Looking down Jenny Lake in the Grand Tetons

The Advisory Council meeting came to a close today, with a brief tour of Grand Teton National Park as a wrap-up. I've been to the Tetons before, and they are rather impressive. One of those ranges where... you drive and drive and don't see anything and don't see anything, and you wonder where in the world these silly mountains are, and then your turn around a corner or come over a ridge or peak around a tree and BAM. There they are! Huge and uber-imposing and out of nothing. They don't look quite as tall as they could until you realize they are miles upon miles off, and they STILL look tall. Rocky and edgy and Craggy and snow-covered, everything you would want from the West.

They are pretty developed, with lots of inholdings and private ranches and other consumer means. It was only a couple of years ago that commercial grazing inside the park was made illegal (though I do enjoy grass-fed beef as opposed to wasteful grain-fed beef). I have to admit though, this was the first time I remember being in the park when I didn't see a moose... do they go anywhere for the winter? I have no idea, but the moose rutt was supposed to be pretty wild this year.

Anyway, we had a brief tour by the Jackson NPCA field office (seriously this Shannon chic IS the ENTIRE office) and Bill, some dude who spends a lot of money on NPCA. I immediately didn't take to Bill, as he was one of those aforementioned people who spoke to me like I didn't just move to Colorado from YELLOWSTONE. Also, he said that the buffalo from Yellowstone migrate in the winter to Grand Teton, which is well... not true. They migrate north to the Crazy Mountains in Montana, which is why there's the big controversy about them leaving park boundaries... if they were going south to another park, leaving the park wouldn't be much of a problem. Oh well, I assume Bill assumed that none of us would know any better.

On the tour, I immediately took to Alan, our government affairs liaison, who's got long dreads and who prefers to be out in the wild taking photos on his own and not feeding into the egos of the rest of us. Plus, he had a GREAT lens... I had lens envy!

Gail, my director

Megan, my coworker

Jodie, the CPM person who lives in our office... the pic came out blurry because I have poor eyesight and can't see what I focus, but I though it was neat!

Jim, the Head Honcho

Alan, being all photographer-like

Jackson, WY. Home of the quintessential fake cowboy. It may be Wyoming, Middle of Nowhere, USA, but these guys don't substitute anything for fashion. It's a bunch of rich, white people who want to live in the REAL West, so they buy their over-priced houses and their over-priced cowboy boots and their-over priced lives and spend summers or winter (but nothing in between) playing rancher or mountain man or guy-on-safari. It's all fake, though I suppose they couldn't have chosen a better location for a fake life.

The meeting went fine, boring and logistical and full of people speaking in their own jargons to make everyone else there feel stupid. By and large, I was treated like someone who didn't just get a master's degree and who was too young to have any intelligent thoughts on anything. I discovered that Francisco's opinions on culture were indicative of how little biologists know about culture, but of course he wouldn't listen to a word I said. I also discovered that people from Jackson love talking to you like you have never ever been out West and are therefor ignorant of everything that goes on there. When you correct them and say, "Actually, I live here" they look at you blankly, completely unsure how to proceed. I get that a lot.

I could go on about the things I disagreed with or about how I was dissed the whole time. I don't want to.

But it was quite beautiful, so I spent a lot of time wandering on my own. The dinner that night was STILL paid for in full, so I had a couple of stouts (which I don't drink much here so I can share with Jonmikel) and some nice, fancy shrimp pasta thingy. Too fancy for Wyoming. :-)

Being an adult means you get to stay in nice resorts and have other people pay for them.

Seriously. Jonmikel's been doing it for years, and has finally let me in on his little secret. He gave me a taste of what adulthood is like in Dubai, with the free fancy dinners and the luxurious accommodations...

So this time around, I got to head off to Jackson, WY for a meeting of NPCA's Center for State of the Parks advisory council, aka, hanging out with people who are so vastly important that it makes me feel pretty useless just reading their bios. Seriously. There's Dorothy who led the clean-up team in DC for the whole anthrax thing a few years ago and then developed and internationally used and respected theory on how to deal with bio-threats. There was Francisco, who was recently asked to be the Minister of Environmental Affairs for Venezuela. Another dude who was Bush Sr.'s personal appointee to the council on historic preservation (or a council by any other name that smells as culturally challenged). Keith, who isn't yet on the Board but who just invented some funky computer chip thing and retired a millionaire at 45. People who got out of undergraduate college and hit the ground running, starting out with way cool and important stuff as soon as the degree was printed.

Seriously. Gives me an inferiority complex.

But the views are nice. The resort is a little dated, but they have wood-burning fire places in every room that you can smell as the sun starts to rise. Good breakfast, too. Plus, our fancy dinner at 43 North was entirely paid for. The booze, too, was covered, as I discovered that in this respect, I have way more in common with wealthy important people than I do with my own colleagues: the latter group was under the strict impression that 2 bottles of wine would suffice amongst a group of 16 and the former was adament (and correctly so) that it would most definitely NOT. Jolly rich people need wine, damnit!

Some shots from my first day:

The view was definitely not to shabby...

My cabin...


The cabin next door...

