Big Wonderful West

Once in a while I have an idea that is so good I could disjoint both shoulers from patting myself on the back. Such was the idea of a week in Yellowstone and Grand Tetons Park with my two daughters. None of us had ever been there. We spent every day feeling wonderful about what we were seeing and doing. Beautiful scenery, all kinds of wonderful animals from the tiny prarrie dog near our Yellowstone cabin that we saw the first night there to the bison grazing on the other side of the drive the last morning. We even saw a gray wolf lopeing along the edge of a meadow, and I had been sure we would see no wolves. Plus black bears, elk, deer, badgers, beavers and more

In the Grand Tetons the line from our guidebook was totally true: not the tallest or biggest mountains in the US but the most perfectly scenic. Sometimes in pictures they are so perfect they look like painted backdrops. As in the photo above. Leslie has had a moose fetish for years and we were getting discouraged the when we hadn't seen one our last full day -- until we were headed to a bar called The Mangey Moose and actually saw one, and then a second along a road we hadn't taken before.

For Rachel there was a wish for 4th of July fireworks that she hadn't seen for some years -- we had a wonderful display in Jackson where we stayed. Far bigger display than I expected!

We all are early risers and good walkers so we had wonderful early morning walks and missed the crowds -- most of whom don't walk much at all. We also had evening walks -- and in both cases had to use bug repellent lavishly. A trade off but the plus was worth it. More another day, I'm a little too tired to be more coherent tonight.