I missed Jay while I was away

It was great to be back with my eternal companion, Jay, after our trip. He seemed happy to see me too. I appreciate Melvin and Tami taking such good care of him.
Kaitlyn was busy with her math homework.
Ashley dressed up like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz to practice giving a book report that she was planning to give to her 3rd grade class the nexr day.
Lauren loved showing me her dolls. She is enjoying kindergarten.
We had fresh raspberry shakes as a special treat before going to bed.

Visiting Granddaughters at BYU-Idaho

Carinne rushed over to the temple after her class to get to see her Grandma Richardson.
The flowers at the sign going into the Brigham Young University Idaho campus are beautiful.
It was great to also get to see my granddaughter Adrianne at BYU-Idaho.
We stopped at the Idaho Falls Temple to enjoy the beauty of another temple.
On the way out of town I was able to take a photo from the car of the Idaho Falls Temple by the Snake River.

Sugar City and Rexburg, Idaho

We stayed at the Stagecoach Inn in West Yellowstone after spending the day at Yellowstone.
Our first stop on the way home on September 10th was Sugar City, Idaho. Janet is standing where her home she grew up in used to be. It was destroyed in the 1976 flood when the dam on the Teton River broke and thousands lost their homes.
Janet was baptized in the Sugar City Tabernacle shown above.
The new temple in Rexburg is very visible and beautiful. It is close to the BYU Idaho campus.
This sign was at the entrance to the Brigham Young University-Idaho Campus in Rexburg.

Old Faithful Geyser at Yellowstone

Our last stop at Yellowstone was to visit the famous geyser "Old Faithful" which sprouts plumes of boiling water and steam into the air every sixty to ninety minutes.
We had to wait for about twenty minutes from the projected time to watch it spout up.
There were lots of other visitors also waiting to see the "Old Faithful" Geyser.
It was well worth the wait as we got to also see another geyser spout up. We are told that the park has more than 300 geysers.
As we walked around the area we saw other great sights. I enjoyed the Blue Star Spring that does look like a star and is a beautiful blue color.

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River

I was excited to get a close up photo of a buffalo at Yellowstone National Park. It was huge.
There are other wildlife in the park such as wolves, moose and elk.
We saw exhibits of Yellowstone's super volcano at the Canyon Visitor Center.
We were able to witness the power of the Yellowstone river as it goes down through solid rocks on each side of the river.
One of the greatest sights at Yellowstone is what they call the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River where water plunges 1,000 feet making magnificent waterfalls and spectacular views.
Hot water acting on volcanic rock created the canyon's colors so it lives up to its name of yellow stone.

Yellowstone National Park

We spent the rest of the day exploring Yellowstone, which was our Nation's first National Park. We stopped first at Grant Village where we saw a display about fire and had a beautiful view of Yellowstone Lake. In 1988 Yellowstone had several fires which you can still see the results of today. We enjoyed seeing the healthy young trees that are now coming up among the burned trees.
We drove along the Yellowstone Lake around West Thumb, which is well named because it looks like as thumb sticking out from the lake. We ate our picnic lunch at the Fishing Bridge. Years ago you could fish from the bridge.
Our next stop was the interesting Mud Volcano Area.
We saw the bubbling muddy water that smells like rotten eggs because of all the sulfur.
I especially enjoyed the Dragon Mouth's Spring which looks like a dragon with smoke coming out of its mouth.

Grant Teton National Park

I enjoyed our drive through the majestic Grand Teton National Park on Wednesday, September 9th. The mountains with the glaziers rise abruptly from the valley floor and look so powerful.
Few landscapes are as memorable as the Grand Tetons mirrored in the clear Jackson Lake.
I am sad that my eternal companion, Jay, didn't feel like making the trip. I shared all these photos with him of the majestic beauty of God's creations.
It was great to enjoy the beauty with my brothers and sisters and their companions.
I couldn't stop taking pictures of the spectacular mountain vistas, valleys, lakes, rivers and skies which are truly some of America's wonders.

Jackson Hole and Bar J Chuckwagon Supper and Western Show

We enjoyed walking around down town Jackson Hole and visited several art galleries where we enjoyed the western art and scenic photographs of the area. I like this huge sculpture of a horse.
We had a fun evening at Bar J just a few minutes out of Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
We had great seats for the Chuckwagon Supper and Western Music.
The wranglers were very talented in their program of singing western songs with guitars and banjos, fiddling, yodeling and great entertainment.
Every show has to have a comedy act. This wrangler dressed up really crazy for his part and we all had a good laugh.

Visiting Wyoming

On the trip I took with my brothers and sisters on September 8, 2009 we enjoyed the entrance to Afton Wyoming which featured elk antlers and two fighting elk.
The visitor center at Jackson Hole had lots of stuffed elk, moose, cranes, grizzly bears, etc. displayed in their natural habitat.
Jackson Hole supports a refuge for elk where they can come in the winter to be fed so they won't starve.
ook as picture of a fun chandelier made of elk antlers.
This bear looks almost life like. Janet and I are standing in front of the Jackson Hole Visitor Center.

Drive up Logan Utah Canyon

We enjoyed the fresh creamy cool rasberry shakes that Garden City is famous for.
We were disappointed that the Paris Tabernacle was closed but we did get to see the outside of this beautiful tabernacle built by skilled local craftsmen between 1884 and 1885.
Swiss stone masons cut and carved red sandstone that horse and ox teams hauled from a canyon eighteen miles away to build this beautiful Paris Tabernacle.
A monument next to the tabernacle was erected to honor Charles Rich who was a colonizer of San Bernardino in 1851. Our great great grandfather James M. Flake lost his life in a horse accident about the same time as he was helping blaze the trail to San Bernardino, California.
I liked the life like monument that stands in front of the Trail Center of a covered wagon being pulled up a big hill on the Oregon/California Trail . Many wagons had to be let down by ropes tied to trees as they blazed the trail.