Out of the Middle?

Do you have one of these at your house?

I do, and his name is Brian.

On The Way Home...

We always try to drive home from Yellowstone past the Tetons. They are amazingly beautiful. On this particular day they were covered in clouds, but I got this shot of Mt. Moran as we passed through. Bonus: we also saw a moose!

Foggy Falls

The second morning we went looking for wolves, the fog was as thick as pea soup. No vast vistas, no panoramic views, just thick, thick fog. We decided to eat our Cheerios in the car, hoping the fog would lift. It didn't. So we drove up to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, hoping against hope that maybe we would see the falls. Lucky us- the falls were just visible under the fog layer. It made for neat shots.

We were even lucky enough that a kindly stranger took our picture together. See? I really was there!

The Lake

One of my resolutions for this year was to try to improve my landscape photos. Yellowstone was a perfect place to work on this. Here's a shot of Yellowstone Lake where I went all-out, using a tripod and my camera's self-timer.

 It's tough not to get a decent shot with scenery like this!

The Spotter

The last time we went to Yellowstone looking for wolves, Bruce bought himself a spotting scope. Those things really work, especially if you pair it with my nice tripod. We almost looked like we knew what we were doing. We were up and out the door at 5:30 both mornings we were there- we were off to see some wolves! In the back of my mind, I thought the only wolves we would actually see would be these:

Shockingly, Bruce saw 2 real wolves. Well, one of them might have been a branch. But he saw at least one real wolf! We were too far away to get a picture, but it was neat nonetheless. In one day we saw 2 wolves, (or 1 wolf and 1 branch), 3 grizzlies, a mama black bear and her twin cubs, 1 Bighorn sheep, 6 mountain goats, numerous elk, antelope and plenty of these big guys:

All this action was happening in the northeastern corner of the park in the Lamar Valley. It's kind of pretty over there!

It was quite a day! Now Bruce can check "Seeing Wolves in the Wild" off his bucket list.

Sunday Saying

To The Lookout!

One of the coolest things about staying at the Inn was that we saw Old Faithful go off about 5 different times. Since I am a photo freak, taking pictures of white steam against a white cloudy sky wasn't cutting it, so we hiked up to the overlook above the geyser basin.

 Here's one of my favorite sections of the Firehole River.

 It was a wet and drippy sort of day.

 From the overlook you can really see the Lay of the Land.

 There she goes!

 We found this mangy mass of old winter buffalo fur along the trail.

 Yellowstone is an amazing place!

Old Faithful Inn

Way back in March I gave Bruce a Yellowstone wolf-spotting trip for his birthday. We left right after church last week and were there by 5:00. We stayed in the Old Faithful Inn- so cool! The Inn was built in 1904 and is one of the famous Nation Park lodges.

The lobby is 7 stories tall and has an amazing stone fireplace, complete with a craftsman style clock.

The woodwork is made from Lodgepole pine. 4 stories of balconies overlook the lobby and fireplace. There are chairs on all those balconies and since there are no TVs in the rooms and very little internet, everyone gravitates to the lobby to people watch and play card or board games.

Our room was pretty awesome. It was in the oldest part of the hotel.

Our room had a real working radiator for heat!

Bruce thought the floors sloped so he actually moved our bed to the opposite wall, so his head would be higher than his feet. Typical Bruce move. The rooms in our hallway shared bathrooms- one for the ladies, one for the gents, but I never saw anyone else in the ladies bathroom. They were nice too- all new and tiled and spotlessly clean.

The Today show was scheduled to broadcast from the Inn on one of our mornings there. There were semis and miles of cable, spotlights and computers everywhere, inside and out. Everything was set up, down to the anchor chairs.

Then they cancelled to broadcast from Oklahoma City, where the terrible tornadoes had happened. Bruce was sad that he didn't get to see Al Roker.

We loved staying here, (except for the sloping floors), and we already have plans to go again in October!

3 Hours At Lynnleigh

I spent 3 hours taking pictures at a horse show last weekend. Why only 3 hours? That's because the "other" photographer who is paid to come to the shows showed up. There was one time when she didn't show up, so I go down to Lynnleigh Farm, hoping she will have another gig and I can have the place to myself. No such luck this time, but in those 3 hours I managed to get a few nice shots:

Lynnleigh is by far the prettiest place to shoot a horse show, so I will continue to hope on...

Kid Snippets

Have you seen Kids Snippets on The You Tubes? They are so funny. These folks record children acting out a scenario, then film adults acting out the kid's commentary. Hilarious stuff!

The Deck Lesson

Who knew that refinishing the back deck would create so much drama? We didn't. This project involved a lot of sanding:

Staining:

A bit of planking:

And more staining.

Note to self: Do not use oil based stain. It won't soak in. You'll go 2 weeks without being able to walk out your back door. After applying stain remover and doing it the right way, the refinished deck looks great, and feels so smooth!