do boy or dew bwa?

sunday, we went for a drive and ended up in dubois, wyoming.

it's about an hour and a half from gros ventre.  north and east of us.

we were looking for a small cafe we had been told about, but missed the turnoff and before we realized that we had missed it, we were halfway to dubois, so we decided to continue on and check it out.

it's a small town with a few shops and restaurants on a couple of blocks.

in the middle of nowhere.

just as we passed the city limit sign, we saw a restaurant with a sign that said "last food for the next 100 miles".  we figured this was all there was to the town and since we were starving, we pulled in and had a not so good breakfast.

we were really upset when we continued on up the road and found the actual town.

it's a cute town with alot of quirky signs....

this was a whopper of a fish..

giant jackalope at a gas station.

i would do my laundry here just for the chance of seeing this...

no clue what this is all about, but i am not interested in doing anything here.

the scenery is beautiful.  dubois is about 40 miles or so east of the tetons.  you travel through the mountains and drop down into a valley with red rock  formations and a different type of landscape. 

this is a big snowmobiling area

 i believe this is the start of the wind river range. 

 i heard that john's brother, chris enjoyed the wind river area alot.  the restaurant we ate breakfast in had alot of photos and snapshots on the walls.  i had to do a double take at one because it looked just like chris walking in a field.   it's so sad because i know he and kim would have been up to visit us this summer if he was still here.  hopefully, kim can make it when her business slows down.  my sister, laura, would have made the trip up here also.  we would have really enjoyed having them here and i know both chris and laura would have been very encouraging of this adventure.

as we were driving through the mountains, we came upon a huge elk dead on the side of the road. 

about 10 feet further was a bumper with the license plate still attached.

then about 3 miles along we came upon a car left on the side of the road with it's bumper missing and the hood and windshield totally crushed in.

how do you make it 3 miles without sensing a problem seeing out the front window and then pulling over to check it out?

i vote for totally drunk driver.

a herd of hooligans

over the last couple of weeks, we have come upon a group of pronghorn on the way home from work.

we were told they are not pronghorn antelope or pronghorn deer.
just pronghorn.

anyway. 

usually, when you see them, they are away from the road quite abit.
but this group hangs around the road and are not too afraid of the vehicles. 
the truck makes them alittle nervous, but if we turn it off, they don't run away.

the first time we saw them, they were on the other side of the road, but were content to continue eating.

the last couple of times we have come across them, they have been in the middle of the road.

i think they are pretending to be buffalo.

they would run back and forth in front of the truck.  just as we thought they were going to stay, they would run back in front of us into the road.

i told john that they are comparable to a bunch of 15 year old boys.

if one did not keep up with the rest, there was one that must have been the leader that would stop and look back and then run back to get the straggler.

we have had a lot of enjoyment watching these silly guys goofing around.

we have also been so lucky to see the baby pronghorns. 
there are 3 mothers we have seen so far.  one has twins. 
they are teeny tiny little things that jump and hop about around their moms.  the mothers keep them too far away from the road to get any kind of pictures, but hopefully, one day before they get too big, we will be lucky enough to get some.

in the meantime, we will continue to watch the bigger guys that are not afraid to hang out on the side of the road.

i think i will call them pronghorn hooligans.

a pocket full of posies

actually, a field full of dandelions.

after we left leigh lake and were heading home, we came across this meadow.

john being the nice guy that he is, turned onto a dirt road next to it so i could get some pictures.

most people think of dandelions as weeds.
i don't know how many i have pulled out of gardens over the years.

even as i pulled them and threw them away, i never really looked at them.        

        

but today, when i did stop and take a really good look at one, i realized they have alot to offer. 

    

they are a sunny yellow and aren't too picky about where they put down roots.  

they are just happy to be where they are and who they are.

something we all could learn from. 

                                                                       

from now on, i don't know if i will ever look at dandelions the same way.            

