steady :(. That also made the weather quite cold (I am glad that we got the economy seats instead of the open air seats). Once the train started, it had its first unplanned break, for 15-20 minutes, since there was water on the tracks. The railroad itself was about 3+ hours long, so we had plenty of time to pass :). We all played a movie guessing game while the train was going through some beautiful scenery as well as some boring spots in the forest. But, nonetheless, it was nice.
One thing I am happy about is that we only got one-way railroad ticket since coming back in the same train would have been extremely boaring and that too for 3+ hours?? Pheww...half-day trip was a good choice. Once we got to the town of Silverton, it was gorgeous! This is an extremely small town, situated right in the middle of the mountains! Due to the cold and cloudy weather, I felt like it was a part of Switzerland in Silverton :)
We took some pictures of the town and group photos with the train. We didn't have much time to spare since we only had about 20 minutes from the time we get off from the train to the time we need to start boarding the bus. The bus ride was only about one and half hours compared to the train ride. This worked out great for us since we saved time and (the biggest plus point), we got to see the beautiful Million Dollar Highway which has amazing views! With this, we also got to see the first snow of the season :)
We got back to the base at Durango station and soon started our journey back home (another 6-7 hours ride). We safely got home around 8 or 9 pm but that wasn't the end of the day. One of my friends and I had to go to return the rental car the same night, so from that we got back around midnight, and then, as far as I can remember I just passed out after getting home.
This wraps up my 3-day trip to 3 locations, action-packed and fun-filled, with amazing group of friends! And, it has (just like other trips) given moments to cherish for lifetime!!
The last day of my Aspen trip came to last destination activity which was to ride the Durango-Silverton Railroad. This was something that came up as one of the top "things to do" when I was searching up online for things to do in Durango. This was something that I had to book ahead of time (about $100/person with discount) since the railroad timings are fixed and the tickets sell out pretty quickly. Another thing we had to decide while booking was whether we wanted to do a full day or a half day trip. The full day trip is basically a roundtrip in railroad vs. a half a day trip is one-way railroad trip and one-way bus ride. We decided for a half-day trip since full-day would have taken almost an entire day, coming back to Denver after midnight! So, doing a half-day trip would be much more preferable with 8 am train to Silverton and then bus ride back to Durango station around 1:30 pm.
To catch an 8 am train, we had to leave house by 7:15 am (30-minutes drive and 15-minutes to find parking) and in order to leave by 7:15 am, we had to get up by 6:15 am. This is where all the friends were separating in 2 groups since only half of the people were coming for the railroad. We barely got any sleep since we slept late the previous night and got up really early for this train ride.....!! We packed up the car, settled in, and got to the railroad. Unfortunately, this was not the day of sunshine and instead it decided to pour down rain, slow and steady :(. That also made the weather quite cold (I am glad that we got the economy seats instead of the open air seats). Once the train started, it had its first unplanned break, for 15-20 minutes, since there was water on the tracks. The railroad itself was about 3+ hours long, so we had plenty of time to pass :). We all played a movie guessing game while the train was going through some beautiful scenery as well as some boring spots in the forest. But, nonetheless, it was nice.
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| Durango-Silverton Railroad, Durango |
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| Durango-Silverton Railroad, Durango |
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| Silverton, CO |
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| Silverton, CO |
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| Bus ride on Million Dollar Hwy |
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| Bus ride on Million Dollar Hwy |
This wraps up my 3-day trip to 3 locations, action-packed and fun-filled, with amazing group of friends! And, it has (just like other trips) given moments to cherish for lifetime!!
Sunday, December 28, 2014
Aspen, Mesa Verde, Durango-Silverton Railroad - Day 2
Hey everyone,
Here I am with our Day 2 activities of the trip at Mesa Verde National Park. We had initially planned to leave early for the park but you know how it goes...everyone was tired from previous day, so the day started a bit late and we left our condo around 9 am (I think...), but no complaints there since we had a good breakfast to start the morning :). We started our journey to head to Mesa Verde National Park which was about 45 minutes drive just to get to the Visitor Center. We got some info on what sites to check out in the park. Lucky for us, we chose the right day to come otherwise they were going to close some of the bigger sites in the park from the next day! We got the park map, and booked a guided tour for cliff palace (one of their famous tourist spots in the park). We booked the last timing of Cliff Palace tour so that way we could cover one side of the park and then come back to the 2nd side later since the distance to both places was about half an hour from visitor center and in completely opposite directions :(.
