2020 Condo Week 2.0: Nearing the End

This is part five of the posts for this year's Condo Trip. You really should read them in order. Here's a link to take you to Part One; then click on "Newer Post" at the bottom left when you get to the end.

The weather on Tuesday was perfect for a day spent indoors. This was fine, as we had planned to spend the morning at the National Museum of Wildlife Art, a little way north of town. We got there just after opening at 10AM on a cool, rainy day. I did not melt, nor did I clump. I only got a little wet on the walk from the car to the entry.

The museum started off some years ago as a collection of landscapes featuring local scenes and fauna. As it grew, its ambit grew to include all of North America, then all fauna everywhere. I'll let you speculate as to why this happened.

Outside the museum are a number of monumental bronzes: buffalo, of course, and elk, and other local critters, all quite beautifully done. Inside are more bronzes, but also a good-sized collection of paintings, mostly of mountain creatures but including big game from Africa, Europe and Asia. For me, though, the main draw was the landscapes. A moose statue is nice but it's nothing compared to the real thing; a painting of beautiful scenery, on the other hand, is almost as good as the actual thing. A painting of antelope on the scrub of southern Wyoming takes me back, not because of the antelope but because of the scenery. Elk in snow before a range of mountains does the same thing, again not because of the elk but because of the mountains. It's places I remember.

(On East Gros Ventre Butte, which looms over Jackson from the front of our condo, there is a single tree growing near the top, away from all the other trees, and situated exactly on the crest so that it stands against the horizon. I found myself staring at that one tree and thinking about a single tree similarly situated on a rise in Kenya

Kenya, evoked daily

; I had taken a picture of it that, to me, evokes the isolation of that bit of the world: there is the tree, and nothing else. You can slap as many animals down in front of it as you like, but it's the tree that takes me back to that time and place.)

I decided to cook that night -- one can only do takeout so often -- so we went to the supermarket and bought ingredients for conchiglie in salsa russo, and since we were there we also bought bread and cheese and had cheese sandwiches for lunch. After we got back to the condo I realized I'd forgotten an indispensable ingredient, tomato sauce, so I walked over to the fru-fru little market a block over for an 8-ounce can. It would've almost been cheaper to take an Uber back to Albertson's; I couldn't believe what they charge: $1.99 for a little can of sauce that's no better than what I can get back home for 34 cents. Well, at least it gives me something to bitch about.

Sherry knitted the evening away and we once again watched some old movies on TV (The Apartment, and something else I don't remember). This being the Year of the Pandemic, I guess I can't mind too much spending so much of our trip indoors like that, but I hope it isn't going to feature on future condo weeks. It'd hardly be worth leaving home; after all, we get all those same channels and more on our own televisions.

Cache Creek

On Wednesday we took a walk across town, then up into Bridger-Teton National Forest, up one side of Cache Creek and back down on the other. It was cool and dry, and we got started really early, when the fog was still in the valleys around us. There were very few people about until the very end of the hike, when we started to encounter a number of people on mountain bikes. 

After our first hike last week, up the side of Snow King Mountain, I felt like I'd stepped hard on a sharp rock with my left foot. It bothered me that day but was fine the next day. Then when we hiked up Cascade Canyon, I made it a point to wear hiking boots instead of tennis shoes. When I put the boots on I felt much better in them, so I figured it was just because the soles of my sneakers are pretty soft, compared to the boots, and the boots' insoles are much thicker. Still, after the hike my left foot kind of hurt again. I didn't think much of it. But yesterday, after hiking across Jackson and up the creek and back down, when we reached about six miles I just couldn't go any farther. Sherry walked the last 2 miles back to the condo and got the car to come pick me up. When I got home and took my boots off ... Oh. My. God. I could not walk at all. It feels like I have a stress fracture in my left heel. (That's just a guess; I can't think of what else it could be.) This morning when we were loading the car I put my shoes on, and found that I could at least walk with a limp. I have an appointment with the podiatrist Monday. Meanwhile, I'm afraid to take off my shoes.

