The Museum of Idaho, Life in the Permian

We needed to have routine maintenance work done on our Suburu. So we drove over and made an appointment with our dealer in Idaho Falls. Spending the night, we decided to have my hearing aids at Costco,(free), repaired and decided to use the waiting time to visit the Museum of Idaho, The Museum hosts traveling exhibits, and the current one is, The Life of the Permian. As it fit our interests perfectly we had to see it!, (I taught High School and College Astronomy, Earth Science and Geology Classes). Entering the first room we were greeted with a fossil reproduction of an amphibian, Sclercephalus. Next to it was a three-dimensional model of what it was like. It moved and roared and its head followed as you moved around the display. As it was an amphibian it laid its eggs in the water, (By the way paleontologists know that the amniotic egg came before the chicken).

Next was a dimetrodon, which has a sail-like structure, that may have been used as a way of heating and cooling its body temperature, (moving in and out or sideways, the direct sun would have caused its huge top fin to act like a radiator).

The room also contained an Edaphosaurus, pavement lizard, and a Cotylorhynchus, which was called a cup lizard. Both of these survived the Extinction event but did not last long as the dinosaurs, reptiles, became the dominant life form.

There were also ammonites and lots of other life forms that survived this mass extinction but not the one at the end of the Cretaceous. One interesting fish was this shark with a row of teeth that looked like a rip saw, nightmares anyone?

The exhibit continued upstairs, and had several small mammals that developed, the creatures that we evolved from, (but not the one in this picture. Another of my favorites was the Crowned Alligator.

Probably most of my readers have already fallen asleep, but the Museum continued with other great Permian Exhibits. It then continued with exhibits of people, their accomplishment and tools used during Idaho’s settlement.

The last exhibit was a life size reconstruction of a Columbian Mammoth. This was of special interest to me as I collect fossils and have a partial skull section and scapula from one of these Giants. If you find yourself in Idaho Falls there are many other things to do but I really urge you to make a stop and visit The Museum Of Idaho! Clear skies Ps the dealership in Corpus Christie said we needed over three thousand dollars of maintenance work, our bill at our dealership was eight hundred and eighty-eight dollars……

Big Horn Sheep on the Elk Refuge, The Whiskey Mountain Herd

Grand Teton National Park April 2026

Last year was an exceptional year for photographing bears. We arrived on April 9th and on our first day in the park spotted bear 610 and her three two-year-old sub adults. They were feeding on a carcass of an elk near the Moran Entrance station. Two days late we drove up to Flag Ranch and Bruno, the dominant male Grizzly bear, was walking alongside the road. As he passed our car, we could see his eye looking at us, but he really didn’t care as he was heading south to Grand Teton National Park. This year we were staying in Jackson, and so it was only a short drive back to Moran. Entering the park, we stopped at all the places we saw grizzly bears, but they were not wanting their photos taken. Day one turned into day two through day nine and we never spotted any bears, (we did see grizzly bear tracks in snow near Coulter Bay. Luckily, there were other things to see. The elk were migrating early, due to the warm weather, so we changed our target from bears to birds. It was a good choice as we added two new birds for our life list.

The first was a very common bird, a song sparrow. It sang and perched in a short tree giving us a great opportunity for a picture. The next was a Red Breasted Nuthatch, identified by merlin’s sound recording, (a bird heard is a bird counted. We spotted numerous Bald Eagles, Ospreys, and took our best picture ever of a male and female Barrows Goldeneye.

They were exhibiting courtship behavior and were oblivious to our presence, (we were walking on the trail at Schwabacher Landing).

On another day we took a picture of a Belted Kingfisher.

As usual Kingfishers are hard to photograph, and this one flew every time I tried to get him in focus. He made the mistake of landing on top of a pine tree about one hundred yards away. I had our 600 mm zoom lens on and I took his picture.

We also saw American White Pelicans, Cormorants, and Great Blue Herons.

I did get a pretty good shot of a Mountain Blue Bird! We also saw a Red-Tailed Hawk in flight, and a Northern Harrier.

One of the birds, common but rarely seen, was a Great Horned Owl,(I have misplaced the picture). We hoped it was a Great Grey but you can clearly see the feathery ears, diagnostic of a Great Horned Owl.

We had to leave the Park to get maintenance done on our car. Now that it has been taken care of we are going to visit a museum in Idaho Falls and then return to Grand Teton National Park. This time it will be for ten more days of bear watching. The migrating elk cows have moved onto their calving places, so the bears can’t be too far behind. Till they calve, the bears will turn into cows and munch on grass and clover. They have over two hundred items on their diet. If you ever see a bear do not feed it! A Fed Bear is a Dead Bear. Once they get a taste of human food they will be captured and relocated. A second offense will result in the bear being euthanized.

Finally, we had to pass through a herd of Buffalo as they crossed the highway. Thats never a pleasant event. Clear skies Ps our friends Gordon and Babs were in New Mexico and a Black bear smelled the M and M’s in their BMW. It then broke into the car and destroyed it.

Homeward Bound With a too brief Stop At the Keystone Gallery

Our plan was to leave for Wyoming by ten am but like most of our plans we were too optimistic. We finally finished and left at twelve-thirty. The first day’s original goal, was to spend the night in San Angelo, but we changed the plan and spent the night further south at Junction, Texas. The next morning the wind came up but we were able to drive in spite of our high profile vehicle, which was even higher with the Thule Carrier. Still, we were able to drive five hundred miles to Liberal, Kansas. Arriving at Liberal, the wind increased again, and was so strong that I had to hold the door for Renita so she could safely exit the car. Checking into a motel we hoped to leave the next day, but the wind was still to strong for us to safely travel and we extended our stay to two nights in Liberal. The wind finally abated and we were back on our plan as we were able to drive to Ogallala, Nebraska. During our journey, we stopped at the Keystone Art Gallery and Fossil Museum along the way and engaged with two paleontologists. Chuck Bonner and Barbara Shelton, specializing in the excavation of fossil fish and other specimens from the Niobrara Chalk Formation. The formation was deposited from eighty-two to eighty-seven million years ago, . The Museum’s collection even included type fossils which are fossils discovered, described and named by the discoverer.

One of the fossil fish was named after the paleontologist’s, (Chuck Bonner), sister. Of course, I had to buy a fossil and tee shirts, (always support the Museum).Barabra and Chuck gave us great information on the Museum and fossil collectons. It was so nice to be able to converse with experts!

We next stopped at Ogallala and stayed at one of our favorite and cheapest motels. Eating out gets tiresome and expensive, so we resorted to the frozen food aisle in Walmart, and the microwave in the motel room. The next day we passed Chimney Rock in Western Nebraska, drove through Scottsbluff and reached the Wyoming Border! Two days later we finally arrived at Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Our plan is to stay here for nine days and photograph wildlife in Grand Teton National Park. Clear skies Finally found one last picture, this one os of Crow Heart Butte. About 100 miles to go to end the migration!