Eve Turek's Natural Outer Banks Weblog

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EVE TUREK'S NATURAL OUTER BANKS

Monday, December 19, 2022

Western Travelogue Part 1 - Wyoming

I usually confine my blogs to the Outer Banks and surrounds—an easy decision, since Pete’s and my last real vacation was eight years ago, in 2014, to Florida. The fact that we had been unable to travel partly explains my decisions to go further afield when I had the chance to do just that this fall. Throw in seeing two grandsons who moved west years ago, revisiting some spots Pete and I went to in 2011, as well as some places we never managed to see, and you will see how this trip west was a boon to my (ever) aching heart. I followed that road trip with a lifetime dream trip, a photo safari to South Africa, in November.

I’ll share the western road trip first, in three parts. Fellow photographer Tish Underwood and her husband Jerry, who live in Virginia, love the American western landscape, as I do. They have been numerous times and have favorite spots and routes all through the west. I was fortunate enough to be able to travel with them right as the autumn aspen reached their peak color. We barreled west, Tish doing all the driving for three long days, in order to reach Jackson, WY late on our third day on the road. I first experienced Yellowstone and the Tetons years before Pete and I married, back in 1993 with my artist friend Judith Bailey. Pete and I talked about going “someday” but never made it there. That landscape caught my heart 29 years ago with its combination of vastness and wildlife. Although Tish and I were there at a similar time, we did not see the big herds of elk or bison I was expecting. Our glimpses were mostly that, individuals or small family groups. The big bull elks had not yet come down into the valleys, as our trip occurred just ahead of the big fall rut. We did see mothers with young elk and single bison grazing near the road, along with herds of pronghorn. Cool mornings gave us dense fog (and a fogbow!) and for most of the three days we were in WY, clouds or fog obscured the tops of the Tetons. But we managed to find vistas and vignettes of beauty nonetheless.

We stayed in Jackson, so the Tetons were only a few minutes’ drive north, and we spent most of our time exploring Grand Teton National Park and its surroundings. We woke up to freezing temperatures one morning and saw that the upper peaks had received an early dusting of snow, sparkling through cloud rifts. We visited iconic spots known for showing reflections of the Tetons; on our first attempts, we had beautiful cloud-filled skies but those same clouds shrouded much of the mountains. I am grateful that our days there were calm, so still water reflected what we could see. A later evening with flat light invited a higher key treatment to showcase the mountains and fir trees, and I let the sky go pale as I overexposed at dusk for what was most important to me, which was the size and grandeur of those magnificent peaks. It is hard to appreciate the scale in small photographs, as the Tetons are massive.

We visited the Chapel of the Transfiguration, a small Episcopal chapel that still holds Sunday services, as well as the Catholic Chapel of the Sacred Heart, and found each one open to the public. Both date back nearly 100 years, and I could feel standing inside the quiet and sanctuary that each has offered to generations of worshippers. We also visited historic Mormon Row, which preserves some of the barns and houses from Mormon settlement in the 1920s, but the church these settlers had built is no longer standing.

We took a short walk partway around Jenny Lake, and Tish’s husband Jerry spotted two young mule deer running and playing together. We never did locate their parents, though other walkers told us they had seen a buck a little further down the trail. Ray Matthews’ son Evan lives across the mountain in Idaho, and he graciously gave us several hours one of the days we were there and took us to some of his favorite spots, including a field where he often spots moose. Sure enough, there were a couple females grazing, and a large bull moose laying in the field. Evan told us that the large bull moose, and other large male ungulates, conserve all the energy they can leading up to the all-important rut and winning (or keeping) their females. We made a few photos there and left him to his rest.

Funny story on me: As we drove into the Jackson area in late afternoon, we spotted a bull moose up ahead, in a clear area and not too far off the road, either! We slowed down to a near stop and I reached for our cameras which were beside me in the back seat. A car passed us headed in the opposite direction and the occupants were looking our way and laughing. That was the moment we realized we were staring at a life-sized bronze statue of a moose! And we laughed at ourselves!! A wonderful wildlife museum was nearby with many beautiful sculptures. Every time we thought of our "close encounter" and the fabulous photo we were a bout to make we would laugh all over again! My only regret is that we did not make a photo of the statue.

We did venture north into Yellowstone for the better part of one day, which is worth a week or more all by itself. One of my hopes was to revisit the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, and we were able to do that. The light was flat, but I kept looking at how the clouds were moving, and we decided to wait near a viewpoint overlooking Lower Falls in hopes that the sun would break through rifts we could see beginning to form in the cloud layers. While waiting, I looked over the railing at the river below and spotted a huge heart-shaped rock formation. I had the joy of pointing out my “heart of the day” to several other folks nearby, including a younger couple.

Our patience and persistence paid off, the light blazed through for brief moments, and the sides of the canyon which geologically contain a lot of sulfur looked as if they were made of molten gold! Choosing to make that stop a priority meant forgoing visits to the main thermal features including the prismatic pool, Old Faithful and Mammoth Hot Springs (saved for a future visit!). We did spot isolated small steam vents as we drove past Yellowstone Lake, and were blessed with a vibrant sunset there before we headed back toward Jackson, a beautiful end to a wonderful day.

We left Wyoming with memories (and memory cards) full, headed for our next stop, the subject of the next blog—the red rock country of Moab, Utah.