Teton Village

The season is winding down. Rebekah and Kim have completed their contracts and are ready to roadtrip home. Before they leave, we all headed to Jackson, WY for a weekend. We stayed at The Hostel at Teton Village.

We had dinner at Teton Thai in Jackson. The next morning, we had breakfast at the Village and then drove the Moose-Wilson Rd. We stopped at the new Rockefeller Preserve.

We hiked out to Phelps Lake:

A perfect place to relax...

Drives

This year, I have explored outside the park a little more. Most of it has been in Montana. On days off from work when I have no plans I will often jump in the car and go for a drive. Today was one of those days. I headed to Livingston where I took I-90 East to Big Timber. At Big Timber, taking Hwy 191 North towards Harlowton, you have a great view of the Crazy Mountains.
Our first snowfall came a few days ago at the end of August. On this particular day, it was snowing on the mountains which makes them even prettier. I felt like I was trying to out run these clouds all day.

Along Hwy 191, I saw one of the largest hay fields I have ever seen:

I couldn't capture all of the r0ws of stacked hay rolls in one shot...

Big Sky Country...

At Harlowton, I took Hwy 12 West towards White Sulphur Springs. Mostly, it was more of the same - hay, cattle, mountains - but there was some other sites like the sheep on this ranch:

At White Sulpher Springs, I headed back South towards the Park on Hwy 89. I just missed the wheat harvest:

This prairie church is in Ringling, MT. Jimmy Buffett summed up this town pretty well in his song "Ringling, Ringling".

The total mileage for this little day drive is 326 miles!!!

Follow Your Dreams

Some dear friends once gave me a sky blue wall plaque with a rainbow that read "Follow Your Dreams". The drive in Lamar Valley tonight reminded me of this plaque:

Wes' Visit

I have a visitor from home!!! Wes came to spend a week in Yellowstone and it was great to see an old friend! I had to work the first 3 days of his trip so he went sight-seeing along the upper loop during the day while I worked.


Tuesday, we hiked Elephant Back and had a great view of Yellowstone Lake. Afterwards, we had lunch at Fishing Bridge General Store and drove back to Mammoth stopping along the way to take pics of flowers, wildlife and scenery.

Once we were back at Mammoth, we decided to head down to Boiling River to relax. Boiling River is where scalding hot water from natural hot springs flows into the cool Gardner River. It takes some time to find a spot that isn't too cool, and most importantly, not too hot.

Later that evening, Rebekah joined us for dinner at Rosie's in Gardiner.

Wednesday morningwe headed down to the Old Faithful area. We walked the Upper Geyser Basin and visited the Old Faithful Inn. We visited some other geyser basins and did a short hike to get an aerial view of Grand Prismatic Hot Spring. This night, we camped at Madison Campground and Wes went fishing for a while.

Thursday morning, bright and early, we headed for Grand Teton National Park. Along the way, we spotted this coyote:

Seeing the Tetons never gets old...

At Moose Junction in GTNP, we spotted 2 bull moose!! Here's one of them:

On the drive back to Lake Lodge, we stopped at Lewis Lake so Wes could do some more fishing. It was a beautiful sunset...

Friday morning, after breakfast at Fishing Bridge General Store, we went on a hike back to Riddle Lake.

It was a nice 2 mile stroll back to the lake through the forest. Fishing was not good this day because it was much too windy. But the view was nice:

We did some exploring of other areas of the park that Wes had not yet visited. The evening was spent enjoying the lake and geese:

August Hikes

Cathleen, Elizabeth and I hiked Sepulchre. I believe this trail had the prettiest wildflowers of the summer:

Another great hike in August was Mt. Washburn, one of my all-time favorites in the park. This hike provided great views, a good workout, and good fellowship with Cathleen and Del.

Bozeman, MT

The nearest Wal-Mart is 90 miles away in Bozeman, MT. Home of the Montana State Bobcats, Bozeman is nice little college town. It's always a treat when you can leave the "wilderness" of the park and visit Bozeman.

On this particular day, Linda, a co-worker, and I made the big trip to town. I've mentioned before that I love Montana. Here is another reason: It is August and the high a mid-day is 78 degrees:

Scenes from downtown Bozeman:

Not sure how frequently this happens, but there were boxes of chalk along the sidewalks. The sidewalks were beautifully decorated:

The Garage - a great outdoor, open-air lunch spot:

One of the shops had this sign just outside their door: