Yellowstone to Canada eh!

Goodbye Yellowstone, next stop Glacier International Peace Park and Canada eh!

On our way through Salt lake City, Utah we stopped and visited my cousin and her husband. Made dinner and showered before heading off to Yellowstone. Six hours later, We ended up rolling into Yellowstone at 4am (nobody was there) so we parked and slept in the car until the rest of the world woke up. The day got off to a rough start when a ranger came up to our car and said we were “unauthorized” to be camping here (We were parked outside the front gate waiting for someone to get there so we could pay the fee and get in.) It got better and we ended up having a great time.

The change in weather was astounding, traveling from the deserts of the south to the Northern United States is like traveling forward in time and skipping straight to winter! (Southern winter, but still winter) The rain followed us north to Yellowstone and it sprinkled a bit while we were sleeping. (It has rained on us at EVERY destination so far.)

This park is HUGE, no, huge is an understatement. This park is larger than some states. It takes over an hour to drive between destinations. The park is B-E-A UTIFUL and 90% of the attractions are drivable or are a short walk from the road. We stopped at several hot springs, waterfalls, rivers ponds and the like. We saw TONS of wildlife and we were just driving. I stood up through the sunroof so we could get some good pictures that I can share with yall!

GEEK STUFF! Batch files and hard drives and automated data transfer oh my!

The data count so far is 4.75 Gigs of pictures in 1500 files. I have plenty of space on my hard drive and I wrote a batch file to copy the data from the sd cards of the cameras and clear the cards. Just insert your sd card, run the .bat and hit Y when it prompts you to. It takes less than a minute to get the card out of the camera, run the program, and have the card back in the camera ready to take pictures.

If anybody out there wants to write a batch file for their own use it's super easy. Just open a file in Notepad and write in your commands. .bat uses DOS commands [copy, del, run, etc...] Save the file as whatever.bat and you are good to go!

If something doesn't work you can right click the file and click edit [clicking the file will run it]

My file looks like this

copy F:\DCIM\100CANON C:\pics

copy f:\DCIM\102_PANA C:\pics

copy f:\PRIVATE\AVCHD\BDMV\STREAM c:\pics

copy f:\DCIM\101MSDCF C:\pics

copy f:\DCIM\104KC713 c:\pics

Del f:\DCIM\100CANON

Del f:\DCIM\102_PANA

Del f:\PRIVATE\AVCHD\BDMV\STREAM

Del f:\DCIM\101MSDCF

Del f:\DCIM\104KC713

This script copies the files from the picture and video folders in each of the cameras we have, then clears the card.

If that looks confusing you can use this template

Copy filepathofpictures destinationofpictures
del filepathofpictures

NOTE: dos commands have trouble processing spaces in file names. Instead of saving the pictures to “my pictures” C:\Documents and Settings\Wrzesinski\My Documents\My Pictures <see the spaces? This won't work.

I copied the files to C:\pics and put a shortcut to the folder on my desktop so I can get to it quickly.
To make a shortcut just right click your desktop and select “create new...shortcut” and paste the filepath of the folder/program/whatever you need to get to.

The “del” command deletes files, it will prompt you to make sure you want to delete the files press Y and enter to delete them.

Stuff we learned:

Boxed wine sucks, but it makes for a compact water storage bladder in a pinch. We drink a lot of water between the three of us, we also use it to clean and wash. Just pull out the pour spout and fill the empty bag with water. Wash the bag out before drinking it or it will have a wine aftertaste. If you keep the box you can use it to protect the bag from punctures and stand it up to make it easy to pour. Fold it flat when empty to save space.

Pan + natural soap + washcloth + campfire = hot shower
The only showers at Yellowstone are cold water, and the faucets here have a warning on them to leave them dripping so they won't freeze...in the middle of summer...the water is AWESOME to drink (always ice cold) but I don't think it would be very fun to shower in. We took a pan that we brought to cook in, filled it with water, and set it on the campfire. We used the hot water to wash ourselves and our stuff. It felt pretty spectacular to leave a campsite cleaner than we came in and it doesn't take up any more space.

Bears can smell food that hasn't been there for days

They have a keen sense of smell and if you don't pack your stuff up they just might wander up looking for whatever you left out. They aren't there to attack you, they are there to eat something. Don't give bears false hope, keep your campsite clean. If you have food scraps, incinerate them in the fire before you go to sleep.

Power inverters are the bee's knees:

All of the power for this trip is being supplied by the car we are driving. We have a power inverter hooked up to a power strip that is charging all of our phones, my computer, and the cameras. We plug everything in while we are driving to charge up our batteries and unplug the inverter when we aren't.

You can pick up a deep cycle battery for around $200 and have power available when you aren't on the road. Another $200 and you can build/buy a solar panel with a charge controller to recharge the battery with the sun. [If any hypermilers are following us you can use the solar panel and deep cycle battery in your car to bypass the alternator in your vehicle and drastically increase your fuel economy, just make sure to watch your charge or have your alternator attached but the load disconnected via an inline switch so you can jump yourself if you accidentally drain your battery.]

It's hard to believe that we have only been gone a week, we have seen and done SO MUCH. I am SO glad that we actually got up and made this trip (We were pretty lazy about prepping from the get go.) This national parks tour is going to happen as soon as I save up my leave. More planning, more parks, more pictures, and probably even a video or two. I am taking suggestions for places to visit, if you know of an awesome park, ghost town, or generally hoppin place send it to thelostairguitar@gmail.com . The more I think about the TLAG 2.0 the more excited I get about it, and we aren't even halfway done with THIS awesome trip. Can you tell I am having a good time?