Just to give you guys an idea of what this park is about, here is some info. Mesa Verde National Park consists of the best cliff dwellings in the world, features homes and villages built by Ancient Pueblo People (definition from wikipedia). Now, in my words, these are built in such a way that it's hard to get to them (from our hike experience) in caves or under the cliffs. Just because they're built in such areas doesn't make them immune to the weather because if you look at one of the pictures below, they're all open and you can tell how hard it must have been for the people to live in severe weather conditions. We took our first hike to Long House where the 1st half was very easy, and simple walk, but the 2nd half is something we didn't expect. We had to go from top to bottom via stairs, zig-zag narrow pathway, and few slopes to just get a glimpse of the Long House.
Awesome first sight of this place! This was something different from all of my previous trips, so I was exited. The first picture above shows the stairs at the far end which is where we came from and then took the ladder (also seen in the 1st picture) to go up to one of the homes' areas. The 2nd picture is a closer look at one of the rooms where people used to hang out (kind of like drawing room or it might be bedroom...I don't remember :-/). Pretty neat, isn't it? There was a guide who was walking around, answering any questions that people may have about the place, and also giving some background about the Long House. She, the guide, pointed out the fingerprints on the walls that were left by the people (and still visible after so many years)! There was some other interesting stuff too but don't remember much of it. So, if you're interested in knowing more about this historic place, I would definitely recommend talking to the guide or seeing if they have a guided tour for this or not.
After checking out the Long House, we started heading back to our cars which was equally hard since the hike itself was difficult and we were tired and hungry as well. It was getting close to our tour for Cliff Palace, so we just decided to eat once we got to that location. We had a nice lunch in the parking lot and headed to the tour meet-up location. We could clearly see the Cliff Palace at the very bottom of the cliff and with that my curiosity also increased to know how the hell we were going to get there...
The guide came, took our tickets, and then directed us to head to the site. It was indeed a ride since the hike included going through very narrow passages, steep stairs, and quite rocky path :-0. While the other tour before us had not finished, he sat us all down for a while, giving little background on the place, and once the coast was clear, he moved us to look at the site. He pointed us to several different things such as their kitchen, how there were paintings on the wall inside the building (where we couldn't really go but just take a peak through a tiny square window), etc. We took couple of pictures, group photos, and of course, selfies!! Now, the route to go out of this place was different from the one we came from. It was all going through steep stairs within a very narrow passage! Hats off to two of my friends who did this difficult hike with a year old baby!!
We took a short break for water and restrooms and then decided to check out the rest of the park. We wanted to visit the Spruce Tree House, but couldn't due to time constrain. We did the Mesa Top Loop where there are multiple sites that you could see from far under the cliffs that were not accessible via foot/vehicle. We stopped at couple of locations but I don't remember any of the names of the stops we made except the last one (Sun Temple). The structures were different for each of the stops that we made. Below, I have few pictures from couple of stops that we made.
After this loop tour, we still tried to make it to the Spruce Tree House but were late by 5-10 minutes, so couldn't get to see it :(. This was the last thing on our agenda for the park, so we all happily bid our goodbye to the park. My only recommendation for this park would be that if you want to cover more things on the park, get to the park early in the day (around 7:30/8 am) and I am sure you will cover most of the attractions in a day.
Now, taking you back to the previous night, we found out that two more of our friends were going to join us on this trip the next day (meaning our Day 2). They were going to come to Durango by night, so we all decided to meet up for dinner before heading back to the condo. We chose to dine at the Himalayan restaurant in Durango. The service was good there but the food was ok, I mean I have had better kofta curry and paneer tikka masala before, so it wasn't anything special. Later, all of us got back to the condo, and proudly gave tour of the condo to two friends who joined us. No one had the energy after a tiring day but we still stayed up, hung out and had a good time with everyone!
