The Tetons

I ended up spending one more night in Cody. Sunday afternoon I spent some time at the Buffalo Bill Museum and I checked out some of the galleries in town. Before I knew it, enough time had slipped away that it didn't make a lot of sense for me to go down the road looking for a campground. I stayed at the RV park across the street from the motel I stayed at the night before. The extra night also gave me a chance to have my brakes looked at Monday morning. They checked out fine. Must have been some dust or something making them squeak.


The road from Cody to the east entrance of Yellowstone looked a lot like a TV western. Cody was quite a Cowboy town itself. A lot of the guys at the church I visited wore blue jeans and cowboy boots, and when you shook their hands you could tell they used them for more than pushing pencils.


The road kept going up as I approached Yellowstone, and by the time I got there the ground was once again covered with snow.


A bunch of people had stopped to photograph this young grizzly. (If you're wondering why I sometimes capitalize animal names and sometimes not, it's because I don't know if I should or not and I figure if I do it both ways I'll get it right at least part of the time. I never claimed to be a writer. ) It really wasn't very exciting. It just pawed around in the snow and ate grass. Every now and then it would look up and you could hear a bunch of shutters going off. I over heard one guy say the bear was in almost the exact same spot the day before. He said he spent a few hours photographing it then as well. My tendency is to not spend enough time on a subject, but to spend that much time on this subject must be overkill by any standard.


Up the road I found this pair of ravens grooming each other. I think they must have been fed by people before because the came right over by my truck. It was fascinating to watch them. I think it was a sort of pair bonding behavior. They say they're one of the most intelligent birds out there, and I could see that in the way they acted toward each other. I heard nature photographer Rod Planck once say that Ravens were one of his favorite birds. I never understood that until I watched these birds.

This is one of the times I should have spent more time on the subject. I took fare number of photos but it was lunch time and I saw a picnic area up the road so I drove over, availed myself of the facilities, and ate lunch. Of course, by that time the ravens had moved on. Looking at the photos later I realized how good that opportunity had been and how much more I could have done with it. Hopefully I'll remember that in the future.


A little further up the road I saw this large flock of little birds. When I stopped to check them out I had my first lifer in a long time. These are Black Rosy-finches. I wish I could have had more time with these guys too but after a few minutes a Merlin came down and tried to make lunch out of one of them. After that they all flew of together and disappeared over the hill.


The starlings on this guys back were not lifers for me.


The Tetons are just to the south of Yellowstone and the plains around the mountains are low enough in elevation that they were snow free.

At one of the first places I stopped in the Tetons I ran into Ray. He's the guy I met up at Bird Creek in Alaska. He's on a trip very similar to mine. We had been emailing back and forth because we were going to many of the same places and we thought we might run into each other again. It was good to see him again. He even bought me dinner. Thanks again Ray.




The obvious things to photograph in Tetons National Park are the Tetons.


I was blessed with a couple fairly calm mornings so I could get some decent reflection shots in the nice still water.


Another popular subject here for photographers is the historic farm buildings. This is probably one of the most photographed barns in the world.


These are just up the road.


This is also near the barns.


This is in the national forest near adjacent to the park.


While watching some buffalo, I found another lifer. This is a Greater Sage-Grouse. It's possible that I'll be able to find a couple other lifers before I get home but I'm afraid that 600 mark is still going to have to wait till next year.


I found this prairie falcon, on a fence post, eating some other luckless bird.


I think this swan was practicing for a ballet. Swan Lake maybe?

As usual, I felt like I was just getting to know the area but I wanted to press on to Utah.


My route to Utah took me through a corner of Idaho. I could see mountains in the distance but most of the area I drove through was rolling farm land.


These were taken near my campsite in Idaho. It was good to see some trees with something other than yellow leaves for a change. It was also nice to get into some warmer temperatures. I actually fell asleep to the sound of crickets. I slept great too. Very nice.

That was last night. I drove into Utah this morning and I stopped at a wildlife refuge where I saw a lot of good birds the last time I was here. However this time of year isn't the best for that refuge. I got a few photos but nothing to write home about.


This is my favorite photo from the refuge but it's way out of focus. It's another one of those "mistakes" that turned out kind of cool. A hawk flew in just as I was about to take a picture of these redwing blackbirds and they exploded into flight. No time to worry about focus so I just crossed my fingers and pushed the shutter release. I didn't literally cross my fingers. That would have taken too much time, and it would have made it hard to push the shutter release button. I only used the phrase "crossed my fingers" as a figure of speech, meaning that I hoped for a good outcome, even though such an outcome was quite improbable.

The dry-out in Cody and the warmer/drier weather since then have really helped my attitude. My sister (or was that my brother-in-law) also helped by reminding me what that wise philosopher from Byron Center said so many months ago. I have since redouble my adventurous efforts against the insidious forces of comfort, and I am determined to prevail. Now I wonder if I've planned enough time for Utah. I was thinking that one week in the Moab area would do it for me, but I don't know anymore. I'll have to see how it goes. I might just be delayed in getting to Colorado. I Hope that's OK with my Colorado friends and relatives. I'll do my best to keep you up to date.

I'm now at an RV park near Provo. It looks like we should get another mild night and I could get another good night of sleep as long as the guy across the street, next to the airport, across from the rock guitarist, stops torturing his poor cattle. No wonder this place was so reasonably priced. If I don't mention it in my next post, you know it went alright. Take care till then.

Steve