One of my favorites, Mammoth Hot Spring Terraces aren’t as active as they use to be which is sad.  I thought they were the prettiest features there.  It’s the nature of the active volcano bed that shifts and changes with earthquakes and other natural movements of the earth.  Hiking around is a great way to see most of what the park has to offer.  A lot of the park’s hikes are less than an hour so it makes for a great day trip if you get started early enough.  You can camp in the park if you happen to get a spot early enough but it’s usually easy to get a spot in Grand Teton Park which is just as nice. I love just walking around and looking at all the hot springs, geysers and  mud pots.  It’s pretty relaxing if you can stand a few bug bites.

The Grand Teton National park is also totally worth a trip if you get the chance.  Although there isn’t as much to do or look at as there is in Yellowstone, it’s still just as pleasing.  There’s a few very nice drives to take around the park and to visit Moose and ride the tram up to the top of the mountain.  Most of the hikes around the Teton park are more serious hikes around, probably half a day or more for most of them.  When we were visiting there was a thunderstorm so we didn’t get out much in the afternoon.  It is very scenic and beautiful though.

Jackson Hole is near by and usually we don’t spend a lot of time there.  It’s pretty expensive and crowded but it does have some of the best places to eat as well.  There’s not much to do outside of walk around the square or take a white water rafting trip.  Between Jackson Hole and the Grand Teton park is the National Elk Refuge and in the winters you can take a hay ride around when they feed the elk and get a more up close experience.

Between the two parks you can see most wildlife that the Rocky Mountains has to offer.  We saw moose, bison, elk, deer, antelope, coyote, grizzle bear, and foxes for the bigger animals.  Overall, I think they’re still some of the best national parks in the country (we use to go to them as vacations in the summer) and everyone should go visit even if for a day or two.  So, 5 out of 5 stars.  Just don’t go touching or running up to the wildlife, ok?  You can always go through my hometown on the way up if you fly though Salt Lake, it’s a very pretty drive if you do so.  Also if you wanna see more pictures, I’ve posted like 600 up on my Facebook, which I think I’ve saved so you’ll be able to see them if you have account and not my friend.  If I wasn’t so lazy, I’d load them up somewhere else.  If I do, I’ll post a different link up here.  If you look through the parks websites and want to see something in particular, I’ll be happy to post them somewhere more accessible.

As you can see from the picture, I got a banana split in small that comes with a sauce (caramel or chocolate), choice of topping and two scoops of ice cream.  I got mint chip and chai scoops.  It was $10 which is a little pricey but it is such a specific market that I suppose it’s worth the price but will limit how often people enjoy their product.  The ice cream over all is quite a change from your regularly mass produced ice cream.  The flavors seemed to be really muted to me so I missed a lot of the mint flavor in the mint chip specifically.  The chai seemed to hold it’s flavor pretty well so no complaints there.  My friend and I were going to try two different things and split them but at the time of our visit they were missing a dehydrator to make the cookies for an ice cream cookie sandwich and the brownies.  The nice thing I did notice after I was finished eating was that I didn’t feel overly stuffed from the treat nor hungry again soon after. Overall, it wasn’t bad for a try or if your dietary requirements limit you to such choices but I think with the drive and the price, I won’t be a frequent visitor.  I’ll give Kind Kreme a 3.5 out of 5 stars.

I love honey and how it smells, so I was sold on it before I even tried it.  I couldn’t wait to get the pillow mist home and try it out upon sleeping that evening.  To make sure there was no cross over scents, I changed my pillow case and sprayed the linen as directed.  After a few minutes I crawled into bed and took a deep breath.  It was heaven!  I now didn’t want to fall asleep because my pillow smelled so good but it was slowly helping put me to sleep (or maybe it was the medience but we’ll pretend).  Since falling in love with the Warm Milk and Honey spray, the other two previous bought scents have not been used.  I’ve even been back to pick up more during a sale they were having and got the same scent in lotion so now upon bed time, my hands smell as good as my pillow.  If you like to smell good things, run out and buy this, you won’t be disappointed.  Bath and Body Works, for bringing me this amazing product, you get 5 out of 5 stars.

The story revolves around the disappearance of the young heiress during one of the rich family’s gatherings.  There has been no trace of her in the past 40 years and her uncle would like to find out what happened before he dies. (I know a crappy summary but I couldn’t think of more without giving too much away.)

The movie clocks in at 2 hours and 30 minutes, however the movie is paced well enough that it doesn’t get too boring or drawn out.  There are several scenes that would definitely give the movie an R rating and which coming from viewing mostly American ready movies make for an interesting viewing experience.  I hadn’t yet read the books, which I hear are better than the movie, but there are a few minor plot points that were (for me) pretty easy to put together.  The acting, I think was pretty good but it’s kind of hard for me to judge between reading the subtitles and watching them.  Overall, it was definitely worth my time and money to go see the film as it was meant.  I’ll give the movie 4 out of 5 stars and agree with my friend, if you’re interested go see it before there’s a remake.

What kind of bike do you have?  Do you love it?

Major differences from other games in the series is up first.  Now, I didn’t play FFXI because it was on-line with some sort of pay structure and I just wasn’t ready to get into FFXII, so I don’t know how they compare to that.  But in general there are several major differences.  The story for at least as far as I’ve played (chapter 9 out of 13) is that it’s seriously linear.  You don’t have the freedom to explore around the map at will as you do with the other games.  You have to play through the game to a point as they want you to, which I like right now because I feel like there’s progress.  Also, you have the lack of ability to choose your party until chapter 10 which is a big change as well.  Usually you get to pick the characters as you go through but here’s there is no choice.  I get kind of over it because one of the characters is seriously emo.  They also added lyrics to the Chocobo song (so many versions but all sound mostly like this with the melody, or all since game 2 through 12) which is horribly sad but they have a totally new composer for the game from the amazing Nobuo Uematsu (one of my favs is here with opening).  So far it’s a bummer that none of the music has stayed in my head after playing and I don’t have much of an urge to buy the CD as I have with the other games.  Also, there is a very sad lack of Moogles.  Let’s not even get started on the lack of the mass summons so far (also because that would involve spoilers), there may be more to come.  I probably should hate on the leveling of weapons and accessories but I’ve not done much with it, other than I my hate for having to ‘build them up’.

Things that are good include a return to the class system for characters.  You get three for each character to pick from at first and then you can expand later to 6 for each.  The linear-ness for the game also makes it much easier to pick up and play.  With earlier games I use to keep notebooks every time I stopped so that I could figure out where I was going when I came back for the next hours of play.  There’s also a ton more save points so I don’t have to spend an hour or so looking for one so I can go on with real life.  Let’s see, oh, there’s a Cid!  I’m so happy to see a Cid character around as there’s always been one in every game.  I did only get this for the PS3 (classic!) and the Blu-Ray and on HDTV looks so amazing that I spend time just looking around with the cameras and admiring the scenery.  So I will close with the opening credits of FFXIII for y’all to look and marvel at if you’ve made it this far.

Click here to view the embedded video.