05-14-2009 "It Tastes Like Dip-N-Dots!"

Trying a new style of posting here. Instead of having pictures be the side story, I think making the pictures the primary stories may relate better to those reading so they can have the visual.

Let me know what you think...

"¹⁵ When Moses went up on the mountain, the cloud covered it, ¹⁶ and the glory of the LORD settled on Mount Sinai."

For some reason driving upon this reminded me about when Moses went up on the mountain and the whole fog thing covered it...yeah. I imagine it looked something like this...except with no grass...not freezing cold...and probably a lot more awesome....and thundering voice and light show...maybe...yeah....


Another view of those mountains. This is nearing Teton National Park. In order to get here from Dabois, we were forced to travel through some mountain regions. This was the first major snow fall that we had seen. Some of the snow stacked on the side of the road was upwards of 8 feet tall.


We first saw this sign as we were entering Teton and heading south to Jackson. I thought it was a car trying to stop before hitting a seal...Matt corrected me. The next time saw a similar sign we stopped and took this photo. We had a line of traffic behind us at the time as well. I am sure all they were thinking is "What in the world are these stupid people from Arkansas doing here"


This photo is of a lake we accidentally found. We went down a path off of moose junction that had apparently just recently been opened. This turned out to be a camp ground and canoeing area that wasnt yet open. After a short hike off the road, we found this area.


In the same area as above, we decided to test the ice out. Matt is very proud of him self getting out 5 feet on the "ice". I am not sure he actually made it on to the "ice" itself.

Snowball Fight

This is Signal Mountain and we are over looking the Teton Park. I believe the mountain you see to the right is one of the three Teton mountains.



This is from the same point as above. In this picture we are facing 180 degrees from the opposite picture. I believe this to be a easterly direction.

This lake was located on the opposite side of Signal Mountain where the previous pictures were taken from. The lake appears to be completely frozen over. The temperatures at this point were ranging in the low 40's. Quite a difference from 24 hours before where I was personally in sandals, shorts, and a t-shirt. It was in the low 80's in Denver.

Same location, but with us in the picture. We have tried to accommodate the wishes of those that wanted more pictures of us together...at least we are trying.


This is the "Jackson Lake and Dam Project". I was very surprised to see a dam inside of Teton. I expected the whole area to be as natural as possible. I would imagine this dam provides a lot of power to Jackson.


This is the sign that is next to the dam. It is worth it to click on the picture to read the sign.
This is the guy that held us at a construction point. A mile or two before this point we saw a sign that said expect delays up to 30 minutes due to construction. Well sure enough, we experienced this. This guy from Montana had the wonderful job of holding a stop sign. It turns out that road workers are very short handed in the Teton / Yellowstone / Wyoming. In this case the other guy that was suppose to hold the stop sign had to go to the bathroom. So he left. For over 40 minutes we waited for this guy to go to the bathroom and come back. We ate fruit rollups, Matt went and looked at a creek, I talked to him, and it began to rain Dip-N-Dots.

We finally made it! The ultimate destination of this whole trip. The thing that started it all. Yellowstone. Of course we added a lot of side trips to.

We were driving along in Yellowstone taking in all of the amazing scenery, when all the sudden Matt just practically locks up the brakes and takes us into a turn off. I am obviously concerned and wondering what in the world is going on. He jumps out yelling "Grab your camera!" I haven't a clue as to what is going on but I follow not knowing what he is about to do. By the time I am out of the car with my camera on, I realize he is writing something on the side of the wall. Of course this is near the main entrance, so we have all sort people slowing down trying to figure out what we are doing. After he gets done he jumps out of the way and said "Take a picture!" And now it all makes sense.

Another couple miles down the road, it began to snow "Dip-N-Dots" again. This time we are out attempting to take pictures(one of which you see above). It was coming down so heavy that I had to hide my camera. I see Matt running around like a kid with his mouth open facing the sky. I ask him "What are you doing?!" He responded with, "It tastes like Dip-N-Dots!" I of course can not take the chance that he is telling the truth and proceeded to do the same thing he is doing. Of course several cars come by in the process...they didn't taste like Dip-N-Dots....

We had stopped to take some pictures that did not turn out to well. I was lining up one last shot that going to be amazing when out of the corner of my eye I see Matt fall down and almost take me out in the process. With the "outstanding" shot ruined, I decided I should just take a picture of him laying at my feet instead.


Another continental Divide....it actually goes east to west in Yellowstone...

"Sign sign every where a sign...blocking out the scenery, breaking my mind"

These things are all over the place...ruins everything we want to do...and are in all of the places we want to go...

Wide angle shot of the geyser area around Yellowstone.


This was one of the best "things" we saw near Old Faithful. I believe this is called the "Blue Star Geyser" Not positive so I'll let Matt correct me if I am wrong. Either way, the photo just doesn't capture it well.
Interesting sign I thought...

Another wide-angle near Old Faithful...notice the ring around the picture. You may have noticed bits of this on previous pictures. Well the reason this occurs is because my camera does not natively support additional lenses and filters. So when they are attached...and I un-zoom all the way, the ring shows up.

Another photo near Old Faithful.

Old Faithful going off! We were running around looking at everything when we realized it was about time to go off so we were absolutely high tailing it back. Once we got near I was determined to get at the right angle with the sun so we could get the rainbow effect and over all best picture...or at least so I thought. Not to mention I was running around with little to no battery life left in my camera. This was a stressful period leading up to the eruption. Once we got there...we waited for 20 minutes before it decided to go off...so much for the rushing. It took it a good 15 attempts of small eruptions before it finally started to completely go off. Pretty amazing all in all.


Me in front of Old Faithful....


And Matt...Shot this one with the screen off and the battery dying right after the picture. I had no clue how it looked until we got it on the computer. I think it turned out well.


We stopped at these falls on our way back from Old Faithful while heading towards the east gate.


The trip to the east gate will probably turn out to be some of the more adventurous traveling we will do this trip. We were in one of the highest points that you can reach by car with snow coming down and slush on the road. Thankfully around 8:50pm mountain time we made it to Teshapicahakdsaka Teepee....or what ever it is called.

Ben