Travel Blog

I apologize for taking a week off from blogging, but I was busy rubbing elbows with celebrities. More on that later.

Last week, Phil and I went for a hike up to Taggart and Bradley lakes. We started fairly early in the morning and had the trail to ourselves. We knew we were in for a good hike right from the start when we saw this:

We love waterfalls, even if they're little ones. The hiking was pretty easy, with only a mild upgrade, and great views of the mountains on the way.

And then we got to Taggart Lake.

Phil and I hung out here for awhile, soaking up the scenery and relaxing in the solitude. I found this great lounge chair for us, but I hogged it while Phil took my picture, and then I let him sit there too.

Then it was time to head back to the car. We were walking along, minding our own business, when I heard something charging me from behind. I whirled around, quite startled, and saw terrifying figure running straight at me. Some woman was actually running the trail! I just don't understand those creatures. She told me not to worry - a bear would have made more noise than she did. Ha ha. Thanks a lot for the heart attack, crazy lady with 6-pack abs. Who asked you? Go eat a power bar or something.

After I managed to breathe normally again, Phil and I continued our hike, and passed this neat duo.

Towards the end of the trail, we were greeted by a flurry of other hikers just getting started. I guess it pays to start earlier in the day. As we approched our starting point, and moved over to make way for other folks, Phil pointed out a snake slithering across the trail right ahead of us. I waited for the other hikers to pass so they wouldn't scare it away before I got a closer look, and I was able to get right up on it. Unfortunately, my pictures of it stink, so I'm not going to show any here. But I will share a snake picture with you that Phil took of me at his workplace.

Disregard my bushy hair, please. I got it under control later in the day after I saw these pictures. But on Mondays, a couple of volunteers bring skulls of various animals and some snakes to the Elk Refuge so the public and look and learn. I came early and got a one-on-one encounter with two of their snakes. This one in the picture was a garter snake, which was the same kind of snake Phil and I saw out on the trail. I also held a bigger snake, but I forget what kind it was. It looped around me pretty good, though, and I guess it got a strange gleam in its eye because its handler said, "You'd better hand her over to me now...she's getting pretty interested in you." Seems she was a day away from feeding day, and I must have been looking pretty tasty or something. They usually have a King snake with them, too, but it was at home with a case of the sheds, so it was too cranky to come. The guy said to come back this week and I'd get to meet the big guy.

Later that day, when I was at my workplace, I got to meet Shelton Johnson. He's a Ranger at Yosemite National Park, and he was featured in the Ken Burn's documentary, "National Parks: America's Best Idea." I had actually seen a segment of that documentary not too long ago that featured Yellowstone National Park, and it was excellent. And I remembered this guy, Shelton, from it. I was wondering why a Ranger from Yosemite was featured in the Yellowstone portion of the documentary, but it turns out that Yellowstone was Shelton's first gig. He was super nice, and a good storyteller. He was at the Discovery Center to do a book signing for his book Gloryland. Our boss was nice enough to let us go hear him speak a bit before the book signing.

And after the signing, he agreed to have his picture taken with yours truly.

That's about all the excitement for this week, except to say that our website readers, Tara and Steve, stopped by to see Phil and me this past weekend, and it was really great to see them again. They came to visit us at our very first workamping job in Yellowstone in 2006. How cool is that?