This wraps up my Day 2 activities of the trip. Next day, we check out from our condo and head for the Durango-Silverton Railroad (half day trip), but more on that in my next post!!
Here I am with our Day 2 activities of the trip at Mesa Verde National Park. We had initially planned to leave early for the park but you know how it goes...everyone was tired from previous day, so the day started a bit late and we left our condo around 9 am (I think...), but no complaints there since we had a good breakfast to start the morning :). We started our journey to head to Mesa Verde National Park which was about 45 minutes drive just to get to the Visitor Center. We got some info on what sites to check out in the park. Lucky for us, we chose the right day to come otherwise they were going to close some of the bigger sites in the park from the next day! We got the park map, and booked a guided tour for cliff palace (one of their famous tourist spots in the park). We booked the last timing of Cliff Palace tour so that way we could cover one side of the park and then come back to the 2nd side later since the distance to both places was about half an hour from visitor center and in completely opposite directions :(.
Just to give you guys an idea of what this park is about, here is some info. Mesa Verde National Park consists of the best cliff dwellings in the world, features homes and villages built by Ancient Pueblo People (definition from wikipedia). Now, in my words, these are built in such a way that it's hard to get to them (from our hike experience) in caves or under the cliffs. Just because they're built in such areas doesn't make them immune to the weather because if you look at one of the pictures below, they're all open and you can tell how hard it must have been for the people to live in severe weather conditions. We took our first hike to Long House where the 1st half was very easy, and simple walk, but the 2nd half is something we didn't expect. We had to go from top to bottom via stairs, zig-zag narrow pathway, and few slopes to just get a glimpse of the Long House.
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| Long House, Mesa Verde National Park |
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| Long House (closer look at the houses) |
After checking out the Long House, we started heading back to our cars which was equally hard since the hike itself was difficult and we were tired and hungry as well. It was getting close to our tour for Cliff Palace, so we just decided to eat once we got to that location. We had a nice lunch in the parking lot and headed to the tour meet-up location. We could clearly see the Cliff Palace at the very bottom of the cliff and with that my curiosity also increased to know how the hell we were going to get there...
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| Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde National Park |
We took a short break for water and restrooms and then decided to check out the rest of the park. We wanted to visit the Spruce Tree House, but couldn't due to time constrain. We did the Mesa Top Loop where there are multiple sites that you could see from far under the cliffs that were not accessible via foot/vehicle. We stopped at couple of locations but I don't remember any of the names of the stops we made except the last one (Sun Temple). The structures were different for each of the stops that we made. Below, I have few pictures from couple of stops that we made.
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| One of the sites @ Mesa Top Loop |
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| Sun Temple, Mesa Top Loop |
Now, taking you back to the previous night, we found out that two more of our friends were going to join us on this trip the next day (meaning our Day 2). They were going to come to Durango by night, so we all decided to meet up for dinner before heading back to the condo. We chose to dine at the Himalayan restaurant in Durango. The service was good there but the food was ok, I mean I have had better kofta curry and paneer tikka masala before, so it wasn't anything special. Later, all of us got back to the condo, and proudly gave tour of the condo to two friends who joined us. No one had the energy after a tiring day but we still stayed up, hung out and had a good time with everyone!
This wraps up my Day 2 activities of the trip. Next day, we check out from our condo and head for the Durango-Silverton Railroad (half day trip), but more on that in my next post!!
Monday, December 22, 2014
Aspen, Mesa Verde, Durango-Silverton Railroad - Day 1
Hello everyone,
I am back with some more travel experiences' posts. Just like my Yellowstone trip, I am really behind on posting about this one but want to make sure I get it in by end of 2014 :). This trip was mainly planned by a friend to see the fall colours and one of the best places to check out the fall colours in Colorado is none other than Aspen! To make it more than a day trip, we decided to cover nearby sight-seeing areas as well, such as Mesa Verde national park and Durango-Silverton Railroad, and made it into 3-days trip. Originally, only 6 of us were confirmed to go on this trip, so we booked the minivan and found lodging at Durango Mountain Resort (2 bedroom, 1 sofa bed condo, fully furnished with kitchen) which we got it in good deal ($220/2 nights). We booked through Durango Mountain Resort but we stayed in Cascade Mountain Resort since they have properties there as well. Just the night before our trip, one more couple was added to join us on this trip, so we changed the booking from 2-beds to 3-beds and still had a good deal ($330/2 nights) since it was available. The more the merrier :). I took this trip on the last weekend of September which is said to be the best time to see the fall colours (thanks to online reviews) and I agree!!
