Summer Started Early, With A Quick Trip to Big Wonderful

As some of you may know, we were lucky to have a house guest stay with us from March through May.  Sweet Ciu-Yan (Yen), an assistant teacher in the boys Chinese language immersion program, stayed in our extra guest room, and what a treat it was to have her.  I don't think I did a single load of dishes the whole time she was here, and we all feel like she became a part of our family -- just a very good, delightful, sweet person. It was a nice reminder that people are people, no matter what their government may do or not do.  She loves her mom and dad, who work very hard to provide her with great experiences in her life, and who have raised her to be kind, well-mannered, thoughtful and giving.

For visa reasons, Yen had to leave us within seven days of the end of school, so we decided to start our summer vacation a little early (over an extended Memorial Day), in order to take her on a quick trip to Wyoming's Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks. 

It was so fun to see it again for the first time through her eyes -- the oohs and aahs and big smiles she gave reminded us how special it is to live in Salt Lake, just a five-hour drive from these great places.  Her first "ooh" came as we rounded the corner and saw the Tetons, which never fail to take your breath away.  Here is Yen with Kate, standing in front of those granite knife-thrusts to the sky.

As you can see, the snow was still heavy in some of the higher elevations. Nowhere was that more evident than from the shores of Jenny Lake, which I managed to fall into while trying to take the photo below. (No damage to the D-800 - whew!)

As I attempted to dry off in the sun near the lake shore, the little fella below hauled up on a rock next to me, and just sprawled right on out, like he wanted some company. We sat together for about 10 minutes.  I think he felt sorry for me, and was trying to show me the proper method for relaxing on the shore.

There is a reason my friend Fred Greener refers to the great state of Wyoming as "the Big Wonderful." (He also calls it the Big Windy, but that is another story entirely).   The scenery is grand and wild and quintessential west, but also filled with these intimate little moments, if you take the time to just be in the place, slow down, and see what lies around you.

That is one big reason I love my camera.  While it may seem that putting a lens and eyepiece between you and a place removes you from the experience, for me it has the opposite effect. I stop and try to look at everything, intensely engaged in every slant of light, nuance of color and drift of breeze.  I never feel more alive than in a place like this, eye glued to my viewfinder, looking at every last little detail for that one moment when I push the magic button and freeze it forever.

It is that act of freezing that I love most.  Memory is slippery and malleable, clay on a potter's wheel, water and movement and time and force shifting it this way and that, until that moment when, like an oven flash-baking at a thousand degrees, a camera stops it in its tracks, holding a little fragment of your experience in place and saying, "this was here, it was a moment in your life."

And just like that, the magic happens -- the smells, the temperature, the feeling of the breeze on your face, the emotions, and the sounds, like the laughter of boys throwing rocks as far as they can into a river, all come rushing back, even decades later.  That is why pictures are more precious than gold for me, and why I am so intensely engaged with a camera to my face.

Here are a few more of those frozen moments from the day plus we spent in Teton National Park:

After too short a time in the Tetons, we headed to that first of all national parks, Yellowstone.

We began our time there with a stop at Yellowstone Lake, which was still ice covered, as you can see from the above.  It was warm enough for a picnic though:

Keegan is always the most creative goofball.  It is so fun to have him around!

Here are a few more pics from in and around the lake:

You can see that near the thermal features, the ice has melted away, but ice still prevailed further from the shore.  The far side of this lake is cold, wild high country, and I doubt it has changed much in millennia. One of the truly wild places left in our country.

Despite our many visits here over the past several years, I am continually astounded that varying heat levels and microbes can interact with light to create such an amazing palette of color.

Aldy, Keegan and their mom checking out some paint pots along the lake.

Other sites we explored as we drove further into the park included the aptly named Dragon's mouth, and nearby Black Dragon's Cauldron (the lake and surrounding area behind Keegan below), which literally exploded into life relatively recently (1948), taking out trees and forest in large swaths.

We continued on to some more iconic Yellowstone features, including the stunning Yellowstone Falls.

Yen loved it, scrambling up to take pictures in places that made me nervous. Thankfully, she survived, and her enthusiasm made the iconic new again for me. It is an amazing sight.

Next up was a drive through the Hayden Valley, where this scene greeted us:

Thanks to a very friendly couple with a camper and an awesome spotting scope, we also watched a grizzly grubbing around just down the road from this spot, but he was too far away for any photo.  Yen did get to see him, and her wildlife-seen list kept growing (eagles, bison, moose, elk mother and freshly born calf, deer of course, and a grizzly, by this point). She was ecstatic over this truly American experience.

We also stopped by the Norris Geyser Basin as the day wound down, a place I had never really visited, and were witness to a fantastic rainbow, that doubled up before we were done.

The day finished out with a lovely sunset over lush wet fields.  All told, not a bad first day introduction for Yen to this wild and unique place.  But we were just getting started.  The next day brought wildlife and geysers galore.  Here is a sample of the wildlife we saw:

I call this one "Fred's Dream Retirement."

There were so many baby buffalo it was hard to count them all. 

They are pretty cute at this age. The tiny little horns just made me laugh.

 Found a coyote prowling around the Madison river. At first we hoped it was a  wolf, but no such luck.

This Osprey had plenty of luck, however. I think even Fred could learn a thing or two about fishing from this guy.  

Animals were not the only thing in abundance, however. We also hit the Upper Geyser Basin for Old Faithful and the many geologic wonders that surround it. Here are some photos of those moments:

Family waiting on old faithful, wondering "what if we are the first ones to see it not go off?"

Old Faithful living up to her name, and putting that concern to rest.

Boys on the amazing boardwalk hike around the basin.

Some of the many thermal features we saw from that boardwalk.

Aldy was a great hiker -- looking pretty chic here.

Boys looking back towards Old Faithful Lodge from the boardwalk trail.

Alden and Kate at Castle Geyser, which we saw erupt from a distance.

The other Old Faithful, aka Riverside Geyser, which always seems to go off when we need it to.  Yen loved it.  

(Wish I could say that Keegan was taking the photo above, but no -- for some reason, he did NOT want to be photographed here, and is off screen, arms folded, pouting.  I guess not all frozen memories are good ones . . .  Oh well, such is life.)

From there, we headed out to see the Grand Prismatic Spring, in the Midway Geyser Basin, a photo of which opened this post.  Here are a couple of other photos to close the post out, as we left the park for home shortly after seeing it.

 Here's to Wyoming! Big Wonderful indeed.