The Adventure: June 29: saying goodbye

As written in my journal on the 29th, edited now with comments in parentheses:

"Today I leave. Seems weird to be packing up again, as it really does not feel like I've been here very long at all. (hopefully I did not completely drive B insane!). I am going to miss this place and the animals and the scenery and pretty much everything about it. I am so glad I came on this trip. I have had a wonderful time here and wouldn't trade that for anything. I am so hyped up about art now, I must get my art into this place. I just hope I can maintain this enthusiasm when I get back to my relatively dull existence in the sweltering valley that is Sacramento. I hope to return here some day. I have so many fond memories from this trip."

So yeah, it was hard to leave, it felt like a very short ten days. I told myself that morning that I would not cry... phsaw yeah I totally did, a lot, it was a little embarrassing. :-) I'm not good with goodbye, and for ten days that was home and family and so much fun, and it was hard to leave.

If you haven't already figured it out, I had a great time. :-) The Adventure of a lifetime, but hopefully not just once in a lifetime. Being back home has been a big adjustment for a lot of reasons. I loved it up there. I really could see myself in a place like that. I know, I know, the winter would suck, but I'd stay in and make a lot of art. Anyway I have to have something to complain about on the blog! ;-) For now, you're stuck with me whining about summer in the valley. Artistically speaking, that place and I were a perfect match, I can't stop thinking about Jackson Hole. I WILL go back. I've traveled a lot but never has a place really pulled at me like this, I can't shake it. It is hard to keep the enthusiasm when I'm here. I have a list of art pieces to create that I think would be real assets to my portfolio as far as seeking gallery representation there. I am applying to an art show that takes place there in September 2009, but it's not a show I'd have to be present for (though if I got in I'd sure as heck go see it!). I will not get into details on this now. If I could find a way to spend a long time up there, like even a whole summer, and do a string of art shows, I'd jump on that.

To my dear friend B: thank you for the Adventure. I sincerely hope I see you again some day. I hope you stay there, I'll need someone to check in on those galleries and make sure they're displaying my stuff properly. ;-) May the Force be with you, and may "four hundred children" always make you laugh. And write that book gosh darn it!!!

So long critters!

See ya Tetons!

Farewell Jackson Hole!


Such memories. :-) Happy Trails!

The Adventure: June 28: Granite Canyon Trail Ride

It was another lazy morning until the farrier came out and reshod Amigo (remember he lost a shoe a few days earlier in Teton Canyon). However, considering his problems with navicular disease he was still too sore for a ride that day so that ruled out another jaunt through the field.

So lacking any other specific plans it was decided that we would go out to Jackson Hole and trail ride with B's friend R. R has Rocky Mountain horses, I'd never ridden one of those before. Size-wise similar to Shylah (in height AND girth, lol). ;-) I'd also never ridden in an Australian saddle before. It was pretty cushy. My horse for the day was a chestnut mare named Sugar. She was okay but we didn't really click and she was kinda disrespectful at times (and not the time and place for me to do anything about that), so it wasn't as fun a ride as the previous ones had been. However, I did enjoy getting to do some gaiting, she was really really smooth and that was a lot fun. She weren't no Shylah or Sara though! :-)

Here are pics from the ride. This was in Granite Canyon (aptly named!) which is in the Grand Teton National Park. A lot of my pics came out very blurry, perhaps an indication that the coolpix camera was starting to have some problems.



Hmm, could that be some granite there in the canyon?

Look at those ears, she's contemplating tossing me in the river and making a run for it (she was NOT a fan of water and got airplane ears every time we were near it).

And then we saw bears. Bears! Plural! A female and two cubs! And where was my camera? Why it was turned off and put away in the camera bag. Why? Because I'd had to dismount and fix the saddle when Sugar suddenly managed to deflate and I started slipping over the side. And somehow it didn't dawn on me to get the camera back out. Yeah, I really have impeccable timing sometimes. See those brown blobs? Those are bears. We were REALLY close, like "OMG do we need to turn around?" close. I was concerned what the horses would do, recalling when Shylah saw a bear once. Eh, the horses were fine. I was in a bad photo spot, and the camera was slow and not focusing where I wanted it to.

The cute blob with the face is one of the cubs. Oh these are cinnamon bears. Or are they called cinnamon black bears?

Back view of the bear blob.

Purty!

We all went to dinner at a little place in town, and on the way back what should I see but moose #3! Now I thought the third time was supposed to be a charm, but it was almost dark and she was moving fast and was looong gone by the time we turned around. Foiled again! Sadly, I have no moose photos to show you. :-( That of course means I just have to go back some day.

Next: my last day, sigh...

