Travels with The Rayman

It’s hard to describe how beautiful the Grand Tetons are to me.  Rising the floor of the valley, they stand erect like citadels poised for eternity.  Capped in brilliant white. it makes you think they can’t really be real.  Not that beautiful.  Certainly not that high.  And they stretch along the valley for miles on end.  It is a cliche to say they are awe-inspiring so I’ll just let the pictures do the talking.  I’m out of words.

We drove down to the Grand Tetons from our dusty campground this a.m. to scout out tomorrows float on the S-S-S-(prounouce like Sissssss) Snake River.  There are many outfitters and we chose Lewis and Clark because I feel connected somehow to the Voyage of Discovery.  Before visiting their storefront, we had breakfast.  Best one so far on this trip.  My sweet potato/Brussel sprouts with egg and crispy pancetta.  Yum.  Rayman had an egg sandwich.  Good but I won.  Mine was GREAT.

Then we shuffled around all the shops in Jackson Hole.  A giant tourist trap where I found a thousand things I could have purchased…but didn’t.  The only thing we bought were some groceries at a great store.  In addition, we scouted out the doggie day care place where Beau will spend the day as we float the Snake.  We are an hour away from the place, at least, so round trip is 2 hours and then the float is 4 hours.  Way to long for Master Beau to be alone.

I found a vintage store with red cowboy boots but they wanted $160 for used boots.  No way, Jose.  And we stopped in the “town” of Moose.  It is home to a fab wine shop that our friends Al and Charlie told us about.  We wandered around and read the labels.  Everything was a bit higher than home and we were hard-pressed to find Paso Robles wines.  Bummer about that.

The rest of the day was just going crazy taking pictures.  Really, it is impossible not to photograph the place.  One of the most beautiful sights on earth.

Mirror, mirror on the Lake.

Thunderheads forming.

What we did not see were moose, elk, wolf, bald eagles.  Where are these bad boys?  We did almost hit two deer crossing the road.  Luckily we were going the speed limit.  The closer of the two calls, so to speak, Rayman was at the helm and he did an expert job of seeing it and breaking in time.  In fact, when we stopped to snap a pic, a guy from FL stopped and said, “Wow.  That was a close call.”  He was directly behind us and observed the close encounter.    Look below.  I was caught bear handed !!

Now we are back at our Dog House and Rayman is barbecuing lamb chops and asparagus.  It is starting to rain.  The wind has whipped up a bit and that has cut down on the mosquitos.  Thank god, because he is over-the-top on his mosquito hatred.  Just saying.

I’m blogging and drinking a very dry rose and tending to the roasted potatoes in the oven.  Man, do they smell good.  The red wine is breathing and so are we so we are having a great time…again…still.  What a fabulous trip!!!