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.

This Wasn't Where I Was Planning To Be Today.

I started out my morning trying to buy some art supplies. The store near me isn't open on Sundays (which I found out when I got there) so I ended up going up to Agoura to Graphaids where I found just about everything I was looking for.

From there I went up the 23 to 126 to get back to the 5 north. Going north on 23 is quite beautiful (until you get to one area, where, on the west side of the freeway, some company is eating away the side of the mountain). It's really quite a shock to see all these beautiful green hills then this ugly scraped away mountainside. The grafitti carved in to the beautiful hills was quite depressing also. Really, is your message so important that you have to carve it into a mountainside in letters 3 feet high? How self centered! But other than that it was a beautiful drive.

Anyway, my destiny was Grapevine. A friend had told me yesterday that there are 1,000 acres of lupine growing there. I found them - WOW! It was amazing coming down the grade and seeing this sea of purple going on forever. Unfortunately the sun was hiding today so it was very overcast and not a good day to try to shoot wild flowers. They would have just looked gray in the photos.

There are small patches of lupine, yellow mustard, and a bit of orange poppies growing on the hills, but in about three weeks the hills will probably look like buckets of paint have been splashed on them. I've seen them that way a few years ago and since we've had quite a bit of rain this year the wildflowers should be absolutely beautiful!

So what does this have to do with snow on Mt. Pinos, you ask? Well, I got out to the lupine fields and enjoyed the view for a bit. Then I pulled out my map and was trying to figure out where I wanted to go next. Couldn't really decided so I just turned around and headed home. I got as far as Frazier Park and saw snow on the mountain tops. I called a friend, who lives in the area, and asked how to get up to the snow. He gave me directions (very simple - get off the freeway at Frazier Park Rd., head toward the mountains and follow the signs to Mt. Pinos.) 

It was a beautiful drive and the sun actually came out in the afternoon.  I stopped in a couple of places to take photos. I haven't been in the snow in many years and there were several things I learned on my trip today:
1. Being spontaneous takes me to unexpected places (which so far, have been worth it).
2. Little cloth slip-on shoes are totally inadequate for tramping around in the snow (I SAID I wasn't planning on being in the snow today).
3. Snow that has been walked on and looks like it's packed - isn't. I was 1/2 was up to my knee with some steps I took today.
4. Walking in the snow is hard work. Just trying to get to this tree to take a photo took me 10 minutes. Twice I had to sit down in the snow to pull my foot out and then stick my hand down the footprint hole to pull out my shoe (Mom, if you're reading this I was walking in an area where there were lots of families playing in the snow so if I'd gotten into trouble there would have been plenty of help nearby - and I wasn't very far away from the Ranger Station). You have to walk with your foot very flat or else you sink right into the snow.

The trip today was definitely worth it! It was a beautiful day and I got some great snow shots, which I have been wanting to do for a while. Next time I got up to the snow I will take more appropriate shoes. Maybe I should just leave those shoes in the car so if I want to be spontaneous again I will be prepared.

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.