Prepping for the winter

It is almost time for us to leave Star Valley. The Star Valley Rv Resort has announced the closing day on October 15th. Th water lines will freeze if they are not drained. Otherwise, we would stay longer as we love it here. Its been an incredible busy six months, most of which we have already written posts about. We have played more pickle ball than ever before and at times the best we have already played. However, its getting harder to move so some of the shots go flying past us. I have a bunch of things to fix so I can continue to improve on the depth of serve, being in the ready position, hitting with the ball on lobs, and working on my backhand, are just a few. I did play in one tournament called “the dink a thon”. I entered the 3.5 level group and quickly realized I was in the wrong group. Oh well, someone has to be the anchor.

We hope to hold a similar tournament in South Texas as many of our players are lacking in dinking skills. We also play in two round robin groups. One meets on Monday afternoon and is limited to 3.0 and 3.5 players of any age. Another meets every Friday and is limited to players who are seventy years old and above. There are a lot of people in this group, many of which are above our skill levels, (4.0 and above. New partners are drawn for each game ). It’s a good way to meet people and the better players will often suggest changes to better our play! Thanks to Nora for organizing both activities.

We had hoped to go to Grand Teton National Park but it’s shutdown with the government closure. We are heading to Jen and Erics for some flyfishing, before heading to a small family reunion at my sister Connie and Gary’s house in Springfield, Illinois. We also have several more doctors’ appointments before we can leave. Hopefully all will go as planned and we hope to arrive in South Texas November First. To all our friends who are traveling we wish you safe travels, and to others we hope to see you down the road. Clear skies Ps our blog visitor numbers since inception are now almost 480,000. Thanks to all who visit! I probably should have accepted advertisements but that would defeat the purpose, (and I hate blogs where the advertisements go on and on}. Our blog is a journal for us to remember where we have been since retirement. We make no money from it.

Hiking to Phelps Lake, Grand Teton National Park

We spent two days looking for bears in Grand Teton Park, with no luck.

The Hawthorne Trees are filled with berries. However, the foliage is so dense that unless you get lucky you can’t spot the bears. We never got lucky. Still, we had beautiful spots for picnics, the days were smoke free and on the second day we hiked to Phelps Lake. Rating the hikes, Phelps Lake is the easiest. It’s normally 2.2 miles but the normal route is closed due to black bears. A temporary route is open which adds another 1.2 miles to the round trip, making the round trip 3.4 miles total in length.

The elevation gain is only two hundred and twenty-five feet and its rated as an easy hike. We spotted a doe and fawn black tailed mule deer. They were healthy, unlike the doe and fawn we see in our rv park, dying from chronic wasting disease.

Returning to our car we next drove to Sawmill Pond where we spotted a belted kingfisher. A moose had been visible, but it had disappeared just before we arrived. It was still a nice place for lunch. After lunch we drove the Teton Park Road. Lots of people, lots of people with electric bikes, but very little wildlife. The parking lots at Jenny Lake and Lake Taggert Trail were both jammed with cars, many being forced to park alongside the road.

We saw quite a few people at the Black Tail Pond Overlook. A juvenile bald eagle was soaring overhead, and we got a pretty good image. It’s a huge bird and the beak it unmistakable, the beak of an eagle. It’s not unusual for us to miss seeing any bears. Normally we see bears for about one day for every three days we visit. We’re not sure if we will get back to the park as our time is getting short and we will be heading south when our park closes. The water is shut off, on/about October 15th. Clear skies

Hiking to Grand View Point, 2025

Earlier this summer, our Daughter Jen joined us for a hike to Taggert Lake. The next hike on our list, and the most strenuous, was our yearly hike to Grand View Point. It’s listed as an easy hike but at seventy-three, there really isn’t any such thing. Arriving at the parking lot we put on our hiking boots. Starting up, I asked Renita where we headed and she promptly answered, “To the Top”, (thanks to Steve Gardiner for telling the story in one of his books of hiking with his daughter up Snow king).

The first part of the trail had mud puddles, and we realized it had rained shortly before our arrival. We didn’t see any bear prints, always a good sign. Some years we have seen grizzly prints on the trail, so we were carrying bear spray. As we entered the forest canopy the trail was covered with debris from the rain and the rocks were slippery. Stepping carefully, we avoided any slips and falls, perhaps due to our trek poles. The trek poles give us extra balance as at our age balance is a problem…At one point Renita spotted a flock of Dusky Grouse.

