A visit to Jackson

I have opportunity to travel around the country as a part of my work. I've seen many places that I probably would otherwise never get to see. One of the perks of state-service, at least for me. When I travel, I usually don't have time to see much more than what I can take in during the evenings. Every now and then, I'll have a free afternoon to venture more than a few blocks from the hotel. In either case, I'm grateful for the experience and opportunities to see places that most folks only hear or read about.

Such is the case with Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I spent three days there in early October for a conference. This was the second time I've been to this beautiful spot for a meeting. Stayed at the Snow King resort on the edge of town. It's a small town, which is convenient for the traveler, especially if most of your free time happens to be evenings. It's convenient to hit the downtown area after meeting hours, walk along the boardwalks on either side of the main drag and pop in and out of the shops, looking for something unique.

I love this town and the area that surrounds it. Beautiful country. This trip, due to airline schedules, etc., I ended up with an afternoon free. What's more, I had a rental car, so I took a drive north toward Yellowstone National Park. I didn't go that far north, since there was much to see along the way and I wanted to be back to the hotel before dark.

I found a great little trail to hike about 25 miles north of Jackson. The trail leads to a large cliff face for rock climbers. There weren't any climbers out, so I hiked around the back side and up on top of the rock and out to the edge where it overlooks the valley with the Tetons in the background. It was a great spot for a photo, so I set up the camera, put it on the timer and took a shot of myself. I wanted a second one, without the ridiculous pose, so I sent the camera up again, hurried back to the edge to sit down and waited. Just before the second photo was taken, a gust of wind came up and blew the camera off it's perch. It fell about 4 feet to a small ledge, bounced once, then fell another 10-15 feet into some dirt and rocks. I was able to get a few more pictures out of it after that, but in the end the camera died.

I love looking at the Tetons. I love to anticipate the day when I'll take a full week off of work with my boys and spend the whole week hiking, camping and fishing in and around those mountains.

I was looking for some wildlife, but wasn't finding any. I took a detour off onto a side road and after a couple miles drive, found upwards of 200 to 300 buffalo. Beautiful sight. It almost seems like one could walk right up to one of these beasts, climb aboard and go for a ride.

If I had an extra million lying around...

Black River

Our annual Black River trip took place a couple of weeks ago. Dallas and I were accompanied by two of my brothers, Michael and Russell, two of Michael's boys, Matt and Mason, my dad, a friend, Reuben, and two of his brothers.

The trip was great, as usual. We didn't have as much success in the fishing department as we've had in the past, but we caught enough to have fish for dinner one night. The other night, we cooked up a dutch oven full of potatoes, onions, carrots and hunks of steak.

Mind you, we went to a fair amount of trouble for this meal. We camp at the river's edge, down in the bottom of the canyon. In terms of wilderness, it doesn't get much more remote than this in Arizona. This is "backpack all your stuff in" country, so getting the dutch oven, potatoes, steaks, etc. in means the addition of a lot of extra weight to already heavy packs. But, it's worth it, as you can see from the photos.

The area down in the canyon is beautiful. Very green. Very quite. We rarely see anyone else in the canyon as was the case this trip, so we had the whole thing to ourselves.

Wild turkeys are plentiful, antelope, bighorn sheep, elk, deer... if only we could shoot one and have it for dinner! Now that would be some good eatin'!

Looking forward to 2009!