The grounds of Spring Creek Ranch, where we stayed

I also should point out that my skills as someone who has, actually lived in the mountains (versus Ft. Collinsers who just THINK they live in the mountains) was utilized on this trip while driving up over Togwotee Pass to get into Grand Teton National Park. The pass is almost 10,000 ft. so of course this time of year its got some snow on it. I told them to go up through Rock Springs if they wanted the smoothest ride but the decision had been made not by me. The pass was fine, but it freaked everyone out, and when we started to get lapped by people in Subarus (we had a nice little SUV), I took the wheel. I guess when you've lived in Montana, your perspective on the outdoors changes a lot... There has to be at LEAST a foot of snow for it to be considered real snow, and you also begin to understand that if the roads are not driveable or at all dangerous, they close them liberally. I guess its a skill you learn while making the commute from Gardiner, MT to Mammoth Hot Springs, WY (or from Livingston, 50 miles away) in the winter...

Poudre???

So went headed out of town for some country chillaxin' this weekend. We hit up the Cache la Poudre Wilderness, full of wild and wonder and.... hunters. Yes, the hillsides were pock-marked with that tell-tale bright orange of hunters in their natural habitat. We even heard a shot gun go off way to close to the campground; if you're going to hunt, be smart, OK? Don't hunt near campgrounds, and don't shoot TOWARD the road, 'cause I know you did. Just because you're more than so many yards away from from the road doesn't mean you can aim for it.

Anyway, we didn't get much hiking in (due to the hunters' paradise going on), but we did manage to find a nice campsite next to a hideout of local college kids escaping for the weekend. No matter how rowdy they were or could have been, they've got NOTHING on the guys we encountered on the Isle of Arran in Scotland. Glasgowians have everyone beat in the obnoxious-as-hell category. Really, they weren't that bad, except they lost their dogs in the middle of the night. Not to mention NOBODY in Colorado seems to observe the Bear Country signs posted everywhere. I know black bears are pretty pansy, by Montana standards, but they do put down bears that become accustomed to people, so come on... DON'T leave your open bag of potato chips out on your picnic table. Let's all be Bear Aware. Coloradoans certainly aren't.

But we had a good time. A nice fire, a nice sunset, and we totally remembered the pillows this time! We needed some peace and quiet and genuine river noises. Here are some of my shots (minus the one I'm in!) from our trip!

Me, Hanging on the Cache la Poudre River!

Gin, anyone? Close-up of Juniper berries

Big Bag Cactus

Life on the Cache la Poudre River

A Long exposure of the Colorado Night Sky

'Tis the Blessed Moon!

Jonmikel in one of his smiley moments :-)

Fire!

Some shots from our campfire up in Cache la Poudre (please, ask me how to pronounce it, you'll love it) Wilderness this past weekend. More pictures and some chatting to come!

Question of the day: do animals get deja vu?

Also of note: Men in Black II is fairly good, considering its a sequel, but without lines such as "It just be rainin' black people in New York" and "NYPD means I will Nock You Punkass Down" it just doesn't make the cut of badass modern classic.

We're spending our nights watching the MLB playoffs, and I can't find 4 teams I care about LESS. I have no feeling regarding the fact that the Philies beat the Dodgers to go onto the World Series. What feelings I do have revolve around my dilemma concerning the fact that while the Rays are the underdog and I do love a good underdog, they changed their name from "Devil Rays" to "Rays" for some pointless and ill-guided attempt to be Jesusy. I mean, the devil ray is an animal, and that's what they're named after. Is there really a place for Christianity in baseball? I suppose the singing of "God Bless America" (which I do not observe because believe it or not, not all Americans are Christian or believe in god) makes a point to the contrary. But is it really offensive to have "devil" in your name as a major league baseball team? A better question, don't you need to take yourself a little less seriously if you ARE offended?

Calling Scott's Bluff

I found a clever example of irony the other day. I was reading a preliminary cultural resources assessment for Scotts Bluff, a site along the Oregon Trail just to get some FYI background material. It's a small site, created solely to mark the transnational highway that was the Oregon Trail. One of the greatest complaints from visitors, and therefore one of the criticisms we had for the management of the site, was that a train came through at regular and frequent intervals and that there was a highway too close to the site. I can understand how planes trains and automobiles can create a less than peaceful atmosphere (trust me, live in Ft. Collins for a week and try to tell me you still think trains are quaint); but I find it extremely ironic that, in a site whose sole purpose for existance is to mark a major transportation route from East Coast to West Coast-one of the most important in US history, I would wager-is being criticized for, in fact, supporting transcontinental transportation. It's only a national monument because it was an important location along a "highway" of sorts; is it really fair to complain that it loses its integrity because its still an important site along a highway?

Personally, I'd say that adds a whole new dimension to its integrity. How many national monuments and national battlefields and national military parks can say that their national and original importance is still contemporarily relevant?

We are Siamese, if you please

We adopted a cat! It's "our" first pet, a big, beautiful half-Siamese (and half something long-haired) 1-and-a-half year old guy we have affectionately named "Major FitzHugh," Fitz, for short. FitzHugh was JEB Stuart's chief of staff for several years during the Civil War, until he was captured by the Union during a raid with Robert E. Lee's battle plans in his pocket. Oops. But apparently he was a pretty good guy, and spent a lot of time with the Sioux out West before being forced to enter the war.

Anyway, FitzHugh was a stray we adopted out of the Ft. Collins Cat Rescue. Someone neutered him before dicthing him, but he's completely sweet and loveable. He's also FIV positive (like HIV for cats), but is currently completely healthy. The virus, though, was keeping people from adopting for the same reason people used to be afraid of HIV positive people. So basically, its entirely unwarranted; we just have to be a little more aware of his health, as his immune system is not as strong as normal cats'. The vet said that most FIV cats live long, healthy lives. Plus, he's gorgeous! I know these shots are great, but he moves around a lot, following his curisoity. And he tries to open and get into everything!