The Adventure: June 27: Yellowstone: the grand finale

After taking all those eagle pics, we hoofed it on back to the truck and headed onward toward the exit. Bryan was in a hurry as he needed to be somewhere, so the eagles were to be the last of the photo-stops. He looked over at me and smiled and said something like "well, we saw everything but bears and wolves, that's pretty good." I agreed that was pretty fantastic (other than lacking photographic proof of mooses). It couldn't have been more than ten seconds later, as I stared absentmindedly out the window, saying goodbye to this wonderful place, that I saw a female elk running along the bank on the far side of the river. Wow pretty, I thought. B saw her too and said "did you see that elk?" "Yup."

And then my eyeballs just about fell out of my head and my jaw dropped open and I said something totally unladylike, like "oh sh*t, there's a wolf chasing her!!!!"

A WOLF!!!! Did you catch that!? A wolf!!! Chasing the elk!!! OMG!!!!

Well that was the quickest U-turn on the face of the planet. Time crunch be danged, we were barreling back down the road trying to catch up! We were sure we'd missed them, they must have gone up into the trees along the other side. B pulled off on a side road that went down to the river. We saw no sign of them, but figuring "what the heck" I said let me hop out and I scrambled down a trail to the shore, with my camera of course! I expected they were long gone, so imagine my complete surprise when I saw the elk cow in the middle of the river, heading back toward the riverbank on the other side. I fumbled for a moment, and that was as long as it took her to get out of the water and head up the bank:




Well cool, I thought, she must have lost the wolf and I got some neat pictures of her.

And again my eyeballs about fell out of my head when suddenly from around the bend I saw a wolf in the river, swimming toward shore. I just held the shutter down and shot, grinning like an idiot and thinking "I can't believe I'm seeing this."










Somewhere in the course of all this two more people showed up, they had also been following the elk but thought they'd lost her til they saw B's truck turn around and head down this side road. I can't remember if B had walked up by this point. Was it then that they said something about having seen two wolves?

Second wolf?

OMG! Yes, a second one, running along the far shore. This is the one I had seen chasing her originally, I had no idea there were two!






And just like that they were gone, and I think we were all standing there with looks of absolute shock on our faces. Had we been even seconds earlier or later we would have missed the whole thing. I still can't believe I saw that. What happened to the elk, I don't know. She seemed to have a pretty good head start on those wolves, but in what way nature ended up taking its course, I have no idea. That was the last thing I would have ever expected to see. I didn't even think about wolves because I thought "no way." I'm still just sitting here kinda shaking my head because I can't believe we saw that. Talk about once in a lifetime!

Fate, I tell ya, fate!

I don't think I stopped smiling the entire way back to Teton County. Actually I haven't smiled as much as I did on this trip in a long time. And every now and then one of us would say "I can't believe we saw that!" The ride back was gorgeous, that part of Montana is OMG beautiful, and B said it was the area where "A River Runs Through It" was filmed. Stunning. Unfortunately I did not see Brad Pitt's character wandering around, or I might have done something embarrassing like throw myself at him. ;-)

Wow. Wow. Wow. Still in shock!

The Adventure: June 27: Yellowstone: bald eagles!

Yellowstone Lake is immense. Absolutely immense. I thought Clear Lake was big!

We were on our way back to West Yellowstone to leave the park. There was a 1/4 mile stretch of road that was posted "no stopping" because of bald eagles nesting. We'd driven past this twice already but it wasn't til now that it was like "oh yeah, that huge nest up there in the tree!" So we pulled over past the closure and walked back (as far as allowed) to take some pics. It was impossible to get great shots considering the distance but nevertheless this is a bald eagle and its baby. Bryan was back there last weekend and said this chick has fledged. Cool!



I'd seen these eagles first thing that morning along the river near the West Entrance but told B not to stop because they were back pretty far from the road. Well, they probably weren't any farther away than this, but it's okay. There were a lot of animals we passed up that day (elk, bison) because of all the pics from the previous day. I occasionally found myself thinking "we should have stopped for that one" but realized later that if we had done one thing different that day and altered the schedule by even a few seconds we wouldn't have seen what we saw next. You'll see.... ;-)

Up next: the moment you've been waiting for! What we saw! (Yes, I have been dragging this out as long as possible) ;-)

The Adventure: June 27: Yellowstone: falls and big bull elk!

We headed north from Norris Geyser Basin.

Here's a pretty scene overlooking a lot of trees. There were some discovery channel people down there filming some sort of interview so everyone was getting hushed by a ranger right here. You'd think they could go a little farther off the beaten path for that sort of thing. I guess if you ever see this interview and hear a loud truck in the background that will be B's claim to fame. ;-)

And here's a waterfall. I don't know what this is. My journal says we stopped at Tower Falls, so I'd have thought this is that, except in my photos this comes before Mammoth Hot Springs, and Tower Falls was after that according to the map, so.... essentially I have no idea. Maybe I didn't photograph Tower Falls, or maybe this is it. Or maybe I'm just totally confused. Yeah, that would be typical!