Carly & Aspen
we still can't tell them apart

Today, Thursday, we got an early start leaving Jackson, and reached Golden to pick up Carly around 5pm. Now we're in a hotel just south of Denver. Tomorrow we'll get off the main roads and go through the two remaining unvisited counties of Colorado, then drive across New Mexico towards home. I figure we'll be there by Saturday night, but maybe not. We'll see. Not going to rush it.

Here, once again, is a link to the picture album for this trip.

And again: if you're reading this in your email, please click on the link to the actual blog before you delete it, so it'll register as having been seen. My blog visitor numbers are pathetic, and you have it in your power to do something completely altruistic that will make a certain someone happy. You don't have to actually read it again when you visit the blog; though I think it's always worth reading again....

2020 Condo Week 2.0: Two Good Days

This is part four of the posts for this year's Condo Trip. You really should read them in order. Here's a link to take you to Part One; then click on "Newer Post" at the bottom left when you get to the end.

Yesterday, Sunday, was a day of rest. We had leftover pizza for breakfast (the true breakfast of champions). It was the last day of the English Premier League season, and there were 10 matches being played all at the same time. We had a choice of four shown on channels available to us in this condo, plus five on my cellphone, on a new NBC service called Peacock. One match was on a channel we couldn't get.

But we got to watch the matches that mattered the most to us. Since Liverpool had already won the title, and their opponent, Newcastle United, had nothing at stake, we didn't watch that. (Well, I did watch the first minute on my phone, just enough to see Newcastle score the fastest goal it's ever scored in a Premier League match (but Liverpool won, 3:1)); but then we switched to the TV, and watched (mostly) Chelsea beat Wolverhampton, 2:0, largely thanks to our favourite player, American sensation Christian Pulisic.

Christian Pulisic

We also flipped over to the Leicester City -- Manchester United match, but Leicester was in poor form and the result there wasn't really in much doubt. These two matches pretty much settled the question of who would play Champions League football next season. (Wolverhamption is still in the Europa League, and if they win that competition -- slight chance -- they they also will be in the Champions League.)

As soon as the English soccer was done, we found the final of the National Women's Soccer League tournament on TV, and watched the Houston Dash, which I guess is "our" team, win over the Chicago Red Stars in a very good match. So, Yay!

Then we took our dirty clothes for a walk down to a laundromat about a mile away and washed them. Sherry wasn't hungry; she sat in the laundromat and knitted, while I went next door for lunch. The Chinese restaurant was closed so I forced myself to go to the Mexican restaurant in the same strip-center. At least I got to use the remnants of Spanish that I retain. And it wasn't bad, although they got my order slightly wrong. (Flour tortilla instead of corn.)

We lazed around the apartment the rest of the day, watching old movies on TV. That evening we went over to the supermarket and picked up food for today's breakfast, and while we were there we got a chicken pot pie that we split for Sunday dinner. It was enough.

This morning we loaded our car up and were out the door early; we stopped for coffee and drove up to the Park, and had a nice breakfast picnic of sourdough bread, Gouda cheese, grapes and coffee, then drove on to Jenny Lake, where we took the shuttle-boat across and hiked up to Hidden Falls, which was very pretty. We continued up the steep trail to

Hidden Falls

Inspiration Point, which was also very pretty though not so much as the name would imply. We had intended to turn back at that point, but the guy at the boat dock had said that after Inspiration Point, the path levelled out a lot and continued up Cascade Canyon to a junction with another trail about four miles further on. We had time, and no heart attacks, so we went on for at least a couple of miles, to a meadow where people had reported seeing moose. We didn't see any, and after watching the meadow for maybe 20 minutes we started back. The whole hike ended up being about 5 miles, which is a lot for me, especially at these altitudes.

