Another day in paradise!

We had a great week and a better Sunday. We drove south of West Yellowstone into Grand Teton National Park. Just a precursor to a trip to Jackson, WY in August. We did hit rush hour in Yellowstone on the way! Guess who has the right of way! A bit of hiking to the top of Lewis Falls and lots of fabulous looks at the Lewis River leading to the Snake River. The most fun was tracking a young coyote who stalked the elk you see here! He didn't stand a chance at bringing one of these guys down, but we tracked him for a good while and watched him head downwind of the herd until he finally went on down the river! The elk were peacefully grazing until they caught a whiff of the coyote! Up popped the heads!

Here's Woody standing on the Continental Divide at Lake Issa. It is the high point of the continent and one half of Lake Issa drains to the Columbia River to the west and the Pacific, and the other half drains into the Missouri and Mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico/Atlantic! Woody was just totally impressed with the fact that he was standing on the high point of the divide!

We've decided that five months away from home is too long, so look for us to take shorter trips. We miss the kids and grandkids (of course they could come see us!), the breakfast buds and our wonderful neighbors. We also miss shopping at WalMart! It's 89 miles to WalMart and gas here is almost $4.50 a gallon! The tourists are down, but it's still busy. We've had 35 states represented in our customers and about 30 countries...we're playing the license plate game without cars! I am loving the store and our boss...we're just having a blast! Some of the pictures here on the blog are selling as photo cards at Buffalo Trading Company. Several are going out of the country so I'm truly an international photographer! Brenda ordered a photo album to sell and one of my shots is the cover! Guess what you'll all get for Christmas!!!

Woody is sleepy and said we had to sign off for now! Have a blessed week!

Dunraven Pass and Mount Washburn!

Dunraven Pass to Mount Washburn finally opened today! We've now officially made it around the park. A German tourist took our picture at Dunraven Pass. Woody was fascinated with the snow on Mount Washburn. I was fascinated with the eagle and gopher! I'm selling notecards in Buffalo Trading! These should be good additions. We're having such fun. Tomorrow night we're going to see Indiana Jones at our little single screen theater. I swear the theater is no larger than the media room in Mary's show house in Hendersonville last June!

I've just about finished a scarf for Riley...yes, I'm knitting. I'm such a mountain woman now! Photography, knitting, working retail, hiking...wow! We had Father's Day breakfast at Running Bear Pancake House in West Yellowstone. It's our favorite breakfast place. This was West Yellowstone's Centennial weekend and the place was slammed! A little poker tonight but lost a quick $20 bucks! Life is good!

We miss all the family, but this experience has been absolutely incredible. I can't believe the beauty and grandeur!

New Critters in Big Sky, MT

You can not believe the animals we shot today! The longhorn sheep are incredible. They were on our way to Big Sky, Montana. On the way back to West Yellowstone, we saw the coyote. It's hard to see but he (or maybe she) has a raven in his mouth! He pounced in the scrub and came up with his dinner! We also saw a Bald Eagle soaring over a field until a hawk chased him off. The pictures of the eagle are too grainy, etc to upload here so we'll have to keep looking for one up a bit closer. You can not imagine how beautiful this entire area is...we remain amazed daily at how gorgeous the views are. I could truly say that this is the most beautiful place I've been in a lot of years!! We like this every bit as much as the beach...although there is snow in the forecast for tonight..hopefully at the higher elevations!

Big Sky http://www.bigskychamber.com/ is mid way between Bozeman, MT and West Yellowstone, MT. The ski lodge is fabulous and the area has beautiful houses and even more beautiful prices! It must be fun to be rich! Didn't see an RV park anywhere!

Last night we went to see Oklahoma! at the Playmill Theater http://www.playmill.com/ in West Yellowstone. It is a delightful little summer stock theater...the stars were mostly college students but we were royally entertained! They have two more plays this summer so I'm sure we'll go! We ate at the Outpost Restaurant and had lake trout...tasted a lot like salmon...hmmmm. I guess we'll look up lake trout and see what it looks like!

Work is fun...there aren't too many people just yet...so I hope that it picks up as it gets warmer. I'm actually thinking about doing a bit of knitting late in the evening. I'm sure around the 4th of July it will be so busy we can't think! We actually walked around the town on Sunday and had so much fun talking with some of our neighbors. We also had breakfast at Campfire which is a little restaurant on the Madison River...the whitewater was incredible and there were fly fisherman everywhere.

Still doing a bit of work in between the photography and work at Buffalo Trading Company! Hawaii is wrapping up and I'm heading to Overland Park, KS to do a little work with Menorah. With gas over $4 a gallon, we need all the work we can get!!

Hello to all our buds in the Liars Club...and to all our friends in the Nashville area!!

Miss you all!

Love, Woody and Pat