If Wyoming knows how to do anything, it’s how to tear up its highways. There are signs advertising how long it will be until it’s your turn to drive the one-lane road: two minutes, eight minutes, fifteen minutes. I can throw my car into park, turn it off, rummage around for a snack, read a bit; if I see a sign for a twenty-minute delay, maybe I’ll go for a walk.
I drove north, through La Barge and Big Piney, and found myself at the tourist town of Jackson. Every building was made of faux log siding or fashionable brick, even the Subway and the Target. It was the prettiest Target I have ever seen. After stopping for a roughly spherical 6” Italian sub, I drove into Grand Tetons National Park, so named for its famous trio of mountains. Here are the Tetons as famously photographed by Ansel Adams:
I figured I should give it a go as well. Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t quite right today.
Oh well—the park is still filled with great vistas and drives along the Snake River. I made my way to Jackson Lake, one of the park’s secondary attractions, and enjoyed a serene walk along the lakeshore, spotting mule deer and plenty of smaller mammals. The two-mile hike was easy and rewarding, but few people were out on the trail; most of the other tourists I saw stuck to the road and kept staring with futility into the clouds.
Tomorrow, I plan on going for a longer walk around Jenny Lake. Let’s hope for clear skies in the morning and the beautiful 70-degree highs of today.
No doubt about it — dramatic landscape photography is much easier to do when the weather cooperates! Now think about what Ansel Adams must have known about the byplay between light and shadow to capture all that in black and white!
I got a crash course from a professional photographer when I got my first 35mm SLR camera. He told me to shoot off 3 or 4 rolls of film in black and white before I attempted anything in color. He was so right! You learn a lot more that way.
I always thought Pennsylvania took the cake when repairing roads by shutting down one lane of highway for miles and miles without any sign of workers and finally a few guys filling pot holes. Why does it take 5 miles of single lane highway to do that? But Wyoming sounds far worse, by actually posting times for the wait. Teaches patience for sure. As for the view of the Tetons, I wonder how long it took Ansel Adams to get just the right amount of light and dark on the mountains along with sky and clouds to be dramatic before he finally got that beautiful shot. Patience, again! So, will you go back and try that shot again? When Jeff and I drove through there we were among the tourists who just drove through. We did stop at one point and I took a picture of the mountains and also of some bison who were in a field. I remember being disappointed with my mountain picture. The weather sounds great, finally. Hope you had a good hike today. Love, Grandma
One reason why Wyoming’s roads is in the state that they’re in is that they’re in the state that they’re in. Wyoming has NO income tax (personal or corporate), so there’s virtually no money to spend on “luxuries” like infrastructure. Why live in the 21st century when you’re happier in the last decade of the 19th?