Two weeks to go

I can't believe four months have already flown by. With beautiful scenery, cool weather, visits from friends and family, the latest being my sister, sister-in-law and the Dickersons, it has been and will continue to be a summer to remember. Hopefully I will be able to come back next year.

Took a two day trip to Flaming Gorge over the Labor Day weekend. Wanted to go by Ft. Bridger on the way down and found myself in the middle of the second largest festival in Wyoming. It was sort of like a trades day with hundreds of tents and tepees set up all over the place. Most of the people were in period dress.

Things are still very busy around here. Hotel occupancy still running around 99%. There is something going on nearly every week in September. An art festival started a week ago last Thursday and continues through this Sunday. It is one of the biggest events of the year in JH. The first weekend there was a big race with restaurants serving food on the square and live music. Also had a Cowboy Jubilee Saturday night. Today was one of the main events of the festival, Quick Draw on the square. About 30 artist were set up on the square and given 90 minutes to create their art. The art was then auctioned off, some going for as much as $6,000. Pretty good hourly rate for some of the artist. The featured painting, not created in just 90 minutes, was sold for $35,000. I couldn't believe how many people were bidding up over $30k.

I've include several pictures from last few weeks.

Ft. Bridger Rendezvous Scramble

Flaming Gorge

Quick Draw Artist

Couple of Quick Draw Painting

The following is my screen saver on my phone. Something to help me remember the summer.

Labor day is here

Well, it's September and only one month left. I don't know if I'm glad or sad. It's been a great experience.

Had the first snow in the mountains this week and I had a new experience in the trailer today. I got up this morning and had no water. After a little investigation, I found out my water hose was frozen. It thawed quickly and I later walked to work in a short sleeve shirt, another beautiful day.

Have had several visitors over the last few weeks: John and Jan Shewmaker, Carl and Joanna Couch, old friends from Dallas (and actually as far back as college), Bob and Barbara Davis, Leon and Barbara Ward from Holly Lake and Dean Barry an old friend from Texarkana. My sister and sister-in-law, Tom and Cheryl Dickerson are coming up in a couple of weeks.

I finally have gotten back to doing some hiking. Toe is still a little swollen and hurts a little, but getting out and walking up in the mountains is worth it.

Have a big weekend planned: Willy Nelson concert tomorrow night and I think I will go down to the Flaming Gorge for a couple of days on Monday. It's supposed to a lot different
from here, but very pretty.

Am including several new pictures. One is of Dean in front of the cabin from the movie Shane. I had to take Dean to the airport very early on the day he left so got a picture of a full moon setting as the sun came up. Picture just can't show what it was really like.

Sun Rise - Moon Set

Dean at Shane Cabin

Sunrise from the Casita

Mount Moran from Leigh Lake

Brief Update

Not much going on up here. Still nursing a sore toe, but enjoying the weather and scenery. I hate to rub in the weather thing, but I think the temperature might have reached 80 today.

I thought I would include a couple of pictures of this church I went to Sunday. It was built in 1920 and is just inside the Grand Teton National Park.

Church of the Transfiguration

View from Inside

This is an Episcopal church and I'm not really used to the high church atmosphere, but just having the view through the window behind the pulpit was enough to make you aware of the glory of God.

John and Jan Shewmaker came back through tonight. Had a nice meal with them at the famous "Billy's Burgers."

You Can't Roller Skate In a Buffalo Herd

Just wanted to include a couple of pictures of bison taken about 6 miles north of the JH Visitors Center on the Gros Ventres River road (that's pronounced "grow vant" and is French for big belly. Jackson Hole lies between the Gros Ventre and Teton mountain ranges. I guess the French got to name the mountains in the area.




Listen to "You Can't Roller Skate In a Buffalo Herd".

