Monday, August 31, 2009

Moulton Barn

Random Old Barn




The famous Moulton Barn





This is probably not interesting to anyone that hasn't been to Grand Teton. But there is a famous barn that is widely photographed for postcards and pictures and the like in Grand Teton National Park. We thought we found it on Saturday and took lots of pictures of it. There were so many people there, we thought for sure it was the right place. Then later that day we were looking in a book about the park and realized we took pictures of the wrong barn. So we started searching online and apparently lots of people made this same mistake and were posting the pictures of the wrong barn. So we went out on Sunday and found the correct barn, which was right down the street. Turns out there was no one there, but there were still lots of tourists at the other place!! I know, boring. But both barns were really cool and very picturesque so I had to share my pictures!!!

Family Portrait at Jenny Lake

Wish I would have known I was going to be in front of the camera, would have looked somewhat presentable. Oh well.

More Evan Pictures




Courtesy of Uncle Kevin, here are a few more pictures of Evan hanging outside our cabin in Moran, Wyoming the other day.

Pictures at Sunrise











Saturday morning, we got out of our warm beds in our warm cabin to take pictures of the Grand Teton Mountains at sunset. But because we took them with my OCD brother we had to arrive very early (never thought I would say that, he is ALWAYS late, except when it surrounds something like this). Sunrise is at 6:30, but we had to get up at 4:45 to prepare. It was 40 degrees outside at that point!!! But it was well worth it. All of the pictures may look the same, but the sunrise created a beautiful pink colored sky that is a tad different in each picture. Can you guess which one my brother took? He is one of the best non-professional landscape photographers I know (well, the only one really, but still). He gave me lots of pointers, so tell me if you can guess which one is his!!!

Random Shots of the Little Guy














Let's get back to the most important kind of pictures for a minute, shots of Evan!!!

More Wildlife













It was hard to top the first day, wildlife-wise. After seeing bears and wolves, you don't think it can get much better. But on Friday we moved from Yellowstone over to Grand Teton National Park and we saw moose...along with pronghorn deer and lots more buffalo. But the moose had to be my favorite. It's hard to believe these animals are dangerous, because they are absolutely beautiful creatures. I wanted to go up and pet them!!!

Grand Prismatic











After Old Faithful, we headed over to see the most unique and beautiful thermal feature yet. The colors were amazing, the pictures don't really do it justice. All of the different colors are from different bacterial layers in the water. The buffalo's seem to like it, as you can see there are buffalo tracks through the water. Evan is not pictured here, as he was having a melt down in the car!! Poor guy, Yellowstone can be a bit boring if you are two years old.

Old Faithful

















Friday we visited Old Faithful and the Old Faithful Inn. It wasn't the first on my list of things to see there, just because I like to go more "off the beaten path" rather than to huge tourist attractions. But it is a tourist attraction for a reason, and my Mom really wanted to see it. So we did. And it was really worth it. It erupts every hour and a half or so, and steaming water goes hundreds of feet into the air. It was pretty cool. Evan wasn't too impressed, he was more in to playing with rocks and pebbles on the ground, but he was happy nonetheless. So of course I have to sneak a few more pictures of Evan in this post, it is after all, a blog about him!!! Paul also encouraged me to take a picture of Evan near the danger sign, just to make my Mom worry a little more about our parenting skills. He wasn't in any actual danger though. The hot ground and stones were at least a few feet away!!!


Also, I did manage to get one of Kevin's pictures of Old Faithful, that is much better than mine. It is the first picture. But it is unedited, so he may not even want to take credit for it. But I think it's awesome, as usual.

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Hayden Valley at Dusk







Thursday night, Grammy (AKA Meema), Uncle Kevin (Unkie/Ugby) and I went to Hayden Valley to try and take pictures of wildlife at one of their most active hours, dusk. Unfortunately we didn't get to see many animals. We saw a some buffalo, but they weren't as close as we would have liked. But the sky looked really cool, a beautiful pink color. There were also tons of bison on a hill that we saw, silhouetted by the pink sky.

They're Alive




















Well luckily Paul and Uncle Kevin arrived back safely after their hike up to the top of Mt. Washburn on Wednesday. They ended up going on two hikes actually which is why they took much longer than I expected. The highlight of their trip was running into a herd of big horn sheep. Apparently Kevin was taking pictures of them from a distance while Paul was waiting patiently to the side. After about 200 pictures, they started wandering towards Paul and were literally feet away from him. Kevin came over shortly after and snapped a hundred or so more pictures before the ram clearly had enough. You can just see it in the rams eyes, he is not happy with the situation, which is when the guys decided to move on. I am so jealous that I missed the sheep, but glad they had some baby-free guy time, that was much needed.