That was, basically, the whole day. When we got back to town, we walked over to the Town Square and did a little shopping, and found a cafe for a light lunch (I had Cajun Eggs Benedict: eggs and boudin on toasted slices of French bread, topped with a good hollandaise and some interesting hash-brown-like potato accompaniment). Came back to the apartment and vegged out for the rest of the day.

Here, once again, is a link to the picture album for this trip.

And again: if you're reading this in your email, please click on the link to the actual blog before you delete it, so it'll register as having been seen. My blog visitor numbers are pathetic, and you have it in your power to do something completely altruistic that will make a certain someone happy. You don't have to actually read it again when you visit the blog; though I think it's always worth reading again....

2020 Condo Week 2.0: Saturday

This is part three of the posts for this year's Condo Trip. You really should read them in order. Here's a link to take you to Part One; then click on "Newer Post" at the bottom left when you get to the end.

We took a driving tour of the top photo spots in the park that we found on the Grand Teton National Park App. Well, we didn't quite make it there for sunrise, but we were close: We stopped for coffee at a convenience store on the highway, technically after sunrise, but before the sun got above the low mountain to the east. We watched fog rising from the bogs of Flat Creek across the road, then headed up into the park.

The first stop was along the Snake River, near where it passes in front of the Grand Teton (which is the name of the tallest mountain in the range, 13,770 feet high, and the prettiest). We were definitely not the first people out there this morning, but it wasn't too crowded. The small parking lot was full, and a few cars parked along the entry road. We made the easy hike out about a quarter of a mile along the riverbank -- supposedly to "a large beaver dam," but I never saw that. It was still in the high 30s; I had a windbreaker on but was wishing then that I'd also worn long sleeves

Grand Teton & the Snake River

underneath. We saw a couple of sandhill cranes in the distance, too far for a decent picture (though Sherry got a recording of their calls), and other birds, and the gorgeous mountains in the near distance. We stayed there a lot longer than we needed to, just taking one picture after another.

It's hard to decide which picture to post here.

the Ansel Adams shot

Next we drove up the road a ways to a place called the Snake River Overlook. This is the spot where Ansel Adams took his most famous picture of the park, back in 1942. I took the same picture. Mine is probably never going to be as famous as his, but the subject matter is as good.

Mt Moran

After that came the Oxbow Bend turnout, where a change in the course of the river left a segment stranded. As a result, it tends to be glassy-smooth and gives a nice reflection of Mount Moran.

Then we made the longish drive, not quite 20 miles (with a stop for breakfast at another convenience store) to the Jackson Lake overlook. This, I realized, is a place I've been twice before, once 15 years ago when we were here with Nancy & Jeff, and once on the way to Washington for another condo week. That second time I just stopped to take a picture of the fall foliage, but it still counts. It's a beautiful view (of course), but a pretty long drive, and it's right on the way to Yellowstone; so I was thinking, we should've skipped that particular stop on the Photo Trail, since we could stop there next time we passed.

Jackson Lake

Still, it's an iconic shot, the same one I took 15 years ago. But this time the weather was better.

Jenny Lake

After that, following the Photo Trail guide, we re-traced our route south until we reached Moran Junction, where another road branches off and runs through the park a little to the west of the highway. By this time it was getting warm and crowded. We stopped at the Jenny Lake Overlook, which gives a nice view of the glacial cut on the opposite side of the lake, and hiked along the lakeshore until we decided the path wasn't going to take us down to the water's edge. (We later learned that it just goes all the way around the lake, about 8 miles.)

The next place on our tour was Inspiration Point, which, it turns out, is on the other side of the lake. The road doesn't go there: you either hike 6 miles, or take the shuttle-boat and hike 4 miles. By this time, the Jenny Lake Visitors' Center, where the boat-dock is, was jammed with several thousand people. The parking lot was full and cars lined the road in. There were posses of children, and groups of people lined up (socially distant) for the ranger station and the park shop. We decided we would go to the Point, but not today. So I wanted to know (a) how much the boat costs, and (b) what their operating hours are. This is information you would expect to find easily, on conveniently placed signs like the ones directing you to the boat-dock. But no. It is, apparently, something of a secret.

