Explore the captivating canyonlands on this unforgettable vacation to Bryce Canyon National Park, where years of erosion have carved colorful sandstone into thousands of spires, arches, and mazes.
Travel from the rolling green hills of the Emerald Isle back to the States, and prepare to relive the days of the Wild West exploring stunning natural wonders at some of the nation’s most well-known national parks.
Join us over the next month as we discover the majestic parks and historic lodges of the American West. We will visit America’s first national park and the geothermal home of Old Faithful Geyser in Yellowstone, tour the final resting place of Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane in the western town of Deadwood and stand at the rim of the Grand Canyon to take in a spectacular sunset.
On this tour, you will see some of the West’s classic lodges, breathtaking scenery, and historic sites.
Pack up your hiking shoes and camera as we travel through our nation’s National Parks.
Today, Yellowstone is virtually a country unto itself. It has its own weekly newspaper, a vast staff, a $30 million annual budget, army-sized campgrounds and visitor complexes as busy as miniature cities. But even with this infrastructure, much of the landscape has not changed since the Victorian era, when only 300 or so lucky travelers would arrive on horseback each summer, following rough animal trails. The first hotel arrived in 1871, McCartney’s Cabin at Mammoth Hot Springs, a makeshift log structure where guests had to sleep on the floor. Most preferred instead to camp in the forest, catching fish for their dinner in the pristine lakes. Read the rest of this entry »
Every 90 minutes or so, hundreds of onlookers gather to admire the gush of Old Faithful, the world’s most famous geyser – a spectacle that remains as enthralling today as it was back in the summer of 1870, when Cornelius Hedges, a member of the scientific party to study the Upper Geyser Basin, first beheld it. After spending weeks on a grueling horseback trip to reach the remote Yellowstone plateau, the American adventurers were so astonished to see the 100-foot-high explosion of sparkling water that they threw up their hats and shouted for sheer joy at the sight. Read the rest of this entry »