We started our journey early morning around 5:30 am on September 26 and made Aspen, Maroon Bells in particular, our first destination to reach but not before we made several pit stops on the way. Now, I am not really familiar with which route we took but it was very convenient to see different places before we reached Aspen. Our first stop was Twin Lakes, that was very confusing to find in first place, which we only saw part of since we didn't know that there was a 2nd location from where you could see the lake as well. This was definitely a good start of the trip since we saw some beautiful colours in the area.
Our next stop on the way was none other than in the middle of the road (on the side but still it's on the road). That's right! In the middle of the road where the trees on both sides were booming with beautiful fall colours, different shades of yellow and green colours to be precise, and making the road look like a passage for travellers! It was simply beautiful.We were having great time and taking every second to enjoy the places and witness the natural beauty!!
Finally, we continued our journey to the destination of Maroon Bells, Aspen. Lucky for us, since we had a year old baby on board with us, we were able to drive straight up to the Maroon Bells parking lot :D. If it wasn't the case then we would have had to park in the general parking lot, just like everyone else, and take the bus up to the Maroon Bells parking lot. I am soooooo glad that we were able to take our car to the main parking lot because otherwise we would have not been able to stop on the way to see the Gold that Colorado has secured all these years in the form of the fall colours :). See it to believe it!!
It was probably around 1 or 1:30 pm by the time we reached there and surprisingly, there wasn't any crowd at all. It was perfect - we found the parking spot and a great picnic area table where we had a nice lunch together. After a nice meal, we took on the trail to the famous spot of Maroon Bells. The view was magnificent, magical, and too good to be true! It was at that moment that we sat down for a "bit" to just relax and enjoy the moment. That "bit" lasted for whole 2 minutes and we got right to our photo session and selifies :) :). Here are some great pictures for you to enjoy for a "bit".
After a good dose of taking pictures and praising the natural beauty around us, we took a very short hike (and some more stops to taking pictures - if you didn't guess that already), we headed back to our car and took off for our Condo in Durango. We were supposed to meet our friends (who joined on the trip later on) at this spot but unfortunately missed meeting them by just a small margin (due to lack of phone signal at the top). It was about 5 hours drive from Maroon Bells to Cascade Mountain Resort, so we reached to the condo around 9 pm. It was dark and there was barely anything around to get something to eat and whatever was around was already closed, so we were in a dilemma. Thankfully there was a local pizza place open (forgot the name :-/) which was going to close at 9:30 pm, so we got there in time to place our order. The order was going to take some time so we decided to check out our condo and unload the things from our car to start settling down.
We got to the condo and were just in AWE of it! It was a beautiful 2-story condo where 1st floor has open living room, kitchen, dining area, 1 bedroom and full bathroom and 2nd floor has a HUGE master bedroom, equally HUGE master bathroom, 2nd bedroom, 2nd full-bathroom and an open loft which had a sofa-bed!! Amaaazing....is all I could say seeing the place! The girls chilled out while the boys went to get the Pizza. We had a nice meal together and then just relaxed while our friends reached the condo. Thanks to them, for solving our 2nd dilemma of getting groceries, who stopped by at a supermarket on their way to get all the necessary things for 2 days we were going to be at the condo. So, tip to all those who want to stay in this area, make sure you get whatever you need to get before you enter this town since there is nothing close-by!! Our friends came around mid-night, we hung out with them for a while and then all of us called it a night around 1/1:30 am. This was a great day with all the stops we made since we were not rushing for anything and took our time to enjoy every chance we had :).
