A Trip Over Togotee Pass, Doctors, Rocks, and Fall Colors

It was time for my annual cardiologist checkup so I made an appointment in Riverton. The original plan was to load the truck camper and spend a few nights in the jade fields but the weather turned nasty and so we decided to spend a night in a motel.
A strong stationary front was bringing heavy rain and snow but we managed to drive out of it as we headed over Togotee Pass, (the east entrance to Grand Teton National Park). On the east side the winds were gusting to fifty miles per hour and we were glad we were empty and not hauling a camper.

Arriving early we managed to stop at the two rock shops in Riverton and of course added more rocks to our collection. We met a jade dealer who shared with us his private collection piece of Bull Canyon Jade and it was the best Turtleback jade we have ever seen.
He lightened our billfolds of a considerable amount of money but we did end up with three pieces of apple green jade. Across the street the Rock Solid rock shop beckoned and we added lepidolite, amazonite and a piece of good adventurine.

The doctors visit was good, in that my ekg was unchanged and showed no further heart damage, so we could plan on heading south as soon as Renita has finished her last doctors checkup. Hurrying quickly to the truck we drove through Wind River Canyon headed for Ave's Silver and Rock Shop, in Thermopolis Wyoming.
The rock shop has been completely redone and sitting proudly out front is a 2740 pound Wyoming Jade boulder. It was found two years ago and is on sale for only $27400 dollars. We didn't have room in our truck and definitely didn't have the money so we settled on other stones.

Lepidolite has been a big seller for us and we actually ran out so we purchased ten pounds of the purple mica. We also bought some more dinosaur bone and some really pretty Tiffany stone, which is also called Bertranite, (the mineral from which beryllium is refined and is used for nose cones of rockets).

The next day we headed back to Star Valley. I was able to take a nice image of Crow Heart Butte and another showing the multicolored layers of the Morrison Formation. That's a rock layer from which most of the dinosaur bones you see in museums have been recovered.

We ran into snow on Togotee Pass, which was no surprise as its around 9500 feet in elevation. Luckily the road was only wet and we were able to safely drive down to Moran Junction and Jackson.

There were a few elk out on the snake river benches but nothing close enough for any pictures, so we consoled ourselves to taking images of the fall colors. They are really poor as we were traveling in rain at fifty five miles per hour.

I always try to spend a little of my birthday in Grand Teton National Park, (its fifty five miles away),and this year was a really quick, rainy, and cold visit. We plan on going back next week so hopefully the skies will clear and we can spot some wildlife. Clear skies