Jackson Hole

I have a million things to write about but since today I'm actually having a peaceful day, I'm going to share with you some gorgeous photos from a trip that Mike and I recently took to Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

We actually went there for Mike's boss's 50th Birthday Celebration!

Our first full day Mike and I rented a car and drove to Yellowstone (quite far from where we were staying in Teton Village). (Oh, speaking of Teton Village and our stay, we stayed in these huge mountain homes. Mike had several work buddies who were there without their wives or were otherwise single, who were in our same house. Let's just say they all had a lot of fun and our house was affectionately nicknamed the Frat House. )

But back to Yellowstone, we passed the Grand Tetons on the way:

Stopped at a lodge for lunch and had a picnic on top of a hill that had a great view of the Tetons and this huge basin below. If you look carefully at the brown spot in the photo below it is a moose making its way across the basin.

Finally! After hours of driving we made it to the entrance of Yellowstone National Park.

You really can't come all this way without making a trip to see Old Faithful. We were running way behind schedule and as we neared the geyser we learned that it goes off about every 80 or 90 minutes. We panicked that we might drive up right after it went off and wondered what we would do all that time. But luck was on our side - we drove up and the crowds were gathered already. It wasn't 5 minutes and there she blows! It definitely blew high into the air, but I was surprised at how overall quiet it was.

Yellowstone has MANY geysers. This one is VERY cool (or hot and boiling, actually!) - the Excelsior Geyser Crater. To me this geyser, crater, and the land and mini-geysers around it was probably the neatest part of Yellowstone (at least on the southern loop).

I really enjoyed looking out for wildlife. We got very close to a few elk several times.

And this bison FAMILY was a real treasure to find. They were not with a herd, just off on their own.

Sunset on the way back from Yellowstone:

Then there was the hike in the Tetons. Many in our group went on a rather strenuous hike. There were supposed to be 3 legs of the hike. The 1st was maybe a couple miles and included a boat ride across the lake. Well, the lake was down so there were no boat rides, which meant we were in the hike for the first 2 legs (the 2nd being much steeper and farther). I'm all for hiking but was worried I wouldn't hold up with the group. It would maybe be okay if I didn't have to worry about others, but between my low blood sugar and pinched nerve in my ankle that decided to act up on the trip, I was definitely not sure about this. To make matters worse, several of Mike's co-workers on this trip were with me in Breckenridge when we went snow-mobiling. That story is really for another time but let me just say I actually became disoriented and quite sick. I did not want another episode where Mike's wife can't hack it with the big boys.

Luckily God must have been smiling on me that day. The ankle miraculously held up as well as my blood sugar and stamina. Here are some pretty views in the Grand Tetons.

This beaver caught everybody's eye and I guess finally realized all 20 of us were NOT going to leave him alone until he came out and showed himself. After several minutes of shying away from us, he changed his tune. He came right out from under the bridge, posed a few times, then jumped up literally within arms reach in front of me and waddled all the way down to the other end of the bridge. Thank you Mr. Beaver! I also did not know beavers "waddled."

Climbing further...

Of course, you know what they say. What goes up, must come down. It was one of those kinds of hikes. I made it ALMOST to our goal of Inspiration Point. I finally decided to just rest with a couple others while most went just a bit further. It was really more of the same, just a tiny bit higher. Then we headed back down - I bet in all we hiked about 8 miles!

The last day we went off-roading. On the way, we saw a herd of bison right by the road. (Actually saw several herds at Yellowstone, too.)

Then we saw a herd (I have now forgotten the technical name but I know it isn't herd but is something kind of funny) of pronghorn.

Here is what I thought was going to be our buggy.  A cute little "car" with safety bars. Unfortunately the place didn't give us the right number of buggies and instead we rode a 2-seater 4-wheeler that you can see in the background. It was still fun but I definitely would have enjoyed the buggy more.

We saw some spectacular terrain and landscape. I think the photo below looks more like a painting.

And some kind of animal skeleton...

What an amazing trip. I enjoyed the wildlife the best but wish we'd seen just a tiny bit more. While bear sightings are quite common we didn't see one. Though the only time I would have wanted to see one would have been from the comforts of our car! And we did see a couple moose but not where we could get a good shot of one. We saw one the night we came in on the side of the road, but she was facing away from us, and given that she was female didn't have antlers. The only other time was a couple that were almost too small to see crossing that basin. But otherwise, still really neat. And these are free-roaming animals. In Texas EVERYTHING is fenced so it's hard to see more than deer or rodents. Also the weather was PERFECT! I packed for the arctic - glad the forecasts I checked weren't very accurate!