I think I have already made this post long enough for you to fall asleep...so, I will stop here and let you continue, if you're interested enough to come back and read some more, in next post. Until then, have a great day :) :)
I am back with some more travel experiences' posts. Just like my Yellowstone trip, I am really behind on posting about this one but want to make sure I get it in by end of 2014 :). This trip was mainly planned by a friend to see the fall colours and one of the best places to check out the fall colours in Colorado is none other than Aspen! To make it more than a day trip, we decided to cover nearby sight-seeing areas as well, such as Mesa Verde national park and Durango-Silverton Railroad, and made it into 3-days trip. Originally, only 6 of us were confirmed to go on this trip, so we booked the minivan and found lodging at Durango Mountain Resort (2 bedroom, 1 sofa bed condo, fully furnished with kitchen) which we got it in good deal ($220/2 nights). We booked through Durango Mountain Resort but we stayed in Cascade Mountain Resort since they have properties there as well. Just the night before our trip, one more couple was added to join us on this trip, so we changed the booking from 2-beds to 3-beds and still had a good deal ($330/2 nights) since it was available. The more the merrier :). I took this trip on the last weekend of September which is said to be the best time to see the fall colours (thanks to online reviews) and I agree!!
We started our journey early morning around 5:30 am on September 26 and made Aspen, Maroon Bells in particular, our first destination to reach but not before we made several pit stops on the way. Now, I am not really familiar with which route we took but it was very convenient to see different places before we reached Aspen. Our first stop was Twin Lakes, that was very confusing to find in first place, which we only saw part of since we didn't know that there was a 2nd location from where you could see the lake as well. This was definitely a good start of the trip since we saw some beautiful colours in the area.
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| Twin Lakes |
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| Independence Pass |
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| Somewhere in the middle of the road :) |
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| Maroon Bells, Aspen |
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| Maroon Bells, Aspen |
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| Maroon Bells, Aspen |
We got to the condo and were just in AWE of it! It was a beautiful 2-story condo where 1st floor has open living room, kitchen, dining area, 1 bedroom and full bathroom and 2nd floor has a HUGE master bedroom, equally HUGE master bathroom, 2nd bedroom, 2nd full-bathroom and an open loft which had a sofa-bed!! Amaaazing....is all I could say seeing the place! The girls chilled out while the boys went to get the Pizza. We had a nice meal together and then just relaxed while our friends reached the condo. Thanks to them, for solving our 2nd dilemma of getting groceries, who stopped by at a supermarket on their way to get all the necessary things for 2 days we were going to be at the condo. So, tip to all those who want to stay in this area, make sure you get whatever you need to get before you enter this town since there is nothing close-by!! Our friends came around mid-night, we hung out with them for a while and then all of us called it a night around 1/1:30 am. This was a great day with all the stops we made since we were not rushing for anything and took our time to enjoy every chance we had :).
I think I have already made this post long enough for you to fall asleep...so, I will stop here and let you continue, if you're interested enough to come back and read some more, in next post. Until then, have a great day :) :)
Monday, December 15, 2014
Grand Teton & Yellowstone National Park - July 4th weekend - Part 4
Yellowstone National Park - Day 2
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Continuing from previous day of Yellowstone Park... as everyone was really tired, couple of friends decided to skip the park for 2nd day and instead just hang around in the nearby area to see the downtown, check out the skyway (which takes you to the top of the mountain for a beautiful view of the Grand Teton), etc. This required some re-shuffling since now only 2 out of 4 cars were going back to the Yellowstone Park. So, from the entire group, 5 of the friends decided to stay back and the rest (10 people) decided to adjust in 2 cars and continue the day 2 activities.
First (and for most) stop was the famous Yellowstone National Park sign! We stopped there, took pictures and then continued our ride. Beware of the mosquitoes at this spot as I got bunch of mosquito bites from here...so make sure you have mosquito repellent before you decide to stop here. The view is gorgeous at this spot.
For day 2, our first stop was West Thumb Lake which was not very far from the entrance compared to the previous day drive to the Old Faithful. This place also had some different looking geysers along with a magnificent view of the lake surrounding the park.
Next, we headed to Mud Volcano which was basically a mud geyser (very surprising to see!). What was surprising me the most was that we found Bison sitting right next to the mud volcanoes which seemed very scary (for the bison, of course). I guess they weren't scared of it at all.
