Whirlwind Trip

CountryBoy had four days off over the Fourth of July holiday weekend so we headed north for some cooler temperatures (it's been triple digit weather here for a couple of weeks) and the Teton Mountains.

We left the southernmost part of Nevada early on the fourth and headed for the central part of Wyoming, about a 13 - 14 hour trip.

We saw some beautiful scenery in Utah...

  

and in Wyoming...

What a beautiful location for a farm!

We wound through the countryside on two lane roads absorbing the various shades of green, the trees, the rolling hills and tree-covered mountains, the crops being grown.  All things we haven't seen in months.  We wondered about the remote lifestyle the people that reside out here must live as there are no major towns or cities within hundreds of miles... where do they shop? buy groceries, toiletries, feed, fuel, etc.?  So different than back east where there are towns, shopping and gas stations almost every time you turn around.

We even came upon a farmer herding probably a thousand head of sheep along the road...

If you look close, you can see the sheep along the curve in the road in the above photo.

There were A LOT of sheep all baaaaing and pooping along the road.

I rolled my window down so we could hear them.  Well, little Miss LizzieBelle wasn't too thrilled with the sheep.  She was sitting on my lap and growling at them!  Hmmm, maybe she'd make a good little sheep herder, ha!

After crossing over the Snake River we made a right hand turn and followed it for a good bit of the way...

Water, trees, mountains all in one area.  We loved it!

We made it to Jackson Hole, Wyoming by early evening.  Being the Fourth of July, the town was packed.  People and cars everywhere.  We hadn't seen that many people all day!

We managed to find an available room at The Lexington...

(I think it was available because it was a tad pricy.  But, the room was nice, more like an apartment with a kitchen, a full size fridge and a very comfy bed.  Breakfast was even good!)

We were too tired to stay up and watch the fireworks so after a nice stroll to stretch our legs we headed back to the hotel to get rested up to view the Tetons in the morning.

After a good night's rest and a nice, hot breakfast at the hotel we checked out the town (while it wasn't so crowded!).

Jackson Hole has a town square in the center of town and at each of the four corners are archways made out of elk antlers...

These arches have graced the corners of the square since 1960.  (There's also a $750 fine for removing any of the antlers from these arches, yikes!)

I did not realize that the bulls shed their antlers each spring.  I thought it would take a couple of years, at least, to grow antlers that large but apparently they grow rather quickly.

Here's a closeup of one of the arches.  I imagine it took some time to create the arches to get such a fairly smooth arch.

While walking through town the wooden Teton Theater box office caught my eye...

It was built in 1941.  I'm not sure if it's still in use but the marquis listed a number to call for movie info so maybe!

After our walk around town we crawled back in the Jeep and headed for the Tetons.

Tomorrow I will show you the Tetons and Teton National Park.  Stay tuned!

Till next time,