A scene from above whatever falls that was:

All along we'd been seeing a fair amount of female elk, most of which we did not stop for, having seen a lot on the 26th. And there was the occasional far-away group of little bachelors, but the big boys had been pretty elusive up til now. I think we actually stopped to get some scenery pics in this pretty valley and then realized there were two bull elk way the heck out there. Again, love this camera. I could not have gotten these shots with my little camera.

Pretty valley, can you see the two elk?



Uh oh, getting grumpy with eachother!



Interesting that the one on the left is ear tagged.

So northward we went from wherever this was and stopped at Mammoth Hot Springs for lunch. What a zoo, there were a ton of people there. Did not walk around the hot springs itself, just did a drive-by photo on the way out. I don't know what that odd geological formation there in the foreground is, and I shall also refrain from mentioning what we called it.

Next we stopped at Lower Yellowstone Falls and went to a place called Artist Point. Wow yeah, gorgeous. If it wasn't for the gazillions of tourists, I could have stood there and stared at this place for a long time!




A sleepy bull elk by the side of the road on the way out.

Next stop: Yellowstone Lake, and bald eagles!

The Adventure: June 27: Yellowstone: thermals and geysers

We stayed in West Yellowstone, MT the night of the 26th so as to save some gas and get an early start the next day. Cute place, I recommend the Hibernation Station if you need to stay there. A little spendy for sure but actually a LOT better than some of the generic hotels. Of course being afflicted with the "can't sleep in hotels" curse, I think I was significantly less than perky the next morning. Sorry... And it was B's birthday no less!

The morning started out with a lot of hot springs. I'm not exactly sure what this first one is. Looking at the map I am guessing Terrace Hot Springs, but I didn't make a note of it at the time. These thermal areas are all over the place up there, I had no idea how many there were! Some of them have little trails and overlooks and whatnot for the tourists but I wonder if the ones that are off the beaten path are just left as is? Probably. They post lots of signs warning people not to do stupid things like, you know, jump in them. Hey, survival of the fittest. That goes for petting bison too. Some kid got tossed around while we were up there because he was posing a few feet away from a bison. I mean hello! Anyway, I digress. Here are some thermal pools:


And then we stopped at Norris Geyser Basin, which has LOTS and lots of pools and geysers and steam and sulfur and all that fun stuff. It's so prehistoric looking, just amazing.






I don't know the names of all the specific geysers, but I do remember this one is Steamboat Geyser.


And this is some water flowing over interesting looking mineral (?) deposits. Edit! If you don't read the comments, B clarified the nifty colors for me. Yeah, I guess I do remember reading that: "All of those colors that the water is running over are micro organisms. All of the different colors have a specific heat range in which they live and have different basis for life; the green ones deriving their energy and color from chlorophyl and living in the "cooler" temperatures, and the reddish ones get their energy and color from iron and live in the relatively "hotter" temperatures." Thanks. :-)

Lots of interesting colors in a place like this. Don't you think there ought to be a pterodactyl flying around there?



Next up: you guessed it, more Yellowstone! Including some big ole elk!

The Adventure: June 26: Yellowstone: more bison and elk

We left Old Faithful and drove toward West Yellowstone (that's an actual town btw, its in Montana, yay I went to Montana!). Somewhere along that stretch of road we missed the bear. Oodles of cars pulled over along the river, so we jumped out and ran up there and people said "you just missed the bear." Dang! Probably a big gorgeous photogenic bear, knowing my luck. Oh well, I did enjoy the bison at Old Faithful. You win some, you lose some.

Onward we went, the sun was setting (oh, it stays light a lot later there). We stopped to take photos at a field full of bison and their calves. A lot of these pics came out blurry as it was so dark outside. I thought it was interesting that these bison were not nearly as shedded out as the two we'd seen earlier in the day.

Yes, a tripod would have been nice, but my luggage was stuffed to the gills with all the other stuff I brought along. Maybe next time. :-)




And then another field of bison.

And then two elk cows out in a field. The light was nearly gone, so all but a few of these came out blurry. Oh well, still useable to me as reference for shape and movement.



Next up: Day two in Yellowstone!

The Adventure: June 26: Yellowstone: Old Faithful

It was evening when we arrived at Old Faithful. There was a smallish crowd starting to gather. We had no idea when it was going to do its thing and couldn't find a sign anyway so we figured that meant time to go get ice cream cones and wander back out there. Perfect timing. The crowd got bigger and I could hear people saying it would go off in a few minutes.

And then I heard people exclaiming about a bison! Huh? Sure enough, what should come wandering up but a lovely big bison!