Next, we headed to see the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. On the way, we were lucky to spot a herd of Bison with bunch of baby bison as well!! Once we got to the upper falls (another name for grand canyon), it was a sight to see. There are bunch of spots from where you can take pictures of the falls from different angles. I guess we must have taken picture from every possible angle.
After a heavy load of photo session, we had our lunch and decided to head to the last spot for the day. This was a long drive from where we were to where we had to be, however, it was a beautiful drive!! On the way, we encountered, for the very first time, a jam-packed traffic with people all over the side of the road! Before I could even guess, my friend excitedly said "There has to be a Bear! It's a bear!"...and indeed he was right. The entire traffic was jammed because there was a bear spotted in the woods at the far distance. We also tried to see the bear and it was very hard but we surely spotted it! I think that is what was missing from our trip and we were able to fulfil it with this last experience of spotting a bear :D.
This brings us to our last stop not just for the day but for our Yellowstone Park trip. We came to Mammoth Hot Springs which had its own unique formation of geyser and stones. At this point in time, it was screaming hot and my skin just felt like burning. We split in 2 groups where 5 of us took the hike to the top of the springs, only to find that there wasn't anything there! It was kind of disappointing but still there was a nice view from the top.
With this last stop, it concludes our Yellowstone National Park trip!! We headed straight for our condo and made it there in time for dinner. We had our dinner and decided to meet at the other friend's condo to hang out together with everyone. We hung out for a bit, talked, and saw part of a movie and then off to bed.
This was the only night where all of us were able to sit together and relax before everyone starts taking off the next day separately. We only had 2 cars (out of 4) leaving early the following morning, so we bid goodbye to the rest of the friends and headed to our condo. The next day, started our journey back home around 8:30 am and got home before dark.
This was one of the memorable trips with great group of friends and family for me!! It has given me moments to cherish for lifetime! Hope you enjoyed reading my trip experience and get some useful info out of it when you decide to go for the Grand Teton and/or Yellowstone National Park.
Have a great day :)
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Continuing from previous day of Yellowstone Park... as everyone was really tired, couple of friends decided to skip the park for 2nd day and instead just hang around in the nearby area to see the downtown, check out the skyway (which takes you to the top of the mountain for a beautiful view of the Grand Teton), etc. This required some re-shuffling since now only 2 out of 4 cars were going back to the Yellowstone Park. So, from the entire group, 5 of the friends decided to stay back and the rest (10 people) decided to adjust in 2 cars and continue the day 2 activities.
First (and for most) stop was the famous Yellowstone National Park sign! We stopped there, took pictures and then continued our ride. Beware of the mosquitoes at this spot as I got bunch of mosquito bites from here...so make sure you have mosquito repellent before you decide to stop here. The view is gorgeous at this spot.
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| At the sign of Yellowstone National Park |
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| West Thumb Lake @ Yellowstone National Park |
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| West Thumb Lake @ Yellowstone National Park |
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| Mud Volcano @ Yellowstone National Park |
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| Grand Canyon of Yellowstone |
This brings us to our last stop not just for the day but for our Yellowstone Park trip. We came to Mammoth Hot Springs which had its own unique formation of geyser and stones. At this point in time, it was screaming hot and my skin just felt like burning. We split in 2 groups where 5 of us took the hike to the top of the springs, only to find that there wasn't anything there! It was kind of disappointing but still there was a nice view from the top.
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| Mammoth Hot Springs @ Yellowstone National Park |
This was the only night where all of us were able to sit together and relax before everyone starts taking off the next day separately. We only had 2 cars (out of 4) leaving early the following morning, so we bid goodbye to the rest of the friends and headed to our condo. The next day, started our journey back home around 8:30 am and got home before dark.
This was one of the memorable trips with great group of friends and family for me!! It has given me moments to cherish for lifetime! Hope you enjoyed reading my trip experience and get some useful info out of it when you decide to go for the Grand Teton and/or Yellowstone National Park.
