W as in WVU, the West and Wow!

Paula and I went to a West Virginia University Mountaineers football game and rode into a sensory overload of spectacular, scenic national parks, free beer and tea, free-range Boulder and Salt Lake City’s Mormon cultures and tranquilizing body-dipping in hot springs.

WVU lost to Colorado in overtime, 17-14, after a one-bison stampede up and down the football field by Ralphie V, the Colorado mascot, with his four handlers hanging on to their “controlling” ropes for dear life. Now, THAT was an entrance that even out-does WVU’s musket-toting Mountaineer.

That was just the beginning of our superb adventure with elk, deer, bison, pronghorn, Rocky Mountain goats, bald eagles, moose, wolves, prairie dogs, cattle, horses, squirrels and chipmunks parading before our eyes.

Our 2,500-mile, seven-day bus tour through Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, South Dakota, Idaho and Montana provided surround-sound Mandarin chatter from all but several passengers (including us and the driver). The others were from mainland China, including the tour guide, or folks with a Chinese heritage living in North America. It made me realize what it feels like being unable to speak the predominant language.

The awesomeness of Yellowstone National Park cannot be conveyed in words and photos. Take my word for it: You have to be there to capture it. It was as if some gargantuan mad painter flung his palette at the geothermal wonderland in Wyoming and seasoned it with a Noah’s Ark of animals.

Utah's Arches National Park is a red splash of rocks and a variety of holes-in-the-cliffs gouged out by nature over hundreds of centuries. There were more red rocks at, well, Red Rocks in Colorado. And an amphitheatre that seats 9,450 people who are immersed in music and incredible scenery in every direction.

Wyoming’s Grand Tetons are grand, indeed, with each summit trying to out-do the others. You can see your reflection and that of Mount Moran in the Snake River.

Devils Tower is another nature-made sight, carved by the Belle Fourche River in Wyoming. It is America’s first national monument.

We visited Mount Rushmore, where the faces of Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt were carved into South Dakota's Black Hills. And Crazy Horse, another South Dakota mountain memorial that eventually will become the world’s largest sculpture. So far, there’s only the Indian chief’s head, but that is large enough to encompass all four of the Rushmore Presidents. Some day the chief, his spear and his horse will complete the work. The chief would be at home, and is one of the subjects, of the Leanin’ Tree gallery of Western art in Boulder.

Nature easily out-does such man-made sights as Colorado’s capitol building in Denver and Utah’s in Salt Lake City, but the Church of the Latter-day Saints’ Tabernacle in Salt Lake City was a wonder, too. The acoustics are so perfect that there are no microphones needed to hear the famous choir. An LDS member standing on the altar dropped three pins that we heard clearly while sitting in the last pew of the building. Admission to the adjacent Mormon Temple is limited to LDS members.

I dipped my finger in the Great Salt Lake and tasted the brine (19%, topped only by the Dead Sea’s 20%). My mouth continued to feel salty for another hour.

On the seventh day of the bus trip, we relaxed in the Glenwood, Colorado hot springs, which are cooled from nature’s 132 degrees to 104 degrees (the therapy pool, for no more than 10 minutes at a time) and 93 degrees (the other pool). A lot of tiredness exited from our bodies as we drank in the mountain scenery.

Boulder is a foot-of-the-mountain bastion of liberals and Buddhists, who built and run Naropa University. Its library is named for poet Allen Ginsberg. Imagine climbers and backpackers taking lunch breaks from work to indulge in their avocations and you nail the downtown Pearl Street Mall scene.

Golden, Colorado has the Coors brewery where you get three cups of free beer while you’re touring the plant, and another three free glasses afterward. And a euphoric feeling.

Celestial Seasonings in Boulder offers a free choice of 100 tea flavors. Less buzz than Coors, but a fabulous taste test marathon.

Our Sept. 17-27 trip -- our 25th in our four years together and my 49th since my 1996 retirement from the Beacon Journal -- indeed provided a whirlwind ride through our senses.

Click on headline to see the trip photos.

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