So we hiked down to the boat dock, which is about a quarter of a mile down. When we got there, there was a long line of people blocking the way to the desk; they already had their tickets, I assume, or were waiting to buy them. I just went on down past them to a point where I couldn't get by safely; there was a bridge to the dock, divided into In and Out sides. The In side was full of people waiting; the Out side was full of people coming off an arriving boat. Once they were gone, I stood studying the layout, and finally decided that, yes, I could get to a person at the counter to ask. So I started down the Out side of the bridge. At that point, a girl who was just standing at the end of the bridge -- I'd assumed she was just waiting for someone -- asked if I had any questions she could answer (with a tone of voice like she was going to call security). Well, damn, girl, why didn't you ask me when I was standing there next to you for two minutes? Waste my time....

Anyway, so now we know how much the boat is, and that they start at 7:30 in the morning every day. So we'll be back, probably Monday or Tuesday, after the weekend crowds are gone (we hope). And at this point, we decided that we're not going to go to Yellowstone at all on this trip. We could change our minds again, but it's so far to that park that we'd have to leave at 5:30 AM just to get some early-morning pictures; and there are so many people ... and we've been there before anyway; it just doesn't seem worth going again. But, like I say, we might change our minds again. Maybe if the crowds in Grand Teton on Monday are vastly lessened, we might re-think the decision.

Chapel of the Transfiguration

Our last stop was at the Chapel of the Transfiguration and Menor Ferry. Everything in this area was closed because of the pandemic, but we walked around it, looking at the old buildings. The ferry is from the 19th Century, a double-hulled boat that was dragged back and forth across the river by the force of water, guided by traveller-gears on a cable. The captain would angle the hulls slightly so that the pressure from the river's flow was greater on one side than the other, which would push the boat toward the far side of the river, with the cable holding it in line for the opposite dock. As it approached the dock, he'd point the bows of the hulls directly into the flow, equalizing the pressure, and that would cause the boat to straighten in the river and nestle in against the dock. Very clever.

Here, once again, is a link to the picture album for this trip.

And again: if you're reading this in your email, please click on the link to the actual blog before you delete it, so it'll register as having been seen. My blog visitor numbers are pathetic, and you have it in your power to do something completely altruistic that will make a certain someone happy. You don't have to actually read it again when you visit the blog; though I think it's always worth reading again....

2020 Condo Trip 2.0: Jackson Hole

This is part two of the posts for this year's Condo Trip. You really should read them in order. Here's a link to take you to Part One; then click on "Newer Post" at the bottom left when you get to the end.

 

Jackson Hole

So the drive up from Laramie to Jackson was pretty uneventful. The governor of Wyoming, in a misguided effort to save money after having to deal with the costs to state revenues of Corona Virus, ordered a bunch of highway rest areas closed. Today's newspaper featured a story about residents who live along highways having to deal with human feces along their driveways, and of course the expense of cleanup is going to be borne by the state.

I just thought that was kind of funny. I feel sorry for the highway travellers who just reach the point of having to take a dump out in the open because the state's trying to save a buck. Do rest areas really cost that much to operate?

Anyway. While I was planning this trip I found a web site called Only In Your State with all kinds of state-specific clickbait. I checked the page on Best Burgers in Each State, and found Broadway Burgers, a place in Rock Springs, listed. Since we would be passing through around lunch time, we went there. They were open only for curbside service, but they did have a couple of outside tables, so we ate there: basic burgers with all the trimming. We split a basket of fries, and we each ordered a milkshake (that being another specialty of the house). Everything -- I mean everything -- was great. The basket of fries was so big even I couldn't finish it. The burger was perfectly prepared, completely old-fashioned, with the shredded lettuce and sliced tomatoes and chopped onion on a nice big, soft bun. So, so good. And the shakes were the old-fashioned kind: delivered in a parfait glass, whipped cream and cherry on top, and on the side, the metal mixing cup half-full of seconds.

