Our Wyoming Adventure & Picspam!
May. 28th, 2011 12:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jedishampooI close on my first home on Tuesday-- but first I took my mom on her promised "post-chemo Yellowstone adventure!" We just got back Thursday night at 11 p.m., so I've been recovering since then.
Wyoming is very pretty. Very elevated. And very cold, at least compared to here. We were prepared for cold but not all the snow! And not for the towns to be quite so small, though everyone was extremely friendly. :)
We flew into Cody (elevation 6000+, population 8000 or so) on a connection flight in very small and very loud plane. I was excited to see Cody because I am fascinated by the history of Buffalo Bill Cody and his Wild West Show, Annie Oakley and Chief Sitting Bull and all. For a while, Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley were the most famous people in the world, taking their show all over Europe. They represented the first real American pop culture; Queen Victoria was a total squeeing fangirl. (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
liete, if this gives you a clue as to what I was thinking...)
Anyway, Cody has a Buffalo Bill Historical Center with five museums. One of them was a gun museum that was surprisingly fascinating. (Surprisingly because I'm not a gun fancier.) They had thousands of guns, many of them huge, many fancy, many pristine antiques, some of them five hundred years old. You can see some pictures here--
Fancy old guns:
Guns as long as I am tall (and I'm nearly 6'):
Mom and a massive Gatling Gun:
Here we are in front of the Historical Center's statue of Buffalo Bill. A couple of very cute French guys touring the US squeed at our Cincinnati Reds gear (turned out they'd been at the same game we had on May 15) and took our picture:
In Cody, we soon discovered that the east entrance to Yellowstone park, through which we'd intended to drive the next day, was closed because of avalanche. Apparently the mountains have gotten a lot of late, heavy snow this year. I was a little stressed over that, because I'm a slightly nervous mountain driver and a more nervous snow driver; plus, we wondered how the heck we were going to get to our hotel in Yellowstone. But then the good news: the mountain pass just inside the entrance would be open 6 a.m. to 10 a.m., because they'd deemed it was mostly safe in the morning hours and the snow would remain frozen. Very calming! Anyway, we took off from Cody at 7 a.m. and made it very cautiously through the avalanche zone by 8:30 or so. Trust me that it definitely looked like an avalanche zone; snowy slopes thousands of feet high, pointing down to the road. They'd plowed a road through snow ten feet deep already! Needless to say, I didn't stop for pictures until we'd reached Yellowstone Lake, still very frozen this time of year:
And then for bison, grazing peacefully far away:
Little did I know, most of the bison we saw were to be up-close and personal: they use the roads in the park, same as everyone. And they totally have the right-of-way, because (a) it's their park, after all, and (b) many of them are bigger than my car. I never did take pictures of the bison that walked within a couple of feet of our car, because I was mostly concerned with getting the heck past them without any closer encounters. We also saw many elk, some moose, some ground squirrels, marmots, stuff like that. Oh, and a chewed-up and dead bison along one of the park's boardwalks; I didn't take a picture of that, either, moving along quickly in anticipation that whatever had killed the bison would come back. We never did see bears, though we were told many times that "there's a grizz just over that hill."
We also saw falls, like the upper falls of the Yellowstone:
And the lower falls (it's so easy to take "postcard-worthy pictures" in that place-- it's beautiful):
We stayed in a cute little cabin in Mammoth Hot Springs, which is also very cool. Here you can see the top of one of the hot-spring terraces, looking down on Mammoth the village:
We drove across the border to the very unpretentious western town Gardiner, Montana, just to say we'd been in Montana, and ate some fantastic pizza. And saw Old Faithful (mom has those pictures) and lots and lots and lots of geysers and hot springs. I made my poor mom walk three miles through the 7000-ft elevation "Valley of the Geysers" (my name for it) to see Morning Glory pool:
Apparently the blue and yellow used to be much brighter, but idiots throughout the years have tossed stuff in the hot-spring (coins, rocks, logsWTF?) and have clogged the vents, lowering the temperature of the water. Very sad! Anyway, we saw lots of geysers, and got to see Old Faithful erupt three times. And it was never boring.