Oh this was perfect! Good lighting, he was really close, and all I had to do was sit there and take photos while he turned this way and that. What a guy, perfect reference animal, I thank him for that. And eventually he wandered right into the frame of the photo with Old Faithful going off! Seriously, it doesn't get any more awesome than that. We sure got there at the right time. :-)

Old Faithful not doing much yet:

Look at him, he's great! The urge to bust out a curry comb and fix up that hairdo is hard to resist, but I'm sure he wouldn't take kindly to that.

Me with the bison.

Any second...

There it goes! Whoosh! It lasts a few minutes, I didn't know it went on so long!






Bryan with the bison, on the wrong side the danger sign uh oh!


Hey look, an animal scratching itself!

Us with the bison, too bad it wasn't just a little closer or it would look like it's on B's head. :-)

I'm not sure why I like this photo so much, but I do!


Truly, there could be no better way to witness Old Faithful, that bison just made it extra super duper.

Next up, more bison and elk on the way out!

The Adventure: June 26: Yellowstone

Woo hoo, finally in Yellowstone! I'd wanted to go there for my entire life, I'm just so tickled that I finally had the opportunity. I will say it would have been neat to hike around some, but how does one prepare for altitude? A low-altitude flatlander myself, I can hoof it around here all day no problem, but dang get me up at many thousands of feet and add some hills and it really kicked my butt. Having more time there would have been cool too.

We were almost at the south entrance when we saw a large group of cars pulled over by the side of the road overlooking Lewis River. This is always a good indication of large wildlife. Hopped out and caught a glimpse of moose #2 just as she rounded the bend and went out of sight. Dang. We pulled over farther ahead, too far, then backtracked and just missed her again. Dang! These mooses just were not cooperating with me, and boy can they move quickly.

Before we got there, B said something to me about how he hoped I would not be disappointed by Yellowstone. This has me pretty concerned. Well, let me say I was NOT at all disappointed. It was different than what I expected, for sure, but fantastic and beautiful and fascinating although I think about 99% of the tourists ought to go home. ;-) I did not expect there to be so many trees for some reason. I guess most of the pics I've seen are in the open meadow areas, and I just tend to think of Wyoming as being a lot of open space anyway (just a side note, I visited Cheyenne and Laramie 11 years ago, very nearly went to college in Laramie, talk about open space!) Anyway, the heavy forest (though generally not very tall trees) surprised me, and there were times I found myself looking forward to a change of scenery. The number of dead trees amazed me, all from the fires of 1988. It's incredible that the young trees that have been growing in the last 20 years still seem so small.

I took this somewhere along the West Thumb of Lake Yellowstone, to show the dead trees. I about got obliterated by mosquitoes too.

So onward we went, and encountered another "tourist" animal, this one a skinny bison. He was so close to the road that I had to back up to get him in the frame, as I had the big lens on the camera. By the next day it was "eh, more bison, keep driving." Almost wished we'd stopped more but then we wouldn't have seen what we saw... you'll see. ;-)


Next stop, Old Faithful!

The Adventure: June 26: Grand Teton National Park

"What a day!" says the journal.

In search of the ever-elusive large wildlife, we started the day in the Jackson Hole area and drove through the National Elk Refuge. I missed the best photo of the day, because at the time it didn't even dawn on me to take a photo, it was sort of a crisis. Really quite funny in hindsight, but you know how these moments go, I am kicking myself for not taking a photo. B had pulled off the road to read an info sign in the Refuge and it turned out all that tall grass was covering up a culvert full of water. Oops! So boy was I surprised when the passenger side of the truck suddenly dropped a few feet down. I was able to get out, and you'll just have to picture this but imagine two wheels on the ground, the front right wheel several feet down in the ditch, and the back left wheel several feet up in the air. It was a spectacle for sure. Luckily it wasn't long after that someone else drove along and was able to tow the truck out. Seriously, can't believe I forgot to photograph this. What a way to start the day.

So onward we went to an area where we were told we'd for sure see all sorts of wildlife. Were we in the Grand Teton National Park or the Teton National Forest... I am not sure. I'm looking at the map and I think we went through both. It was along Flat Creek. I photographed a lot of pretty scenery and got a lot of good background reference photos for art, and we sure gave the truck a workout on some of those roads. As for wildlife? Not an animal in sight other than a few birds, and not even very many of those! I was starting to think I must be some sort of bad luck charm. Must be the camera scaring everything away.

Here are my favorite scenery pics though:







After leaving the Flat Creek area we went into Grand Teton National park. Lots of sagebrush, very pretty.

And finally we started to see animals! This elk I guess is what you'd call a "tourist" elk, right there by the road so everyone can stop and take photos, but hey I wasn't about to complain. It's funny that by the end of the next day it was like "eh, more elk, keep driving." For a few moments I regretted not taking more pictures the following afternoon, but in the end it became clear that the whole day had lined up just to see one thing at the very end of it. Fate. You'll see. ;-)

Anyway, here's the first elk.

