Family Visit #1

Many of you have been waiting with bated breath for what were supposed to be upcoming posts promised by Scott. He's currently in training for a fast approaching half-marathon (more on that later), so it's me bringing this blog up to date from the events of the summer. We'll start with the first round of an intense month of company.

Right after I finished teaching summer classes my dad and brother came to visit. We picked them up at the airport (dad's first time flying in a really loooong time) and hit the Great Salt Lake for some floating fun. I should have taken a picture of how far we had to walk just to get to the water because it was a good half mile or more.

These two brave souls made the trek even further into the water. Dad and I stayed on shore with the brine flies.Here's the best picture I got of the floating. You can kind of see the hands and toes that are up.

That was enough major excitement for the first day. The next day we woke and hit and road to one of our favorite places. First, we had to stop and take the obligatory first time in this state picture (first time for my dad and brother, not for Scott and I).

Then we stopped for lunch at this great little rest step we happened upon near the Snake River. The view was spectacular and just a preview of what was to come.

We stopped in Jackson Hole, WY to quickly tour the town. Here's another famous photo stop with the antler arch.

Then it was off to Grand Teton National Park- one of our favorite getaway destinations. We took in the beauty of the mountains and all of the other natural scenery the park has to offer.

Scott had fun chasing the oversized ravens at one of the turnout spots.

After touring the park we headed to our stop for the night- Flagg Ranch, which is just beyond GTNP and south of the entrance to Yellowstone. We choose the place for its location, but were pleasantly surprised by how nice it was. After checking in and parking the car, we loaded up the cart and set off in search of our cabin for the night.

It was such a long journey I had to take over and help pull some of the way, but we finally made it to our cute little log cabin, which you can see in the background.

We ate dinner and went exploring the grounds a bit. We followed this fence to....

... a beautiful meadow and then to the river bed where we watched fly fishermen and were able to walk on the rocks of the river bed as the water was quite low.

We saw mule deer in the meadow before calling it a night, so we could get up bright and early for the next day.