July 22-23.
We fell into bed at 8PM after leaving Brooke & Paul and squandered $110 for a night in a partially-updated 1950’a ma & pa motel in Pinedale, WY. Sharon woke up at 4:30 am fully rested which meant I also got up. We waited a few hours until the German ma & pa who own the motel got around to walking up themselves and putting out the stuff they called breakfast then checked out and went shopping for FOOD!
After packing our trunk with food we headed back up into the wind river mountains by car this time, to 9100’ and the Elkhart Trail head perched high above the valley and with delicious views of the snowcapped winds where we have been hiking. (The picture abovve shows part of the range we walked through last week). We pitched our tent at one of eight national forest campsites at this “trails End” campsite and sat in our camp chairs and read books all day. By supper huge clouds and lightning strikes approached and Sharon said “I saw a movie down in Pinedale—let’s go see a movie while it rains on our tent” so we drovw the hour back down to the valley to discover the movies in Pinedale only are open on weekends and they prominently displayed on the door “no move will be shown unless ten people attend.”
So we walked around the small cowboy town under our huge IWU umbrellas for our evening program as rain poured on us. Walking around the town park’s “health walkway” we ran into a moose family—skinny antlered dad, a fat momma and two little baby moose and watched them for a half hour as the mother sat nervously looking at us as if to say, “one more step and I’m gonna’ get up and knock you into the next county.”
Sharon, who is gifted at finding ice cream stores seduced me into eating more ice cream than I knew I could consume than we drove back to 9100’ elevation and crawled into our tent for a chilly night complete with frost this morning.
We are now (July 23, morning) sitting outside a hotel parking lot back down in Pinedale mooching their Internet connection to post this and answer email. Funny isn’t it? There was once a time when folk “went on vacation” which meant they were actually gone from all work-related things for several weeks. Now, with Internet access work goes on vacation with us. That’s one big advantage of the backpacking trip last week—there isn’t even a possibility of cell phones or Internet access for a long week in the mountains. On the other hand we get to share with family and friends while we’re on vacation. And of course we can check out hotel prices in Jackson WY where we are headed next to see the Tetons…whoops, we’re not up to paying $200 per night for a simple hotel room…so Sharon just went in and grabbed the final room available tonight at this hotel for “only” a hundred bucks. Returning to the car she simply said, “I need a hot tub.” So do I.
We fell into bed at 8PM after leaving Brooke & Paul and squandered $110 for a night in a partially-updated 1950’a ma & pa motel in Pinedale, WY. Sharon woke up at 4:30 am fully rested which meant I also got up. We waited a few hours until the German ma & pa who own the motel got around to walking up themselves and putting out the stuff they called breakfast then checked out and went shopping for FOOD!
After packing our trunk with food we headed back up into the wind river mountains by car this time, to 9100’ and the Elkhart Trail head perched high above the valley and with delicious views of the snowcapped winds where we have been hiking. (The picture abovve shows part of the range we walked through last week). We pitched our tent at one of eight national forest campsites at this “trails End” campsite and sat in our camp chairs and read books all day. By supper huge clouds and lightning strikes approached and Sharon said “I saw a movie down in Pinedale—let’s go see a movie while it rains on our tent” so we drovw the hour back down to the valley to discover the movies in Pinedale only are open on weekends and they prominently displayed on the door “no move will be shown unless ten people attend.”
So we walked around the small cowboy town under our huge IWU umbrellas for our evening program as rain poured on us. Walking around the town park’s “health walkway” we ran into a moose family—skinny antlered dad, a fat momma and two little baby moose and watched them for a half hour as the mother sat nervously looking at us as if to say, “one more step and I’m gonna’ get up and knock you into the next county.”
Sharon, who is gifted at finding ice cream stores seduced me into eating more ice cream than I knew I could consume than we drove back to 9100’ elevation and crawled into our tent for a chilly night complete with frost this morning.
We are now (July 23, morning) sitting outside a hotel parking lot back down in Pinedale mooching their Internet connection to post this and answer email. Funny isn’t it? There was once a time when folk “went on vacation” which meant they were actually gone from all work-related things for several weeks. Now, with Internet access work goes on vacation with us. That’s one big advantage of the backpacking trip last week—there isn’t even a possibility of cell phones or Internet access for a long week in the mountains. On the other hand we get to share with family and friends while we’re on vacation. And of course we can check out hotel prices in Jackson WY where we are headed next to see the Tetons…whoops, we’re not up to paying $200 per night for a simple hotel room…so Sharon just went in and grabbed the final room available tonight at this hotel for “only” a hundred bucks. Returning to the car she simply said, “I need a hot tub.” So do I.
--Keith Drury
3 comments:
YAY! So glad your hiking trip went well and that you're enjoying your car-bum part now.
I'll e-mail you too.
I LOVE the tent! It looks so cool in that little camp site. How did it work out up in the winds?
BTW - took a self-guided tour of the new CM building today. (Todd is right about the hard-hat clipboard thing.) What a terrific transformation of space! Your office will be the envy of every faculty member in the science division!!! Great windows - you will get absolutely no work done in that space. I was particularly impressed with the chapel conversion. Very sharp.
Burt--the tent did great in the winds--even in high winds... as a single wall tent it had some condensation at night BUT the walls are so steep it simply ran down and dropped on to the ground outside. Having a place where one can sit upright 9almost stand!) is a real delight--we even set up the net by itself for lunches when the mosquitoes were thick.
As for the office--thanks for the report--I'm coming back August 9 and plan to unpack boxes that day before leaving later that weekend for the Colorado Trail. I love my new "picture window"--best office on the campus bar none! ;-)
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