Stopping frequently to catch our breath, we didn’t notice dead trees form beetle kill. Most of the trees looked to have survived the year. The only berries we noticed were snow berries, a white berry that humans can’t eat but one of the foods for hungry bears. About two thirds of the way up we were passed by a younger retired couple from Pennsylvania as we visited another retired couple stopped on their way down. They were from Virginia. It was like a mini happy hour on the mountain. We wished everyone safe travels and headed for the top.

The forest opened as we approached the top and we stopped for views of Two Ocean and Emma Matilda Lakes. At one of the openings there is an excellent view of the Tetons, almost as good as the false summit.

On the summit we met a family with five kids who ranged from ages ten to two years old. They must have carried the two-year-old girl. The parents had their hands full! They were also on a yearly hike to Grand View Point and like us from Wyoming. On top, three young women from Texas were taking pictures.

The real summit has a sign on it and after some pictures we headed down to the best view of the Tetons and our favorite lunch spot. Some clouds were forming, and I became concerned about the possibility of lighting. It has happened to me before and it’s not fun to huddle in an exposed position as lighting flashes and thunder booms all around you. (I have been caught three times on mountain tops, twice on Devils Tower and once while on the summit of Darton Peak in the Bighorns. Hurrying our lunch we headed down. The pace going down was so much easier but we had to stop and rest. It was taking more effort than usual as the rocks under the canopy were still wet. My legs were feeling like jelly, so we found a tree stump and took a brief respite. The storms moved away from us, and we continued to the car. We had reached the top! Clear skies

The Fires are still burning, cutting Australian Opals

The fires are still burning, even after the heavy rains. In some places the thick forest canopy acts as an umbrella for the fire and in other places the fire is so intense it didn’t die out. Finally, in some areas, (think steep valley mountain canyons), the fires cannot be safely fought. The current Wyoming fires around us are: The Willow Creek Fire of 4065 acres, (6.4 square miles), is thirty eight percent contained The Red Canyon Fire near Thermopolis, has burned an area of 125,000 acres, (195 square miles), is 93 percent contained The Dollar Lake Fire near Pinedale covers an area of 16236 acres, (25 square miles), is 22 per cent contained Finally, the Little Grey Fire, about 35 acres which is 100 percent contained We have not had any air quality warnings, even though we stay inside when the smoke is so thick that the government should have issued one. Perhaps it’s part of the cuts in federal funding……. One recent release on the fires said that the fire needs a big snowfall to finally put them out. Meanwhile I have been cutting a friend’s opals, cleaning our rock studio, and cutting cabochons that we will make into jewelry for next year’s shows. We were taught by our mentor, Dick Cline, (may he rest in peace), to never waste time working inferior quality stone. Today I amd planing on painting the dog house which is a cover for our heat pump and air conditioning. It is necassy to prevent damage from the winters snow, (two years ago we had twenty one feet)! Its too early for snow for the fires, but being a former member of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, I always end my posts with Clear skies.

The Willow Creek Fire

Yesterday afternoon our neighbors arrived from their Utah home. Their route had taken them along Highway 89 and they told us of encountering heavy smoke and firefighters as they neared and traveled over Salt Pass. The night before our friends Becky and Fred had gone to a dark sight to view and take pictures of the Milky Way. They had seen and photographed the flames from thirty miles away. Yesterday, after Pickleball we could see the huge clouds from the smoke and last evening heard that Salt Pass and Highway 89 were closed. The news was good and bad, Good in that the firefighters had prevented the fire from jumping over the highway and bad in that the fire had grown in size to almost four thousand acres, (about six square miles). We don’t live in a forest and should be safe from this fire, but we are less than a mile from National Forest land and are surrounded by unmown grasses and fields filled with hay. There are no fire hydrants in our Rv Park, that we know of, and so we decided we need a plan in case of a prairie fire. We once saw a prairie fire in a field in Gillette and how quickly the flames grew to over eight feet tall. If the flames are over two feet tall, a person cannot stop the fire. At over eight feet even equipment must flee, and the fire can’t be fought, Gillette was lucky that day as the wind died down. People had gotten out their water hoses and were standing and waiting out the flames. It wouldn’t have worked. The best thing to do was to evacuate. So, we discussed what we should do. Evacuation is the safest thing in a fire, before it’s too late. To prepare we need a emergency pack with our papers, passports, and insurance information. The vehicles need to be gassed up and ready to go. What we really need is a good soaking rain, something we have not seen for almost two months…… And so we pray for rain and not for clear skies. Ps we are not in any danger and thirty miles from the evacuation area, but now is the time to prepare for future fires

Hummingbird Wars August 2025

The Aztecs God of war was a hummingbird or sometimes depicted as an eagle. His name was Huitzilopochtli.