Have a great day :)
Sunday, December 14, 2014
Grand Teton & Yellowstone National Park - July 4th weekend - Part 3
Yellowstone National Park - Day 1
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First of all, before I tell you about my Yellowstone Park experience, I want to tell you something that I heard the most before I started this trip. I heard from most people, who had been on this trip before, that July 4th weekend will be the busiest time of the year to visit the park and that we'll have to be prepared to be STUCK in traffic for hours since it'll be moving at a snails pace. There was nothing like that!! We left our condos around 8 am and we barely saw any traffic. In fact, our first view of the Yellowstone National Park (on the way) was of Bisons (which I was very excited about :p). The different places in the park itself had some crowd but it wasn't that we were stuck in traffic to get to that location. Parking was definitely hard to find but if you're there early enough then you don't need to worry about it.
Alright, here is another heads up to you if you're staying in Grand Teton and heading to the Yellowston Park from there. It'll take you around 2 hours to drive to the park and then another 45 minute to hour drive to get to the first spot in the park from the entry point of the park :(. It's sad but it's a fact!! This is something we were not prepared for even though we knew about it. Anyways, the drive to the Park was beautiful as well as we encountered a big group of Deer/Elk on the way.
Our first stop in the park was the famous, the popular, The Old Faithful Geyser! This Geyser is true to its name (faithful) as it erupts every 90 minutes without any hesitation :). We got to the spot and it was a packed place already but you will always be able to find a spot to stand/sit to wait while the geyser erupts.
After we saw the Old Faithful, we took the 1 mile hike around that park which had bunch of other small/mild geysers which were just amazing to see!! I was amazed with the number of geysers that surrounded the Old Faithful as well as the crystal blue colors that formed some of the geysers. Here are some of the pictures of most beautiful geysers I saw.
After an adventurous hike, we decided to put some fuel in our body to recharge and head to the next location. Even though it was a late lunch, it was still very fulfilling and entertaining as we sat right in front of the Old faithful, just in time for it to erupt again. I think by the time we wrapped up it was late afternoon and we hurried up to the next location which was Biscuit Basin. Just like The Old Faithful, this stop was equally interesting to check out. Look at the Sapphire Pool at the biscuit basin and the geyser next to it which has aqua blue color (amazing!!).
Continuing our drive, next stop was The Grand Prismatic Spring which was one of the best geysers to see. You can see the steam from the Grand Prismatic Spring from far away while you're driving towards it. It was more like a big hot swimming pool (except you just can't treat it as a swimming pool)!! There is a short hike around the spring which we took and surprised with how this amazing natural beauty was formed. See it to believe it...(right now in pictures) for yourself :)
To squeeze in one last thing, we decided to head to Norris Geyser Basin. We didn't really explore much here but did see some of the geysers from the top instead of taking the hike down to the bottom of the basin. This one is said to have the poisonous geysers of all (or at least that's what I heard from one of the friends). It had bunch of small geysers on the trail if we had done the hike, but we just saw it from the top. Here is a sneak peak for you if you decide to go there.
Wrapping up the day, it was already close to 7 pm by the time we left Norris Geyser Basin, which meant a drive of 3 hours back to our condo. It was amazing day to see what we covered so far in the park but it was also exhausting with lots and lots of walking!! I dozed off for some time in the car and woke up just little before we got to our condo. Saving every little energy that we had, we embarked on the staircase to 3rd floor to get to our condo. It wasn't easy, but we made it...! We quickly made some meggie noodles with some of the other food items we had left to fuel ourselves. Wrapped up kitchen as fast as we could and passed out without even thinking what to do for the 2nd day since everyone was so tired from the day itself.
Well, let's keep it for the next post to tell you all about the 2nd day! Until then, enjoy your day :) See ya!
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First of all, before I tell you about my Yellowstone Park experience, I want to tell you something that I heard the most before I started this trip. I heard from most people, who had been on this trip before, that July 4th weekend will be the busiest time of the year to visit the park and that we'll have to be prepared to be STUCK in traffic for hours since it'll be moving at a snails pace. There was nothing like that!! We left our condos around 8 am and we barely saw any traffic. In fact, our first view of the Yellowstone National Park (on the way) was of Bisons (which I was very excited about :p). The different places in the park itself had some crowd but it wasn't that we were stuck in traffic to get to that location. Parking was definitely hard to find but if you're there early enough then you don't need to worry about it.