We saw some bubbling, reddish, mud geysers that looked like paint-pots. Here's me doing some sort of model-pose next to one of those:
And we'd planned to see even more geysers the next day on our way out of the park and down towards the Grand Teton National Park, like the Grand Prismatic Spring and whatnot, but guess what? It was snowing the next morning, and they'd closed several roads through the park because the mountain passes were too snowy. Crap! So the rangers found me a route that was still open and we took it down and out of the park. I don't remember much of the drive, because it was snowy, steep, foggy, and cold, and I was a bit of a nervous wreck. But after a couple of hours we finally made it out of the park and down to Grand Teton National Park.
Unfortunately, we couldn't see the famous Tetons themselves, because all was cloud and fog and snow:
Though we did eat lunch at the Jackson Lake Lodge, a somewhat posh place that nevertheless had a fantastic diner lunch menu. I had some sort of curried potato-pea-onion burger on a kaiser roll with green-onion sauce and french fries and OMG. Mostly what I remember of the Tetons was the food.
We made it to Jackson Hole, Wyoming (I loved thinking of "Jackson Whole," for all you Vorkosigan fans), elevation 6600, population 8000 or so. Jackson is pretty much a ski resort, and a half-posh, half-old-westy town with fantastic shopping. Oh, to have lots of money! As it was, I spent a little money on some very cute jewelry. There were plenty of big, muscular, rugged-looking and totally hot cowboys around town for eye-candy. Think of a place where there are lots of pickups and dirty cowboy boots walking alongside restaurants and shops whose names are all in lowercase and with magazine descriptions that don't tell what they carry or actually serve, but which are poems describing the particular mood of luxury that you will feel upon entering. Jackson is that kind of mixed-up place. They do have amazing restaurants, though, and an elk-antler archway in their town square (note that the antlers fall off naturally, and are not from dead elk; elk are protected):
Oh, and we did stop shopping for a bit to drive back into the Grand Tetons Park the next day when it was sunny, just so we could see the darned mountains:
It was snowing in Jackson again the day we left, and so we were glad to get on the plane and to get back home. And here we are! Next, soon, you will all see pictures of my house and the absolutely crazy paint-job the previous owners have given it. ♥ Thanks for looking!
Wyoming is very pretty. Very elevated. And very cold, at least compared to here. We were prepared for cold but not all the snow! And not for the towns to be quite so small, though everyone was extremely friendly. :)
We flew into Cody (elevation 6000+, population 8000 or so) on a connection flight in very small and very loud plane. I was excited to see Cody because I am fascinated by the history of Buffalo Bill Cody and his Wild West Show, Annie Oakley and Chief Sitting Bull and all. For a while, Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley were the most famous people in the world, taking their show all over Europe. They represented the first real American pop culture; Queen Victoria was a total squeeing fangirl. (
liete, if this gives you a clue as to what I was thinking...) Anyway, Cody has a Buffalo Bill Historical Center with five museums. One of them was a gun museum that was surprisingly fascinating. (Surprisingly because I'm not a gun fancier.) They had thousands of guns, many of them huge, many fancy, many pristine antiques, some of them five hundred years old. You can see some pictures here--
Fancy old guns:
Guns as long as I am tall (and I'm nearly 6'):
Mom and a massive Gatling Gun:
Here we are in front of the Historical Center's statue of Buffalo Bill. A couple of very cute French guys touring the US squeed at our Cincinnati Reds gear (turned out they'd been at the same game we had on May 15) and took our picture:
In Cody, we soon discovered that the east entrance to Yellowstone park, through which we'd intended to drive the next day, was closed because of avalanche. Apparently the mountains have gotten a lot of late, heavy snow this year. I was a little stressed over that, because I'm a slightly nervous mountain driver and a more nervous snow driver; plus, we wondered how the heck we were going to get to our hotel in Yellowstone. But then the good news: the mountain pass just inside the entrance would be open 6 a.m. to 10 a.m., because they'd deemed it was mostly safe in the morning hours and the snow would remain frozen. Very calming! Anyway, we took off from Cody at 7 a.m. and made it very cautiously through the avalanche zone by 8:30 or so. Trust me that it definitely looked like an avalanche zone; snowy slopes thousands of feet high, pointing down to the road. They'd plowed a road through snow ten feet deep already! Needless to say, I didn't stop for pictures until we'd reached Yellowstone Lake, still very frozen this time of year:
And then for bison, grazing peacefully far away:
Little did I know, most of the bison we saw were to be up-close and personal: they use the roads in the park, same as everyone. And they totally have the right-of-way, because (a) it's their park, after all, and (b) many of them are bigger than my car. I never did take pictures of the bison that walked within a couple of feet of our car, because I was mostly concerned with getting the heck past them without any closer encounters. We also saw many elk, some moose, some ground squirrels, marmots, stuff like that. Oh, and a chewed-up and dead bison along one of the park's boardwalks; I didn't take a picture of that, either, moving along quickly in anticipation that whatever had killed the bison would come back. We never did see bears, though we were told many times that "there's a grizz just over that hill."