It was, after all, National Vanilla Ice Cream day, and we celebrated in appropriate style.

We cruised up alongside the Wind River and Gros Ventre mountain ranges. When I was new to Wyoming, and travelling back and forth along I-80, I couldn't wait to get up and see this part of the state. It is one of the most beautiful parts of the USA, but now, as you approach Jackson and the National Parks, it becomes congested with vacation traffic.

That's the biggest change I've noticed here. When I came to the mountains of Wyoming 35 years ago, I was pretty much assured of being the only car on the road most of the time. The last time I was here, 15 years ago, it was much busier (in October, after the season), but even the town of Jackson was small and quaint. Our condo was at the edge of town, two blocks from the main square.

The last decade and a half has seen Jackson prosper in many ways. It's a large city now, by Wyoming standards, something like 10,000 people, and according to yesterday's paper, despite the pandemic, this year's tourism is setting records. The vacant lots have all been built into lodging, and there are no vacancies in any of them; the highway into town is lined with trendy new businesses for several miles (heading south, that is; to the north Jackson Hole is all protected land, as you can see from the photo at the top of this post). Jackson is crowded, and its ambience is exactly the same as what I experienced last year at Tahoe: Western American Vacationland, sort of Disneyesque.

The city of Jackson passed a mask ordinance very early on in the pandemic; Teton County, where Jackson sits, adopted the same ordinance soon after. This pissed off Wyoming's governor, he of the rest-area fiasco, but the city and county blew off his blustering and kept their ordinance in place. While Teton County has a number of cases (72 by today's count), it's fairly well controlled. All the shops in town require masks, most give them away, many limit the number of people in their shops, and most people on the street wear masks routinely, even when they are maintaining social distancing.

This morning we went for a short hike up Shade Monkey Trail and Sink or Swim Trail, on Snow King Mountain just a few blocks from our apartment. Very nice, especially the shady parts. The idea was, a short hike in the morning, then get cleaned up and go to the National Wildlife Museum of Art a couple of miles north of town. Instead, we walked through downtown, shopping for T-shirts and such. We picked up lunch from a take-away bagel place around the corner and ate in the apartment. Sherry turned the TV on and started knitting, and before you knew it, it was too late to go to the museum, which closes fairly early. So we watched movies on TV (The Bourne Supremacy and  The Bourne Ultimatum, with their excellent fight scenes and car chases) until it was time for dinner; which we ordered from the Nepali restaurant half a block down the street. Like I said, the town is full of trendy new businesses.

The plan for tomorrow is to head up the road for a photo excursion around Grand Teton National Park. I'm hoping for an early start, both to beat the weekend crowds and to get the early-morning low sun. We'll just see how that works out.

And here's a link to the picture album for this trip.

By the way, if you're reading this in your email, please click the link to the actual blog before you delete it, so it'll register as having been seen. My blog visitor numbers are pathetic, and you have it in your power to do something completely altruistic that will make somebody happy. You don't have to actually read it again when you visit; though I think it's always worth reading again....

Condo Week 2.0

This trip did not get off to the best start. We were in no hurry, as we were only driving as far as Amarillo on the first day, an easy day's drive. We stopped as usual at our preferred travel-breakfast restaurant in Kerrville, an hour out of San Antonio.

The staff there, and most of the patrons, were not wearing masks. Kerr County appears to be solid Trump country, so common sense is laid aside in favour of And-The-Horse-You-Rode-In-On political expression. We almost went elsewhere, but I do like the food at this little mom-and-pop place, and had to think hard about that. Then the waitress was there asking what we wanted to drink, and when I hesitated, still deciding, Sherry assumed I was just leaving it up to her, and ordered coffee. I was still thinking about going over and cancelling, telling the waitress why we weren't comfortable there, until she brought the coffee. At that point I felt committed. (They did at least have a sign on the door asking patrons not to sit at dirty tables until they'd had the chance to bus them and wipe them down with sterilizer.)