Good little road trip

Took a little road trip Monday and Tuesday. I wanted to go to Cody to see the Buffalo Bill Historical Center so made a little 500 mile trip out of it by going up through the northeast entrance of Yellowstone. What a beautiful drive. Went up through Cooke City and Red Lodge Montana on the way to Cody, two neat little old western towns now given in to a lot of tourists. Below are a couple of pictures from the Bear Tooth Scenic Byway on the way out of the northeast entrance. They are taken with my new phone which has an 8 megapixel camera, but I decided a real camera is still better for pictures.

Blue Tooth Scenic Byway

Blue Tooth Scenic Byway

The Buffalo Bill Historical Center is a must see. It actually consists of 5 museums: Firearms, Western Art, Plains Indian People, Buffalo Bill and the American West, and The Nature of Yellowstone. You can spend hours in each one of them. The Firearms Museum contains a section on firearms by date and another by manufacturer. I have never seen so many guns of different types.

Buffalo Bill

On the way back thought I was going to be delayed by a 385 acre fire in Yellowstone, but it was more in the middle of the park and no roads were closed. There have already been 4 fires in Yellowstone this year, but that's pretty normal. There have been a few in the Tetons too.

Yellowstone Fire

There was a piece on national news today about a lady who got attacked in a parking lot by a buffalo. I had to drive by one with about 5 foot clearance in a parking lot Monday. If you saw the piece with the lady getting attacked, you'll notice someone threw something at the buffalo and ticked it off.

As most of you already know, they are not really buffalo, but bison. I don't think it would sound right though to sing "give me a home where the bison roam" and Buffalo Bill would not have been near as popular if he had been called Bison Bill.

It's been a while since the latest blog. Had a little trouble with my AC adapter for my PC so had to wait for friends from Holly Lake to bring another one. Had to use the library computers for email and time was limited on them. Not only do I have a new power adapter, but I also have a new phone that allows me to connect my PC to the internet. Really slick.

Activities have been a little curtailed recently. I was crossing a stream last week and a rock slipped out from under me and I hit the dirt. The only injury was to my big toe. It looks like a big purple onion and still hurts, even to wear shoes.

Have had some friends visiting lately. Mike and Miki King, old friends from Lake Highlands Church in Dallas, were up for a few days. We had a nice dinner together. Last week three buds from Holly Lake were here. We got in a little fishing, rafting, sight seeing and gab. Jim, Gerry and Mike's picture is below.

Mike, Jim and Gerry in front of my humble abode

The float trip

Where the buffalo roam

More friends, Couch's and Shewmaker's, are coming later on this month.

That's about it for now.

6/21-6/26

It's been a busy week. I drove up to Yellowstone NP Monday, spent the night in West Yellowstone and came home Tuesday. Two days is a minimum if you really want to to see the park good and maybe take a hike or two. It's really crowded; major traffic jams with wildlife watchers, especially if a bear happens to come into view. It's hard to find a parking place at some of the points of interest, and I bet there were 5000 people gathered around Old Faithful to see the eruption. Even with all of the crowds, I would like to go back before I leave the area -- maybe in September. I've included some pictures of Yellowstone.

Old Faithful

I found out an interesting tidbit about Old Faithful - it's not so faithful. I always thought it went off every 60 minutes. One of the regulars in the visitor's center said it went off every 90 minutes. The fact is that the interval between eruptions varies from 55 to 95 minutes based on the duration of the last eruption.

Bubbling Hot Springs

Steaming Hills

Mystic Falls

Today (Thursday 6/24) was a fun day. I went on patrol with one of the Forest Service employees in the fire department. We went around to some of the remote areas in Bridger-Teton National Forest in 4-wd fire (brush) truck checking on back country campgrounds, people cutting firewood in the forest and other patrol activities. I actually got to pull some hose, operate a pump and squirt some water. It's amazing how people will go off an leave a smoldering fire. That is a real no-no to the Forest Service. If we found an unattended fire that was the least bit warm, we would give it a good soaking. If you could determine who has left the fire unattended, they would be given a nice ticket. It was really a great day, the weather was perfect, we went into some beautiful country and I definitely plan on doing it again. The ranger is also trying to get me a day with the river patrol. That would be neat also.

Back to work tomorrow.