Jackson Hole!

"Travel becomes a strategy for accumulating photographs."

~Susan Sontag

Prior to my trip to South Dakota and beyond, I had never been to Wyoming. Crazy since it's one of Utah's five neighbors (six, if you count New Mexico's corner meeting up at Four Corners - a place I'd like to go someday) and I've been here a little while now. So less than two weeks after returning from the South Dakota trip, KDJ and I went on my ward trip to Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

Wyoming, twice in one month!

On our way, we saw these huge beautiful clouds. Pretty quickly when we saw the gray smoke, we realized they were plumes of smoke coming from a nearby forest fire. We stopped to take pictures because the view was unlike any I'd ever seen. It was getting worse by the second. I said a silent prayer for those firefighters and prayed that no homes were being destroyed. It was just so big and it seemed so close.

As we continued on to Jackson, we were winding further and further away from the fire, until we couldn't see it at all. We spent two days/nights in Jackson. We wandered around downtown.

We couldn't pass up the opportunity to pose in front of the antler arch.

We hung out at the pool at our resort, The Snow King Resort, and played cards. (No pictures of that.) We also went to dinner as a ward at Bar J Chuckwagon in Wilson, WY. It's a western supper and music show, taking you back to the Old West with ribs and beans for dinner and authentic cowboy entertainment.

One of my favorite things to do is take a ski lift up a mountain during the summer. So we took the scenic chair lift up the mountain.

The views from the top were stunning.

Can you see why I like scenic chair lift rides?

On our last day in Jackson, we drove north a bit toward the Tetons and to try to see some bison. Although KDJ refused to let me drive down a narrow dirt road to get an up close and personal photo with the buffs, we were lucky to get some good views of both the mountain range and my buffs... from afar.

This trip made me realize a few things. 1-Don't rely on your cell phone camera to take great scenic shots or they'll be a little blurry. 2-Jackson is actually really fun and relaxing. 3- My car gets excellent gas mileage 4-Yellowstone National Park is really not that far and I should go. Next time, I'd really would like to go all the way north and see Old Faithful!

(Written July 14, 2013)
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