Alright, here is another heads up to you if you're staying in Grand Teton and heading to the Yellowston Park from there. It'll take you around 2 hours to drive to the park and then another 45 minute to hour drive to get to the first spot in the park from the entry point of the park :(. It's sad but it's a fact!! This is something we were not prepared for even though we knew about it. Anyways, the drive to the Park was beautiful as well as we encountered a big group of Deer/Elk on the way.
Our first stop in the park was the famous, the popular, The Old Faithful Geyser! This Geyser is true to its name (faithful) as it erupts every 90 minutes without any hesitation :). We got to the spot and it was a packed place already but you will always be able to find a spot to stand/sit to wait while the geyser erupts.
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| The Old Faithful @ Yellowstone National Park |
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| Crested Pool @ Yellowstone National Park |
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| At Biscuit Basin |
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| Sapphire Pool @ Biscuit Basin (In Yellowstone National Park) |
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| Grand Prismatic Spring @ Yellowstone National Park |
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| Grand Prismatic Spring @ Yellowstone National Park |
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| Norris Geyser Basin @ Yellowstone National Park |
Well, let's keep it for the next post to tell you all about the 2nd day! Until then, enjoy your day :) See ya!
Grand Teton & Yellowstone National Park - July 4th weekend - Part 2
Continuing from the last post of the Grand Teton/Yellowstone National Park trip....
We started our day early to head to Grand Teton National Park....obviously making several stops in the park to click lots of individual pictures, group pictures, and of course, pictures with the natural beauty of Grand Teton :-).
We made first stop to the visitor centre to figure out where we were heading next. The guide gave us couple of options and based on the time we had, we decided to take the boat ride on Jenny lake to the hidden falls and then some of us decided to hike back down (instead of the boat ride back). The drive from the visitor centre to the boat ride was short but the hike to the hidden falls was something unexpected :-/. It was just half a mile hike but the roughness, slopes, and steep steps made it really hard. I also had my mom with me who is not a hiker at all but I can't believe that she did the entire hike with me without any issues. You start seeing the glimpse of Hidden Falls as you're hiking up your way and it's nice sight when you actually reach the final spot.
If you hike just little bit more (maybe 10-15 mins more), you get to the top where you have a nice view of the park and the lake itself. Since it was still bit rough hike, my mom and I headed back down while the rest of our group headed to the top. I saw some pictures that my friend had taken and I think it was a nice view. My original plan was to hike back to the starting point instead of taking boat ride but due to extreme heat and getting tired from the previous hike, I decided to just take the boat ride back down. We got to the parking lot and had nice lunch while waiting for few of our friends who were hiking down from the hidden falls. Once everyone was back at the station and had their lunch, we continued our journey in the Grand Teton National Park. There was one place which I don't remember the name of, but it was just a stop in the park which had one of the BEST views of the Grand Teton mountain ranges. We parked our cars on the side and sat down on the sideway to enjoy the view and relax a bit. Check out the view!!
We had also stopped by at one of the Dam locations for a while before heading back to our condos. It was close to 8 or 9 o'clock when we got back to our condo, tired and exhausted from the entire day but also hungry, so we cooked something quickly, had a nice meal. Lucky for us, we were able to witness the July 4th fireworks from our condo which was nicely done. Then, decided to call it a day to be prepared for the next day in Yellowstone National Park!!
That's all from me about Grand Teton National Park. Stay tuned to hear about our Yellowstone Park adventures!!
Have a great day :)
We started our day early to head to Grand Teton National Park....obviously making several stops in the park to click lots of individual pictures, group pictures, and of course, pictures with the natural beauty of Grand Teton :-).
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| Grand Teton National Park (beautiful view on the way to Visitor Centre) |
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| Hidden Falls @ Grand Teton National Park |
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| Grand Teton National Park (Gorgeous View from within the park!!) |
That's all from me about Grand Teton National Park. Stay tuned to hear about our Yellowstone Park adventures!!
Have a great day :)
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