Hey look, an animal scratching itself!

And honestly I am not sure if we saw these deer in Grant Teton National Park or in Yellowstone, but I'm just going to stick them onto this post.


Hey look, an animal scratching itself!



Next stop, Yellowstone!

The Adventure: June 25: Teton Canyon ride

This one's going to have a LOT of photos! I thought about breaking this down into several posts, but I think it's a little more cohesive as one, so I'll just overwhelm you all at once.

Okay, so June 25th we got a pretty early start and drove out to Teton Canyon in the Targhee National Forest. Sara was acting odd when I was grooming her and getting her saddled, she seemed really cranky and kicking at herself even after I put on fly spray, and she kept sticking her neck out and doing "airplane ears" and making weird faces. I said I though it looked like colic but I'd never seen this facial stuff before (curling her lip back as though smelling something). I walked her a bit and she kept doing it, so I put her in a small corral there and she quickly looked like she was going to lay down so I got her out again and we traded off walking her for a good while til she felt better. So I guess mules make odd faces when they have a belly ache. Good to know. She was fine after a while.

There was a forest service truck parked in the lot too (the only other vehicle there) and B noticed a fuzzy critter underneath. Turned out to be a marmot, and not a very shy one! I'd never seen a marmot before but by the end of the trip I'd seen plenty. :-) It crawled up into the underparts of the truck and came out the wheel well.


Me and Sara, I LOVE this photo!!! (I'm the one with the sunglasses). ;-)

Saddled and ready to go!

So sit back and enjoy the ride! I'll point out a few things along the way, but note the changes in scenery: meadows, canyons, pine trees, aspens, streams, snow, etc. It was gorgeous, just absolutely stunning. I took about 150 pics. Many are scenery reference photos but for the sake of cuteness I made a point to take plenty with ears in them and that's mostly what I'll show you here. So pretty!!! (Just to note, all pics on the ride are taken on the old coolpix camera, I really just "point and shoot" and hope for the best).













We went as far as we could easily go before the trail was getting too hard to ride due to snow, and then we turned back.

Lunch break!

Amigo is good at getting himself wrapped around trees.

Sara doesn't do that.

Yeah, this totally sums up how I was feeling. "Woo hoo!" :-)

Then B disappeared with my camera and went down to the river.


And returned to find the artist lost in her own thoughts.

Back in the saddle, here's photographic proof that I rode in snow (no, I was not cold). Oh, and I removed my riding helmet for photographic purposes only!!! Not many people wear riding helmets up in that neck of the woods but I've had enough close calls I don't care to have my brains spattered about. It's terribly un-sexy, but then so are spattered brains. Sara was great, I really really liked riding her and felt like we really clicked and I felt very safe with her.


At some point B turned back and I went on ahead. Amigo was being a pain in the you know what and needed some work on separation anxiety, so Sara and I set off on our own adventure until he came back.


And it was right about here that I saw the moose. WAAAAYYY up ahead of me, crossing the trail. It was so far away I couldn't even tell if it was male or female, just looked like an enormous long-legged chocolate colored animal. It was long gone by the time I got there.

B eventually caught back up with us, though sadly by the end of the ride Amigo had thrown a shoe and was pretty sore. :-(




To quote the journal: "All in all, I'd have to say this was the best ride I have EVER been on! I wish I could do that more often, and I wish I could bring Shylah here. This IS the adventure of a lifetime and I am having a totally great time and so glad that I am here." And then I drew a big smiley face. :-)

B says that area is full of those rides. *sigh* I want to go back!

The Adventure: June 24: wildlife and scenery

After leaving Jackson Hole that evening, we stopped by a property where the company B works for is doing some landscape work. What a place, it was gorgeous. Huge house, winding trails that crossed creeks and bridges and went through forests and meadows. Oh to live on a place like that!

Note pic credits, we're getting into lots of pics I didn't take. :-)









We stopped at the top of Teton Pass on the way back to get some obligatory tourist photos.

Look, snow! How weird was that to see all this snow in June!

Overlooking the Jackson Hole valley. It was really hazy there for a few days, I think that's probably bits of burned up California hanging in the air (I picked a good week to be gone from here).

The Adventure: June 24: Jackson Hole

After visiting the National Museum of Wildlife Art, we went back to Jackson Hole. I'd had a pretty good look around a few days earlier but wanted to jog my memory as to exactly which galleries were which, and I had missed one or two of them. Plus there were some things I wanted B to see.

Pretty much the first thing we did was go to Dan Shelley. We'd both been on this website months ago when B sent me the elk teeth he found, and I visited the gallery that Sunday and admired all the jewelry. As luck would have it, Dan himself was there, and what a nice guy. He really spend quite a bit of time talking to me about elk teeth and ivory and gave me some great pointers on how to polish the teeth. He also referred me to another store in town that might have some teeth for sale. So off we went.