If you ever have had a hummingbird feeder, you may have seen a hummingbird war.

It happens when a dominant hummingbird, like a male rufous guards its nectar source. The male perches in our white lilac bush and attacks any other hummingbird that dares to try and feed.

Each hummingbird needs to eat half its body weight per day just to fuel its rapid flights, (a hummingbird weights about the same as a penny). It’s no wonder our feeders are emptied in about three days…..

One year we even found a dead hummingbird, after the fight had moved to a ground feeder. The nectar source is so important as the hummingbirds are in a state of hyperphagia, which the bears are also entering now, and they need to put on fat for their southern migration. Clear skies

Fly fishing with Jen and Renita

The weather here has been hot and dry. Jen had driven down from Montana to visit us for five days of fly fishing, hiking in Grand Teton National Park, shopping, and seeing our new Park model, (think tiny home). She has spent a lot of time on the water and is an accomplished flyfisher woman. Her goal here was to catch two of the four species of native cutthroats in Wyoming, working on the Wyoming Cut Slam award that Renita and I both earned years ago. On the first day of flyfishing we drove to Salt Creek and attempted to catch Bonniville Cutthroat Trout. Despite our best efforts the stream appeared to be devoid of any catchable fish. She did manage to catch several other small fish but no Bonneville.

Heading back over the Salt Pass we next drove to a public area on the Salt River. Working along the shore we finally found a spot with several active cuts, and she caught her first Sanke River Fine Spotted Cutthroat, (she had caught one another time but did not have a good picture for submission. The river was full of people drifting on innertubes but as soon as they passed the fish would start rising and we were frustrated that we couldn’t get any to take our flies).

The next day we decided to fish the Greys River. It’s the longest undammed river in the longest forty eight states. It was another frustrating day as the fish seemed to have lockjaw but at one of our spots Jen hooked a large Snake River Cutthroat. She fought it for quite a while before the hook pulled free about the time I got there with my net……. We also fished the Little Grey, a tributary, and there we both caught small cuts. I caught and released three on the lower stretch and Jen caught several. Deciding to take it easy we did not cross McDougal pass and pursue a Colorado Cutthroat. The next day we took a day off from fishing and went on the hike, which was the previous blog entry. On the following day we decided to float the Salt River. Wyoming Game and fish requires invasive species stickers. Thank goodness we could purchase them online, so we loaded the kayaks into the truck for a four-hour drift.

Renita and I dropped off our truck at the takeout point, and when we returned Jen told us she had already caught and released a fish. A guide boat started their drift, just ahead of us, and it’s never a good sign to have a guide boat just fishing in the water before us. I took the water temperature, and it was sixty-one one degrees so we could safely release any fish. Storm clouds started to build but we still were able to fish, and I caught and released a nice cut. We ended up catching five fish before the had to stop fishing and paddle quickly to the takeout point

At the first rapids I read the river wrong and got stuck on a shallow rapid. Jen easily floated by me, (I have been dieting and have lost thirty pounds in the last three years but still got stuck). It was the first time she had attempted to fish from a kayak. She had brought her inflatable float board but was glad she wasn’t using it while fishing on the fast river. She was already ahead of me, fish wise, and caught several more cuts before I finally had some success. Storm clouds started to build but we still were able to fish, and I caught and released a nice cut. For the day our total was five fish before we had to stop fishing and paddle quickly to the takeout point. Taking the kayaks out, we loaded them into the truck and had just finished loading them when we got hit with a deluge. It’s always a good day when we are fishing and Jen made the day special. It was the first time she had tried fishing from a kayak. It’s a lot more difficult while drifting than being in a drift boat,(or raft). Jen and Eric are thinking about buying a raft for fishing on the Bitterroot River in Montana, (near their house). Thank you, Jen, for the visit and for making more memories, we had a great time during your visit. Clear skies, and love... ps I do not use AI as you can tell from my mistakes....Renita opted to be the offical photographer.