       

from one single flower....

or to a whole field of them...

they will always be beautiful to me and

have a special spot in my heart

and my garden

history 101 #1

since there is so much history to this area, i thought that i would try to include any  history i can to the pictures and places i post about. 

it helps to appreciate a person or a place if you know how it came to be.

yesterday, we went for a drive in the park and ended up at leigh lake.

it had just started to sprinkle when we got there.
the mosquitos were absolutely horrible.  i could feel them biting me through my clothes.


leigh lake sits up close to the mountains and is filled by a glacier on mount moran that sends it's meltwater into the lake.

you can picnic and swim from it's sandy beaches and there are cutthroat trout you can fish for.

leigh lake was named for a jackson hole guide and explorer named beaver dick leigh.  i am assuming his given name was dick leigh and he was given just the nickname beaver because he trapped for beaver.   otherwise,  i gues someone didn't like him very much to give him a name like that.

there were people in canoes, kayaks, and paddleboards enjoying the lake.

there is an easy trail that winds around the lake. 

i guess hard work agrees with john. 

he has lost a pant size since he started work. 

 wish i could say the same thing.

wiley e coyote

this afternoon, we saw a coyote in the field by the side of the road.

i don't know what he was after.

i wasn't able to get him on the pounce, but he thoroughly enjoyed whatever it was.

he seemed to be limping, but it wasn't until i looked at the pictures that i saw how terrible his tail was.

it's all bushy on the top and completely bald on the end.

FINALLY!!!

on our way back from yellowstone, we came upon a huge pile of traffic.  we see alot of jams due to the animals, but this was so big that we figured it was some kind of traffic accident.  i didn't think to take a picture of the mess because we were concentrating what was going on ahead of us.

there had to have been at least 50 cars, trucks and tour buses.  probably more.

when we finally got up to where the majority of the congestion was, we noticed everyone was focusing on the field next to the road.  between that and all the people running around like crazy fools and crossing in front of cars and almost getting run over, we realized that is was an animal.

and that animal was a ....

BEAR!!!

it was out in the field quite a bit away from the road and it actually was too far away to really even say that we saw one, but i had to take pictures of it anyway.

see that small brown speck in the middle of the picture?

that is a bear

hopefully, the next bear pictures are better than this.

hopefully, there is a next time to get bear pictures.

thar she blows!

sunday, on a spur of the moment, we decided to take a drive up to yellowstone.
it was already noon when we started out and we had to be back in time for the laker game, so we figured we would drive as far as possible leaving enough time to get home.

about 40 miles into the drive, we were stopped at road construction for about 20 minutes.   we couldn't complain as we had a great view of jackson lake and the mountains behind.

the flagger advised us that a bear had been thru earlier in the day.  everytime we get in the truck i hope we will see a bear and again we missed one.

it is a nice peaceful drive and we were surprised that even tho it was a weekend in tourist season, we pretty much had the road to ourselves.  again, we did not complain a bit.  there was still quite a bit of snow also.

once we got into yellowstone park, we noticed alot of the trees are dead.  we assumed it is the bark beetle and forgot to ask once we got to the visitor's center.

the view of yellowstone lake is beautiful. 

we arrived at the old faithful area just in time to grab a horrible and expensive hamburger and to find a front row spot at faithful.  we only had to wait about 15 minutes.

when it is not spouting, it just throws out a bit of steam and every once in awhile it spits a bit of water up.  everyone oohs and aahs and grabs their cameras and then feels stupid when it all stops.

eventually, old faithful came through on schedule and sent out a lot of water and steam.  it lasted for a few minutes and then slowly stopped. 

unfortunately, even though we had a front row seat, we were on the wrong side where all we saw was the steam.  if we had moved over a bit, we would have gotten better pictures of the water also.  next time.

between the steam and the overcast skies, it's a bit hard to really see how amazing this is.

on the way home, we saw a herd of elk just hanging out on the side of the road.  the elk in the tetons are pretty jumpy, especially with the truck being so loud.  these guys in yellowstone could care less and even let people get pretty close to them.

it was a pretty good drive up and back.  we made it home by 6:00.  all that rushing just to see the lakers lose.