Turned out the guy who was in charge of selling the teeth wasn't there but I got his contact info. Later, after much thought, I decided to hold off on purchasing any more. I'll get back to that later. But the really interesting thing was that there was a LOT of scrimshaw work for sale in that store. They said they had work from three different scrimshanders. A few of the pieces were nice but over-all I wasn't all that impressed, and it was interesting to note that it was all "functional items" like napkin rings and letter openers and whatnot). I gave some serious thought to meeting with the owner, but decided it wasn't the place for me. More on that later..

So we toodled around and saw more galleries though by then many were closed. That was okay, I really just need to peek in the windows and remind myself which ones were where (oh, JJ, I went in the one were CP shows her work but couldn't find any of her stuff, I wasn't all that impressed by that gallery anyway though, it seemed rather disorganized and half the stuff wasn't even labeled).

Oh I'd better throw in some pics and then I'll ramble on some more about art.

Being a tourist, it seemed a requirement that I have this photo taken:

A few pics from the town square. That gallery there is in my opinion THE gallery in town. They really had an emphasis on large oil paintings and bronze (don't they all, it's tough being a "drawer" and not a "painter"). But there were some drawings there too, granted by hugely famous people...


Okay, so thoughts about art. I forgot to mention that on Sunday on my first visit there I'd gotten into a long conversation with a really super nice lady at a jewelry art gallery and I showed her all my scrim that I'd brought and she was so impressed. She suggested one particular gallery in town for submitting art (she said a lot of artists "get their start" at that one) and as far as the scrim goes she suggested the National Museum of Wildlife Art gift store. So I got to chatting with the tour guide at the NMWA (yes, I can work the social skills and turn on the charm when I have to), and she introduced me to the (manager? proprietor?) at the gift shop and I got her card.

As I thought more about it that day and following days, I decided that what I really want to do is submit scrimshaw ART, not jewelry (and mostly the samples I had with me were jewelry, and none of the art was display-ready anyway). I want to get away from the jewelry a bit though. I mean it's fun, I enjoy it, but the wear and tear issue really concerns me. I recently had to re-ink a pendant that had been worn daily for six months, and most of the ink was gone. That's no fault of anyone's, but the super-fine technique I use just can't handle that sort of wear and tear. So I'd like to be making things that are going to be displayed, not worn or touched all the time. And that would be art. Granted, small art. ;-) Oh, yeah, so that's why I decided not to try submitting stuff to the store that had a bunch of scrim already, I just would rather see my scrim work in a different context.

Now as far as big art goes, I'd like to try some wildlife in my funky painting style. And I have several ideas in mind right now for (big?) drawings, like a scene from the trail ride (ears!) and what we saw at Old Faithful (you'll see!) and maybe something we saw in Yellowstone (omg!). I also have in mind to "redo" as drawings some of the humorous sculptures I did in college (the bear and bison, if you've been here and seen those two) I do know that galleries like to see consistency, and in that world it's sort of frowned upon to have a wide array of work. Well, personally I think versatility is an asset, I couldn't stand to do all the same thing all the time, and people always compliment me on that at art shows, but I realize I'll need to keep my techniques separate as far as gallery submissions go. How to handle that, I don't know. Submit everything everywhere, but separately? (drawing, painting, scrim?) Pick and choose? This is where I need help from people who know the ins and outs of how this stuff works.

There's a lot to think about, I'm still in brain-overload. I was talking to RS this morning when we were out with the horses and he says I need to check out Santa Fe before I put my eggs in one basket. Anyone want to tell me anything about Santa Fe, art-wise? He also pointed out that to sell really high end scrim jewelry, it would need to have really high end settings, gold and platinum and whatnot, and I don't have the ability or the means to do that, so again, I'd like to actually back off the jewelry (other than commissioned stuff).

"What a neat town" says the journal.

Next stop, some wildlife and scenery on the way back to Idaho (I told you this would take ages to blog about!). Of course B already spilled all the beans in his blog but you know me, I drag it out as long as I can. ;-)

The Adventure: June 24: National Museum of Wildlife Art

Blarg, I cannot shake this funk that I have been in since getting home. I need to get over this. I am restless. I don't want to be here, and I want what I don't know if I'll ever find.

One of the first places we went on the 24th was to a bead shop that one of B's friends owns. Totally gorgeous stuff there, and a woman at the store said something to me about how I'll never get where I need to be with the art unless I dump "the other things" in my life. Maybe she's right. I wish there was some sort of easy answer to this, some sort of formula to follow.