Had my two breakfast tacos & two cups of good coffee. Sherry went out to walk Carly while I paid the bill. That's when I realized I'd left home without my wallet.

That was the end of Condo Week 1.0. After an hour's drive home, we launched Condo Week 2.0. It has, so far, gone much better than Version 1.0. Kind of like the difference between Windows 7 and Windows XP. (I still miss my Windows XP computer, which lasted 16 years with no major problem, and 3 more years after the first hard drive failed; compared to this Apple MacBook Air, which lasted a few months before the motherboard had to be replaced (under the manufacturer's warranty), and another year before it had to be replaced again (under the credit card extended warranty). It's already getting persnickity again, but if the damn board goes again, so does the computer.)

But I digress.

We make the trip to Colorado with the dog every year, at Christmas, so we have our favourite spots: the restaurant in Kerrville; the hotel in Amarillo and the Thai place across the road; the breakfast burritos smothered in green chili at Sierra Grande in Des Moines, New Mexico; and, for some reason, a gas station in Castle Rock, Colorado. (That last is just coincidence; no matter where I fill up the time before, that's always where I need another tank. I don't know why.) This time it's summer, but we hit all the same spots. Because we're going on to Wyoming, to a condo where pets aren't allowed, we dropped Carly off at our niece's house in Golden -- via a touchless curbside delivery, of course, because of the pandemic. Their dog,

cousins

Aspen, is Carly's unrelated identical-twin cousin. I wouldn't have thought that possible, but if they didn't have collars on it would be almost impossible to tell them apart.

Now we're in Laramie for the night, after a stop at Vedauwoo Rocks

Turtle Rock, in Vedauwoo Rocks

(pronounced VEE-da-voo) in the Laramie Mountains. I used to go up there when I lived in Cheyenne. You'd just pull off the road and start climbing around in the rocks. Now it's all been improved by the Forest Service (it's in the Medicine Bow National Forest), and there's a campground and places for RVs and marked trails and warning signs, and they charge fees (which we don't have to pay, being Old Folks with the lifetime pass, but still...). Thirty-five years ago, there'd have been almost no one around on a Saturday; now, the parking lot was full, on a Wednesday. I hadn't realized that so much had changed, in what seems like the blink of an eye until I consciously think about how long it's actually been since I was there.

Before dinner we took a little tour of Laramie; our hotel is up on a ridge west of town, while the town is down in the valley. In Wyoming, all the towns in the valleys, because that's where the water is and the wind isn't. Laramie now is as big as Cheyenne was when I lived there in the '80s -- 30,000 people, but it also has the University of Wyoming, with its 14,000 students, so it seems bigger. But looking from my hotel across the city, it is clearly a very small city. We're thinking of buying a summer home here. We went across town (took no time at all) and then back to the old part of the city, 3rd & 4th Streets, and had a nice dinner at a brew pub called Accomplice. (Sherry discovered that you can now use "Covid-19 precautions" as a filter on Trip Advisor. That's good to know.) Excellent beer, excellent pizza. Apple fritter? We disagreed: Sherry liked it because it was crunchy; I thought it tasted burnt.

And as we were wandering back to our car, we passed a small bar filled with happy college-aged people, all crowded together without masks, ensuring the next generation of corona virus. Sad that, in a few weeks, one percent of them will be dead and a third of them will live with heart and lung ailments for the rest of their lives. Without having had the pleasure of a lifetime of smoking tobacco and eating fatty foods. So sad.

By the way, if you're reading this in your email, please click the link to the actual blog before you delete it, so it'll register as having been seen. My blog visitor numbers are pathetic, and you have it in your power to do something completely altruistic that will make somebody happy. You don't have to actually read it again when you visit; though I think it's always worth reading again....

Isolation Relief

Lots of people are finding lots of ways of getting relief from their isolation in the time of corona virus. This is one of the best sites I've found for idle wandering, on the Web and in my mind.

Go to Windowswap

Passing It Along

I think this is important.