1968
We had now again Nancy and enjoyed having her. From Johanna we heard that they had difficulties finding the right apartment in Salt Lake City. We had planned a trip out to the west, which would end in Salt Lake City, starting with a flight to Denver, and from there in a rented car through Colorado to the Yellowstone Park, then to Glacier National Park, from there south to Yosemite Park, Sequoia Park and then Salt Lake City.
We started our tour on June l7th and went from Denver first north to Estes Park. On the way, we happened to pass through Cody, a place, where Buffalo Bill, whose real name was Cody, was buried, and we went there. I had seen Buffalo Bill as a little boy with Carl and my grandfather, as described before, on page 22. I was now interested in seeing his grave and also the museum, which was nearby. There was among many pictures one, which showed Buffalo Bill with his group, when he toured Europe. From Estes Park we went west and near the border of Colorado and Utah we came to a village, called Dinosaur. It was a place where great numbers of fossils from dinosaurs were found and were being shown there and they also showed the way they were digging for them, removing with great care laminated rock. We spent a long time there, watching them together with many other people.
We had also a kind of picnic there. When we continued our trip, we were on a road which led straight to Salt Lake City. Although we had planned to turn there north into Wyoming and the Yellowstone Park, we could not resist calling Johanna and Marvin by phone. They asked us to come right away to Salt Lake City. They had found a beautiful apartment there and wanted us and Nancy to see it. They asked us to stay where we were and they would come and join us there.
We did not have to wait long, only an hour or so, and they came. They had a lot to tell us, were happy, and we had then dinner together in a nearby restaurant, drove then behind them to Salt Lake City. They had there really a beautiful apartment, high up on a mountain slope, overlooking the whole city. It was an ideal place, beautifully furnished, with a glass wall in the living room. At night especially, I did not get tired looking out at the lights in the city, the street lights changing from green to red and back and the lights of the moving cars, and above the stars, and at daytime the Great Salt Lake and to the left the Wasatch Mountains.
A few days later, we all went on a tour to Yellowstone Park, to see what we had heard about and read about so often, the geysers and especially the famous Old Faithful geyser, with the water shooting up high into the air every 66 minutes, with about 100 people if not more waiting to see it again and again, and the many, many smaller geysers, and seeing black bears on the road, begging for food, often bringing long columns of cars to a halt. I took, of course, many movie pictures of the bears, also once of one which was at the right side window where Hedy was sitting, seeing her holding slices of bread in her hand and even trying to pull the window down, since it was a tiny little bit open, only about an inch. But it did not succeed.
Marvin, Johanna, and Nancy had to go back to Salt Lake City the next day, but we stayed on for 2 or 3 more days, after having moved into the Old Faithful Lodge, where we had gotten a nice room. We went on a boat trip on the very large Yellowstone Lake, drove also to Mount Wadsworth and went there up to the top on a bus in a breath-taking, very dangerous ride. We saw there a few mountain goats, and went there also butterfly hunting, caught a great number of fine specimens, great many alpine butterflies of the Parnassus family, which were called in Europe Apollo Falter.
We then continued our trip north through Montana to the Glacier National Park, where we got a nice room in a fine hotel and from where we could make tours, one of them by boat close to the lower end of a glacier. We saw there a forest fire, terribly to look at, burning for weeks and destroying woods of thousands of acres. Continuing our trip north, we crossed the Canadian border and came there to the northern end of the Glacier National Park, stayed in a fine hotel at the edge of a lake, went there on foot into one of the valleys for a long hike.
On the way back, we went through Idaho, stayed twice overnight in hotels, till we reached Salt Lake City.
Before we had come to Utah, when Johanna and Marvin were alone there, they had gone on a tour to the Bryce Canyon National park and to the Grand Canyon National Park. We followed now their advice and went also to these places. We reached Bryce Canyon in one day, found a room there in a motel, went along the canyon the next day, astonished, amazed, fascinated by the fantastic rock formations, the tenth of thousands of grotesque standing there close to each other for miles and miles, like stalactites in grottos, often giving the impression of humans standing there together. Going further south, we reached Lake Powell, an artificial lake of enormous length. We found a room there in the nearby town Page. The lake was formed, when the Colorado River was closed up by a dam, rising hundreds of feet above the original level, extending into many side arms, which were once tributaries of the Colorado River. We went there on a motorboat ride, together with two other people, an exciting ride, first close to the dam, then deep into two branches of the lake, which took about two hours, and then back to the start near the dam.
Going further south, we reached the area of the Grand Canyon National Park and decided to go to the southern rim, which was described as more interesting. We got there a room in a cabin, drove from one breath-taking spot to another one, each of them fascinating beyond description, showing a different view of that miracle of nature. We stayed in that area for 3 days, constantly overwhelmed by that what we saw. A specialty of great interest was there a performance of a dance by Hopi Indians, dressed in festive robes.
Leaving the area, going back over the same road, passing through Flagstaff in Arizona, Hedy had for a moment severe chest pains, which lasted about 5 minutes and then subsided. It came later on back again, lasting only a very short time. It was, no doubt, angina pectoris. Hedy ascribed it to too fast driving, but I thought that it was caused by the rapid change from a height of about 10,000 feet to a level of about 5,000 feet.
We then moved on to the area of the Zion National Park, interesting and fascinating also, but this time we went into the lowest level of the canyon, driving down between very high mountains. We stayed there also over night in a cabin. I remember that we saw there great many blooming cactus plants, with bright red and yellow blossoms, and I also caught there at night interesting moths, saw there also at night a deer, not shy at all.
The next day, we went east, out of the park and then straight north, had to interrupt the tour once for the night in Beaver and finally came back to Salt Lake City, going through Provo. We stayed then in Salt Lake City a few more days. I had the opportunity to go with Marvin to the hospital where he worked, was introduced to the famous hematologist Dr. Wintrobe and could sit at a conference with many other doctors, when they discussed interesting cases, all of them sitting behind microscopes. A few days later, there was a conference with another clinician, Dr. Cartwright, and I also went to conferences in the nearby Veterans Hospital, which were also very interesting. We then went home. I had, after all, to take care of my patients.