A DAY AT THE PARK

Flexibility is the key to a good day.

Yesterday Cindy & I headed out from home after having prepared a picnic, grabbing a camera and warm jackets. We were heading to The Grand Tetons once again. It is so beautiful there.

This time I didn't pose in front of the Jackalope in Dubois though. Our plan was to go into Jackson and have a bite, stop at the Elk preserve to see what we could see then leisurely sightsee in the Park.

Well this is what we saw when we should have seen the stark beauty of the mountains.

This was no morning mist. It was about noon. This in fact was smoke from a forest fire that was burning south of Jackson. The whole Teton range was virtually invisible. The smoke was very strong. So like I said flexibility is the key to a good day.

We headed to Yellowstone instead. It is located north of the Tetons. Only 8 miles separates the two parks. Having said that both parks are huge so it was over an hour to get up to the southern entrance to Yellowstone.

The air up there was clear so the day ended up being great.

I'll let my pictures show you where we went. We decided to spend our time there looking at geysers and looking for wildlife.

This is West Thumb Geyser Basin.

From there we went to Old Faithful and looked at the other geysers in that area.



There was no smoke in Yellowstone. We drive back through the Tetons to get home. By early evening the smoke was less so we could see some.

A few bison at Yellowstone and an antelope and deer along the road on the way home was about it for wildlife.

We plan to go back in October to see if we can catch Fall color. Some of the aspen where changing. Beautiful.

SCREEN PORCH

One of the things we learned while living in Wisconsin is that in order to be outside at night it is best to wear bug repellant. People had decks that they didn’t really use once the sun set. In order to remedy that we bought an inexpensive screen porch kit from Menards. After putting it up we found we really   enjoyed spending time in the cool of the evening outside.

We then moved to the desert of New Mexico for 9 years where it was so dry we encountered only a handful of mosquitoes the whole time we were there.

Now that we are back in the north country the mosquitoes are out in full force and so it was time to get another screen porch.

Cindy & I finally agreed upon a kit from Sears. Honestly this particular one was a lot cheaper than the one we had originally planned to get.

Well since daughter Laura and our 2 grandchildren live 6.5 hours away in Denver and since we miss spending time with them and since Laura was lonely and since I really enjoy working with her since she will tackle just about anything and since she was willing to make the drive we made plans to have it started and for her to drive up and help me finish it.

So up they came.

Let me show you some pictures. The end supports were such that I had to build a bump-out from the house to give the supports some where to attach. It went pretty well.

Our plan to work together turned out to be harder than we thought. The grandkids didn’t want mom out of their sight. Laura and Cindy helped me when I really needed it, when it was a 2 person job. Cindy  had planned to be grandma and watch the kids.

I just enjoyed having us all together.

I made the porch useable and then finished it up over time. It feels wonderful to be outside at night now in the cool of the evening. An electrician put it some outlets so we have a light out there and sit and read.

Will this screen porch handle the winter okay? Time will tell.

DAY TRIP

Cindy & I felt like getting out of town today so we decided to check out the Sinks Canyon Loop drive which starts outside of Lander, WY and is about 30 miles from home. It is so cool living close to such natural beauty.

The Sinks Canyon Loop winds through the Wind River Range. As you can see in this picture the paved and gravel road is full of switchbacks bounded by aspens and conifers, mountain lakes, streams, picnic & camping sites. It was beautiful. Also the temperature was in the 60's and sunny. When first getting to Sink Canyon the air was thick with smoke from a large forest fire burning some miles away.

 

 

We stopped off at numerous places to see what there was to see.

Once we reached the highway once again we decided to drive to South Pass. I had heard people mention it a great deal so I was expecting something special. Well, there was no Visitor Center with a perky young park ranger eager to tell us everything we would ever want to know about the site. South Pass is simply a pass through which wagon trains came through the mountains on their way West. It was an important discovery that changed the whole experience for travelers. The site was commemorated by some plaques. I was disapointed.

We headed toward home but decided to check out South Pass City historical site since it was close by. It turned out to be a ghost town built during gold discoveries from the 1860's. There were a number of booms and busts over the years. Today it is a State historical site with well preserved buildings staged with period furniture and accessories.

We did managed to see some wildlife along the way: squirrels, chipmunks, hawks, cows, antelope and a bear I was lucky enough to photograph. We were wearing a bear bell at the time. Of course it wasn't moving very fast and wasn't a danger.