I’m home now. Re-entry into the ‘atmosphere’ of Connecticut is always difficult for me. It’s late at night. We had a long day of travel. It’s hot, humid and raining here. It was warm, sunny and dry in Wyoming today. The first few days there we had some pretty funky weather; it was cool to cold, drizzling one minute and sunny the next, often windy and quite cloudy. However, the last two days have been the summer weather that I am used to. You awaken to crystal blue skies and bright sunshine. The kind of weather that makes you want to jump out of bed in the morning.

I had a lovely time there. In total we had 4 full days and 2 partial days. One of those full days was spent getting the boys off to camp. It was nice spending the time with Lorraine, who was a friend, but we hadn’t spent too much time together before. We certainly know each other a whole lot better, and I thought we co-habitated pretty well. It didn’t bother her when I stayed up until 1:30 a.m. most nights puttering around with q project or baking something, and it didn’t bother me a bit when she headed off to bed to read around 10:00 most nights. I did put her to work one night pitting cherries and shredding a roast for pulled BBQ, but other than that I pretty much left her alone. Without a family to feed, I got to cook whatever I felt like. I made a delicious nectarine frangipane tart, a roast that was wrapped in tightly in heavy butcher paper and cooked at a very low temperature for 12 hours that came out perfect. I had lorraine shred that up and poured barbecue sauce over it. We had BBQ beef sandwiches on the plane today, and the rest I froze for our next trip out there in July. I also made some really easy fresh cherry turnovers that were crazy delicious. I threw together some hummus for the plane last night as well, and Lorraine said I should start selling that at Free Range Friday’s it was so good.


I had fun showing her the sights in and around Jackson, and she was patient with me running errands and visiting friends and horses. I did, finally, go riding on Tuesday. Although we’d visited her several times before then, it great to get Jive saddled up and see how her leg was after the terrible injury she’d sustained this winter. I didn’t work her hard, but there wasn’t any lameness much to my relief.



The wildlife cooperated for the most part, with several moose sightings, a few elk, lots of bison, trumpeter swans and lots of beautiful birds. No bear though.

As part-time tour guide I took Lorraine to see the town of Kelly. While we were there I showed her the old Teton Valley Ranch Camp property. There was a terrific herd of longhorn cows in Kelly and a lot of them had young calfs. We spent a lot of time there admiring and photographing them. She loved mormon Row and it’s spectacular scenery. We hiked up to Phelp’s Lake yesterday after I went riding. It was a lovely time of day to hike there, with the evening light sparkling off of the rushing river.




And we ate at places like Nora’s Fish Creek Inn in Wilson and The Sweetwater Cafe in Jackson. Mandatory eating spots for any visitor.

As always, I feel the tug like a Push-Me-Pull-You in a Dr. Doolittle book; it’s wonderful to see the horses and ride and it always makes me realize how much I miss it when I can’t be there, but my animals at home miss me and are never cared for quite as well as when I am there.

It was a great trip and a very much needed break after the crazy hectic time the end-of-school-year always seems to be. I feel like I’ve re-charged my battery a bit now and am ready to tackle summer. And I come home feeling like I’ve made a new good friend, which is always a nice feeling.

It has been fun being in Wyoming with somebody that has never been here before. To see it through the eyes of a newcomer.

We arrived on Friday late in the afternoon. As you begin your descent into Wyoming we saw some beautiful, snow-covered mountains. Then the plane does a sharp bank and the Grand Tetons are right there in front of you. That sight has never, even 16 years later, failed to bring tears to my eyes.


Even silly little things that I don’t even notice anymore, like the elk arches as you enter the airport, are exciting to somebody that has never seen them before.


After a quick stop at the town hall to register the expired registration on my pickup truck, we did the obligatory stop at Yippy-I-O Candy Co. I knew I would be cutting it close getting to the town hall before they closed for the weekend, so I called them from the Denver airport to see what their hours were. I got a message machine and left a message. Lorraine asked me if I really expected to be called back. I said I did. Sure enough, about 5 minutes later they did call me back, and they didn’t just call once; I didn’t hear it ring the first time so they called me back again! That, in a million years, wouldn’t happen with the Connecticut DMV.


You couldn’t imagine my surprise when we pulled up to the restaurant I’d made reservations at and across the street the old sheep herder’s wagon that had sat at Puzzleface Ranch forever was now in the front yard of a cowboy antique store. I came so close to buying it on more than one occasion as a guest house for our yard here. It still looked exactly the same, down to the quilt that my friend Melinda had on it when she sold it.


The boys posed in front of the stuffed elk on the square.


and we all went home and crashed into bed. It had been a very long day.

In the morning we went for the mandatory breakfast at Norah’s Fish Creek Inn in Wilson where Evan fueled up on a chili omelette before the journey up to camp for the month. I always seem to run into somebody I know there, and this time was no different, running into our real estate agent. The moose that had so kindly appeared for Lorraine and James the night before as we were heading home for dinner, once again showed his face to send James and Evan off to camp.


Although it was quite cloudy, the drive through Teton National Park on the way to Dubois is still quite stunning with the Tetons so close.


There is one particular spot that, in the peak of the summer, can be covered with hundreds and hundreds of bison. That day there was only a small herd, but it was still exciting for Lorraine and James, who had never seen wild bison before.



But I don’t think anything could have prepared Lorraine, or me for that matter, for the amount of snow that was still up on Togwotee Pass. I think Lorraine, who was already extremely anxious at the thought of dropping her boy off in Wyoming for a month, was just about to have a heart attack.



It was pretty incredible to think that it was June 18th and there was still that much snow on the ground. It wasn’t just in spots up there, it was covered in snow, and lots of it. Even the ponds and lakes up there were still frozen solid.

Thankfully, as we started our decent down the pass the snow turned into patches of snow, and by the time we got to the turn for Teton Valley Ranch Camp there was no snow to be found anywhere but patches still up in the mountains above.
We got the boys checked, made their beds, showed James and Lorraine around and had some lunch. It’s pretty hard to imagine any swimming in Lake LeBotto with the weather they are having right now.


One last photo down at the barn, some hugs and kisses but surprisingly no tears by any of us, and we were off for our journey back to Jackson, leaving our boys for a month of fun and adventure in the wilderness of Wyoming.