Wyopalooza
Off to Wyoming
Our friends Shelley and Eric went to their family condo in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, so Laurie and I invited ourselves (again). Believe it or not, Shelley and Eric said, “Sure, c’mon over,” so we did. First, though, we made a detour to Casper and then Cheyenne.
In Casper we visited the National Historic Trails Museum. The four main trails of the westward migration passed through Casper (the trails are the Oregon Trail, California Trail, Mormon Trail and the route of the Pony Express; actually all four of these trails followed essentially the same route from Missouri to southwest Idaho, where they separated). This is an excellent museum and if you ever find yourself near Casper and have any interest at all in this part of our country’s history, a visit to this museum is well worth the time.
Then we went to Cheyenne. I worked lots in Cheyenne many years ago and made great friends. In Cheyenne we were able to have dinner with friend Steve, and the next night, we had dinner with Phyllis and her husband, Bob. About twenty years ago I was working with Phyllis and she told me she wanted to introduce me to someone she knew I’d like; that someone was Steve! These two dinners were worth the long detour to get to Cheyenne (it’s almost a full day’s drive from Jackson Hole). It was so great to re-connect with these folks with lots of catching up and lots of laughs; we’re looking forward to returning to Cheyenne and seeing them again.
After three days in Cheyenne, we headed to Jackson Hole, where we were greeted by Shelley and Eric. After hugs and greetings, we heard the “pop” of a champagne cork, and away we went.
Creatures
We saw some critters in Jackson Hole.
The first morning we were at Eric and Shelley’s place, which is inside the boundary of the Grand Teton National Park, I got up a bit early and went out into the living room to sit and read. The living room in their condo has lots of big windows and looks out onto a grassy and tree-lined area. Now, when I went out there, it was still dark and the windows have semi-transparent blinds on them so I didn’t notice anything unusual and I sat with my back to the windows. A while later, Eric came into the room and practically shouted, “Look at that!” I turned to look outside (it was light by then) and saw this:
Yep, that would be a bull moose. Eric got out his super-duper camera with a long lens and took a couple great pictures of this guy.
This was a bull moose and a cow moose was nearby - Mama and Papa, we guess. No matter what, it was really impressive to get this close to them.
Later we went for a drive and saw a number of cars parked along the road - a sure sign of an animal sighting. This one had rangers managing the gawkers and we quickly saw the attraction.
Yes, that is a grizzly bear. It’s a six-year old female, we learned from the rangers. She was just walking around a bit, digging up some kind of food source, and occasionally looking at all the folks looking at her. As you can imagine, the rangers were diligent in keeping folks away from her; these bears can run fast and take a person apart if they want to.
We watched her for about an hour, after which she sauntered into the woods and disappeared. Totally cool!
Those were the best wildlife sighting we had, though we also saw in the backyard many deer (a family group of five came through almost every day), and a fox.
Hike to Taggart Lake
One day we hiked to Taggart Lake, which was beautiful. The route we took was about 4-1/4 miles, with about 360 ft of altitude gain. I can tell you that it seemed like more than that! The altitude at the trailhead is about 6,500 ft, which means the lake is close to 7,000 ft high. That definitely meant some huffin’ and puffin’! It was worth every step - some pictures to prove that:
Pictures of the Tetons
I think I will never get tired of taking pictures of the Teton Mountains; the Teton range is spectacular from any angle, in any weather. Here are a few more pictures that I like of the Tetons.
One Last Surprise
On our way home from Jackson Hole we stayed a night at Superior, Montana. We knew a storm was approaching and snow was possible, but we didn’t expect this:
The weather reports said it was snowing all the way to the Idaho border (about 90 minutes away), which definitely puckered us up. It turned out that the highway was bare and wet almost all the way, so it wasn’t really a problem. Some periods of snowfall didn’t ease our anxieties at all, but we made it through with no problem.
This was a great trip! We spent lots of time with Eric and Shelley in Jackson Hole, in Cheyenne we had great times with old friends. When we got back, we couldn’t think of a thing that went wrong or was disappointing in the slightest. The best was spending time with friends; we’re really looking forward to seeing them all again.