I'd been wanting to visit the National Museum of Wildlife Art for quite some time. I'd heard of it before, and when I found out B lives fairly near that, I knew I had to go! I am in a way wishing I had gone later this summer instead because the Robert Bateman exhibit opens this week and runs through October and I would give my left arm (I need the right one) to see that (ok, I'm being sarcastic there but you get the idea). I had no idea that was happening way back when I booked tickets, and truth is I made the trip at the right time anyway for a lot of reasons but dang I wish could see that! However, those plane tickets aren't free, so that's pretty unlikely. :-( Bummer.

Anyway, the NMWA as I'll call it is a pretty cool place and there was so much to see that just rocked my world. I am going to quote my journal here: "Went to wildlife art museum. WOW. Mind boggled, what amazing stuff and so cool to see other works by artists I'm familiar with like small painting by Bonhuer (I saw "The Horse Fair" in NYC) and small sculpture by Akeley (I saw his taxidermy at the AMNH in NYC). AMAZING huge painting by R. Bateman and SO neat to see his technique up close. Wow wow wow wow wow."

Yeah, I really wish I could see that Bateman exhibit!!! Anyone up for a road trip before Oct 5? ;-) (I'm only half joking).

Okay, here are some pics from the museum.

It's a very interesting looking building, quite distinctive:

Across the highway from there is the National Elk Refuge. It's just a wide open expanse right now, but B says in winter it's full of elk. And snow, obviously. I find myself really wanting to see that. And I want to see Bison in snow. Hmmmmm. Here's a poorly stitched together panorama:

Me with the big bison sculpture:

Me with the elk sculpture. Hey Bryan, you take really good pics of me, that's a feat!

Okay, so that's not flattering, I was being a dork:

Me and B:

Next up, back to the town of Jackson Hole.

The Adventure: June 23: misadventures with clippers

June 23 was another pretty relaxed day, at least for me. ;-) Following a very early morning mule-escape, I zonked out on the couch til late morning. We went to Rexburg again in the morning to get some stuff at the feed store, and I needed a new duffel bag because mine had decided to start falling apart somewhere between Sacramento and Denver a few days earlier, and the last thing I needed was for the entire contents of my bag to fall on the floor of some airport. Back to the house for lunch, and since Sara had gotten so sweaty on Sunday's ride, B decided to clip her. Meanwhile, though a few days early I went ahead and baked birthday cake. My first attempt at high altitude baking! I used a recipe from Joy of Cooking, which was rather complex. It came out a little dry but tasted pretty good and the texture was fine.

But then, problems... This is an awkward time for one's clippers to break:

I was afraid this meant no more riding, which was tragic beyond belief.

So off we went to another feed store in Driggs (neat place, I left some of my brochures there the next day) and acquired a spiffy new clippers. So B was able to finish clipping Sara, I made dinner, and all was right in the world.

The Adventure: June 22: riding and Jackson Hole

So I was a little peeved today to find out that Photoshop CS (what I am using) does not open .NEF files, which is the raw format that my new camera uses. I had been shooting in high quality JPEG but then switched to raw. It's not a crisis, I just have to convert them all using the Nikon software, it's just a pain and takes a long time. I'm only up to the afternoon of the 26th as far as photo revision goes....

Anyway, so June 22 (good thing I kept a journal!) is where it starts getting really exciting. We went riding that morning in the barley fields behind the house. I opted not to take along my camera, since I wanted to get acquainted with Sara (the mule) first, but I should have taken it. Not that I missed anything really, but it would have been fun to take along.

So this was my first time riding a mule, and dang she's big (a little side note here, but I rode Shylah this morning (7/1) and she seemed SO small, like where's the rest of the horse, and why are her ears so small, lol). I had to be a weenie and get a little help climbing up there. Her gait is different, more of a forward and back kind of movement, but it didn't take long to get used to it. I had to establish pretty quickly who was the boss (me) but once we got that straightened out, Sara was an absolute doll, and I think she really liked me. And that was mutual. :-) I really had fun cantering her out in the fields. I didn't know what to expect but she actually had a very smooth canter and really covered some ground! I couldn't stop grinning. The colt, Smooch, went along off-lead and he looked so pretty galloping around the green fields.

It wasn't a super long ride, since Bryan had to be in Jackson Hole that afternoon for mounted patrol. At some point on the drive over there he said something about how I should not take pics of him because he didn't have the right shirt on that day. And what do I do, I take people seriously. So I snuck up behind and took a stealth shot, because I'm bad like that, but then later in the day he tells me he was just kidding and really wanted pics. Sheesh!!! ;-)

This was the only pic I took that day:

Anyway, while he was keeping the city safe (btw I think that looks super fun, I think Shylah would be great at that, don't have that in Wilton though!), I spent a few hours doing the tourist thing and seeing oodles of shops full of knick knacks and moose and bear stuff and Native American jewelry and OMG the galleries. Oooohhh the galleries. *grin* That was a big part of my wanting to make this trip was finding out if Jackson Hole and I might get along artistically, and the answer, at least from my point of view, is overwhelmingly YES. Like, if ever there was a place my art belongs, it is there. Without a doubt. I need to be there. I looked at all the galleries I could find, and some immediately struck me as not a good fit for me (not my kind of art, or just something about the place put me off, or I didn't like the layout or something, yes I'm very picky). But several, I think, are well worth applying to. I can't stop thinking about this place, and art, and it's so exciting and just this overwhelming feeling of "MUST BE THERE." Maybe not me personally, but the art for sure.

