Way too busy for summer--but beautiful!

It's been awfully quiet around here, because it has been insanely busy elsewhere in my life. I've been filling out paperwork for a number of teaching gigs for next year, which is amazingly time-consuming. I've also finished writing a couple of articles for Spin-Off and PieceWork, and have responded to questions from other writers for pieces that they are writing for other magazines. This is in addition to some really interesting freelance work, and a trip to visit with family and especially to see my 87-year-old mother.

I've got so many ideas for blog posts and I haven't had time to write them. This will consist mostly of photos from a recent trip. I hope to have time to put together something involving more thought before long.

I'd never seen Yellowstone National Park, so I decided, despite the potential slow-down in progress, to route this trip through both Grand Teton and Yellowstone. To get to these places, my friend Susan Tweit, who has done field work in the area, recommended that I traverse Togwotee Pass, which was exactly the right decision precisely because I drove that road on a Sunday, the only day of the week the work crews are not crawling all over the mountain. On Monday through Saturday, large sections of the highway are controlled by pilot cars that run at intervals ranging from every 15 minutes (daytime) to every 2 hours (middle of the night). On Sunday, though, there were no one-way-only sections at all and traffic was pretty light. Lots of motorcycles, though.

Here's what the sign at the beginning of the construction said:

 

 

Here's one of the wider sections of road (showing both lanes):

 

 

There was more road-building equipment than I've ever seen in one place. That photo contains only one set of the earth-movers.

Yes, the scenery was, indeed, great!  Susan had told me about a pullout just after the pass, which I would have missed if she hadn't (in part because the regular road was gravel, the spur leading to the lookout was gravel, and there were at least half a dozen motorcycles parked at the intersection of the two). I took one of my longer breaks there because it was exquisite.

 

 

There were more wildflowers blooming than I think I've ever seen in my life (and I've seen quite a few). I took lots of photos of the flowers, of which I'll share a couple.

 

 

Another, because I just couldn't get enough of them. . . .

 

 

I was sorry to leave, but I had to keep moving to stay on schedule (even my schedule-with-planned-delays). At the end of the construction, just after the point where traffic picks up to regular highway speeds, the construction crews had placed another sign. It flashed by without my registering what it said for about ten seconds . . .

 

 

. . . and then I laughed out loud, even though I haven't played the alphabet game in many years. My sister and I played it a lot when we were just passengers in the back seat of a car with miles to go before we got to a motel with a pool (and no air-conditioning in cars in those days).

And now it's time to drive again. More soon.

 

Comments

[magnusmog]

Looks glorious, I love the yellows flowers agains the mountains.

[Freyalyn]

I think I've hit one of those cultural black holes with the alphabet game - haven't a clue what these letters mean. But lovely post, as ever.

[Deb Robson]

Freyalyn, my parents (like many others) kept the kids busy in the back seat of the car (before portable DVD players, iPods, and the like) with a game where we had to find all the letters of the alphabet on signs that we passed. Q, X, Y, and Z were notoriously hard to find. Js were also a challenge!  In our family, we had to find them IN ORDER. So that Q on the sign might have been useful if we'd recently located P. X, Y, Z would have finished the game if we'd just scored W. (License plates ended up being useful resources for odd letters.)

They also kept us occupied (and prevented "are we there yet?") by teaching us to read maps, navigate possible routes, and research potential evening stopping places (in the AAA books).

[Freyalyn]

Thank you - I'm happy now!

[Deborah Robson]

Happy is good! Me, I got home safely. Hoping to have time to write more posts--even this morning, unless something unexpected and needing immediate attention happens.

[Robin]

This looks like such a lovely trip - roadwork notwithstanding!