Wyoming Sky

I spent most of February this year in Wyoming. My mom had a bad fall and broke her arm. I went to help out while she recovered.

Northern Wyoming is beautiful - vast, wide open places, rivers, mountains and skies that are endless and constantly changing.

This was the view one morning from in front of my mom's house. Mornings were often like this while I was there. (if you click on the pictures they should open up to a larger image)

A few days later I saw the beginning of a beautiful sunset out her back window. I drove about 1/2 a mile north of her house, found some large, empty fields and captured this sunset.

I think I stayed there watching the awesome light show for about an hour.














Meanwhile, in the east this was happening...

 

My first trip up the North Fork was on a very cloudy day. Highway 14 from Cody leads to the east entrances of Yellowstone Park which, unfortunately, is closed in the winter. It was very cold and windy that day so I wasn't outside taking photos as much as I wanted to. On this drive I only got as far as Elephant Lodge before I decided to turn around. 

I could see these clouds were dropping snow and I have NO experience driving in the snow and it was moving toward me. Best to go back.

The snow followed me. There were light snow flurries around me by the time I got back here to the Buffalo Bill Reservoir.

I did go back up the North Fork at the end of the month, almost my last day there before I came home. This time I made it all the way to the park entrance. As you can see, this was a MUCH different day - nothing but blue skies.

Hopefully I'll be able to go back in the winter another year and take the snowcoach tour through the park. I think that would be pretty amazing.

And my mom has recovered nicely from her fall.

Wyoming Snow

This was the view from my mom's front door when she first moved to Wyoming. I went there to visit for her birthday. It snowed the 2nd day I was there. It was quite beautiful to watch the landscape slowly fill up and be blanketed by snow. This was such a beautiful sight.

Being a SoCal girl I don't often get the opportunity to watch snow fall so it's a treat for me. I wouldn't live somewhere where it snows a lot as long as I still have to work. Snow is much more enjoyable when you don't have to go out in it unless you want to.

My niece was still little then. She wanted to go out in the snow as soon as it started coming down and she was still in her pjs. It took us forever to get her to come back in even though she was shivering and her teeth were chattering. She was having too much fun throwing snowballs for the neighbor's dog to catch and sliding down a tiny "hill" created by the snow drifting up against the side of the house.

07-18 Yellowstone Trees

I went to Yellowstone National Park a few years ago. What an amazing place! It was so beautiful, so open, so BIG! So many different ecosystems there - from bubbling mud pots in beautiful colors to forests to waterfalls. I could go back again and again. We're very lucky to have these wilderness areas set aside and protected. These are some great trees I saw. They're so big and twisted and have so much texture and character.