The Lonesome Crowded West
Posted by Lanea on Thursday, September 3rd, 2009
(how’s that for a lazy music allusion in a post title?)
Scott and I scampered off to Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana for a couple of weeks, and I forgot to warn you in advance. We visited family and then we visited the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone. I fell desperately in love with Wyoming. I’m trying to come up with some way–any way–to find us real jobs there. In the meantime, I have thousands of photos to sort through, huckleberry bush options to research, wildflower seeds to foster, travel knitting to document, lonely pets to soothe, and lots of other ends to tie up. Suffice it to say that:
We both really needed a break
We had a wonderful time with Scott’s family in Utah
Altitude is very tough on me, but the views are worth it
Huckleberries are delicious, and so are thimbleberries
I love raptors even more now than I did before
Northern Harriers are beautiful dancers
Golden Eagles are huge. I mean huge. Huge.
Wolf puppies are very fluffy and everyone, human and wolf, is lucky I couldn’t reach them
Trumpeter Swans kick the crap out of Canada Geese just for fun, and they actually sound like they’re laughing while they do it
Coyotes are hilarious and cute when they hunt in tall grasses, unless you are coyote-prey
Pronghorn are really hard to photograph well unless you’re used to high-speed photography
Sour cream ice cream may actually be worthy of worship
Bison are fascinating, until you’ve seen 2,000 of them while looking for one single bull elk
Trout have a new nightmare, and that nightmare is named Lanea
Chris Rock and Scott are the same height.
Filed in Food and Drink,knitting,Travel | 8 responses so far
Marty52on 04 Sep 2009 at 12:26 pm 1I lived in Wyoming during junior high, high school and then again for a few years while my kids were little… it keeps calling me back! Good luck finding a job there, though!!
kon 04 Sep 2009 at 6:06 pm 2It’s more likely that I’ll visit you in Wyoming than in the D.C. area.
Consider that a warning….
gayleon 04 Sep 2009 at 11:21 pm 3I’m laughing hardest at the poor trout!
Glad you had a good time.
Erinaon 05 Sep 2009 at 11:39 am 4dreaming of fluffy wolf puppies & eagerly awaiting photos!
minnieon 05 Sep 2009 at 10:48 pm 5my grandma lived in wyoming for 84 of her 97years (she died there). i have many fond memories of visiting her (the last time i was there was 8 years ago when we cleaned my grandma’s house out). actually thought about moving there 20 years ago when my girls were little (didn’t think my truck would take the trip). i miss it.
and pronghorns? i swear they’re reincarnations of wyomingites. when we drove from gillette, where my grandma’s funeral was, to the cemetary on the ranch, there was a spot where the fence came close to the road. three pronghorn stood there and watched us drive by. once the hearse made it over the hill, they turned and left. it was like they had paid their respects and gone on (and yes, my grandma had a hand in raising a few orphaned pronghorns. wouldn’t surprise me if they were descendents of those)
Bullwinkleon 07 Sep 2009 at 4:29 am 6That sounds like a fabulous trip! Can’t wait for pix đ
Jenniferon 08 Sep 2009 at 3:17 pm 7Trumpeter swans are awesome, aren’t they? Though I’ve never seen one beat up a Canada goose!
And I’m looking forward to hearing your Tall Fish Stories đ
Aeson 10 Sep 2009 at 8:35 am 8Trumpeter swans are the heaviest flying bird (I’m not a biologist, but I play one at work), and Baby Rowan means one more Roo!