We also saw falls, like the upper falls of the Yellowstone:
And the lower falls (it's so easy to take "postcard-worthy pictures" in that place-- it's beautiful):
We stayed in a cute little cabin in Mammoth Hot Springs, which is also very cool. Here you can see the top of one of the hot-spring terraces, looking down on Mammoth the village:
We drove across the border to the very unpretentious western town Gardiner, Montana, just to say we'd been in Montana, and ate some fantastic pizza. And saw Old Faithful (mom has those pictures) and lots and lots and lots of geysers and hot springs. I made my poor mom walk three miles through the 7000-ft elevation "Valley of the Geysers" (my name for it) to see Morning Glory pool:
Apparently the blue and yellow used to be much brighter, but idiots throughout the years have tossed stuff in the hot-spring (coins, rocks, logsWTF?) and have clogged the vents, lowering the temperature of the water. Very sad! Anyway, we saw lots of geysers, and got to see Old Faithful erupt three times. And it was never boring.
We saw some bubbling, reddish, mud geysers that looked like paint-pots. Here's me doing some sort of model-pose next to one of those:
And we'd planned to see even more geysers the next day on our way out of the park and down towards the Grand Teton National Park, like the Grand Prismatic Spring and whatnot, but guess what? It was snowing the next morning, and they'd closed several roads through the park because the mountain passes were too snowy. Crap! So the rangers found me a route that was still open and we took it down and out of the park. I don't remember much of the drive, because it was snowy, steep, foggy, and cold, and I was a bit of a nervous wreck. But after a couple of hours we finally made it out of the park and down to Grand Teton National Park.
Unfortunately, we couldn't see the famous Tetons themselves, because all was cloud and fog and snow:
Though we did eat lunch at the Jackson Lake Lodge, a somewhat posh place that nevertheless had a fantastic diner lunch menu. I had some sort of curried potato-pea-onion burger on a kaiser roll with green-onion sauce and french fries and OMG. Mostly what I remember of the Tetons was the food.
We made it to Jackson Hole, Wyoming (I loved thinking of "Jackson Whole," for all you Vorkosigan fans), elevation 6600, population 8000 or so. Jackson is pretty much a ski resort, and a half-posh, half-old-westy town with fantastic shopping. Oh, to have lots of money! As it was, I spent a little money on some very cute jewelry. There were plenty of big, muscular, rugged-looking and totally hot cowboys around town for eye-candy. Think of a place where there are lots of pickups and dirty cowboy boots walking alongside restaurants and shops whose names are all in lowercase and with magazine descriptions that don't tell what they carry or actually serve, but which are poems describing the particular mood of luxury that you will feel upon entering. Jackson is that kind of mixed-up place. They do have amazing restaurants, though, and an elk-antler archway in their town square (note that the antlers fall off naturally, and are not from dead elk; elk are protected):
Oh, and we did stop shopping for a bit to drive back into the Grand Tetons Park the next day when it was sunny, just so we could see the darned mountains:
It was snowing in Jackson again the day we left, and so we were glad to get on the plane and to get back home. And here we are! Next, soon, you will all see pictures of my house and the absolutely crazy paint-job the previous owners have given it. ♥ Thanks for looking!