I saw some absolutely amazing art, by some really big name people. And I also saw some stuff in big-time galleries that made me think "I can do that, or better, I should be here." The prices just floored me, things priced at several times what I make in a YEAR. And I saw people in galleries buying stuff!

I belong there. I can do this. I will do this. Repeat as needed so as to not lose this feeling that I have right now. :-)

I DO need to talk to some people with more gallery experience than I have (um, none) and find out exactly how this works. And I really think it may be time to get an agent, so I'm going to email JK and LH about that and get some expert opinions. And JJ if you hear from Carol I still REALLY want to talk to her to get her inside opinion about the various galleries up there, I'm way bummed that did not work out to see her when I was up there.

There's a lot I need to think about though, regarding the art. I'll talk more about this after my next post about Jackson Hole, I think it'll be more relevant then. It was an absolute brain overload by the end of the day, in an entirely good way. I made some good contacts that day though and got some good advice as far as places that might be a fit for me, and I am grateful to the people who took the time to talk to me.

The Adventure: June 21: the local scene

Saturday the 21st was sort of a lazy day. Bryan (aka BK or B if I'm in the mood for initials) had to take the horses to the vet in the morning, so I puttered around for a while and took a few photos, and then a few more when the horses returned:

This is the view from B's back yard. Can you say OMG gorgeous? Those are the Teton mountains in the distance. B says you can ride there from his house. I am sooo envious of that. I'll post pics later on of these mountains again, the snowmelt was noticeable over the ten days I was there.


Here's Amigo, a Quarter Horse.

And here's Sara the mule and Smooch the solid colored Paint colt.

Later in the day after lunch we went driving to see some of the local scenery on the way out to Rexburg to run a few errands.

JC, this one's for you. This is Robinson Lusitanos, and there were some pretty awesome looking horses there. What a spread!

We drove into the Targhee National Forest. I am sitting here looking at the map but not entirely sure what area we were in. It's SO pretty there, and all the flowers are blooming, I really was just in awe of this place. We stopped and walked back to a lake, hoping to see some wildlife but didn't see any other than the multitude of hungry mosquitoes.

Hey look, a fence (inside joke). ;-)

A view from the walk out to the lake:

The lake, sadly devoid of mooses (this becomes a theme):

A pretty mountain view on the drive back:

The Adventure: June 20: travel day

I spent a few hours going through photos today and it became clear that it's going to take a VERY long time to get through them. I'm renaming them to indicate who took which ones, and then I go through and touch up the contrast and whatnot (I'm sure I'll get better at shooting pics, but remember I had no time to use the D80 at all before leaving so it was all on automatic everything (except sometimes on manual focus)).

But, I'd better get started talking about it or it'll take me all next month!

Not much to say about June 20, I left here late in the morning, spent a few hours on airplanes and probably at least as many hours sitting around waiting for airplanes. I arrived in Jackson Hole late that night and didn't have a lot of functioning brain cells left by the time we got to B's house in Idaho.

I do have this thing for taking pics out of airplanes, so here are a few photos somewhere between Denver and Jackson Hole.

weary traveler returns

And so ends the Adventure. I got home around 1am last night, way too tired to even think about logging in here. I had a GREAT trip, it really was the adventure of a lifetime, despite being in some ways completely different than what I had anticipated.

If you don't know where I was, I left on the 20th and spend the last ten days staying with my friend BK in Idaho, and we went to Yellowstone, and spent a lot of time in Jackson Hole, and went trail riding, and really I had a fantastic week. Huge thank you to BK for the hospitality and for driving me around and being a great person to spend time with.

Between the two of us (I promise to credit photos appropriately!) on my two cameras (YES! I bought the Nikon D80! That's a story in itself) we took around 900 photographs. So that's going to take me a while to sort through them, and I'm sure it'll take as long to blog about the trip as it did to live it first-hand!

So stay tuned!

Oh geez I need to do laundry and unpack. It's REALLY hard getting back to normal life.

adventure bound

And so begins the Adventure of a lifetime. :-)

Contrary to rumors suggesting otherwise, I will return, and I will entertain you with pics and stories. Northeastward ho!

:-) !!!