To celebrate my 80th birthday
my sisters and cousin
planned a trip to Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
Verla was the instigator and driver.
Verla was the instigator and driver.
Our first stop was at LaBeaus in Garden City for their famous raspberry shake,
except Carol & Verda chose pineapple.
except Carol & Verda chose pineapple.
We are not cutting corners.
$4.50 each, unless you have nuts.
Bear Lake
Temple in Afton, Wyoming
Downtown.
World's Largest Elkhorn Arch
This is it!
The Big Birthday Dinner.
We didn't ask.
They just brought it.
Maybe I told her I was turning 80.
"If you're going to get old, you might as well get as old as you can get."
Wallace Stegner
But we didn't ask for a free dessert
or a discount on the bill.
"Our high school mascot was the buffalo," we tell the hostess
who offered to take our picture.
"That was a long time ago," someone said.
"I can tell," she bemused.
Buffalo gals won't you come
out tonight
Come out tonight come out tonight
Buffalo gals won't you come out tonight
And we'll dance by the light of the moon.
Buffalo gals won't you come out tonight
And we'll dance by the light of the moon.
“Going to the mountains is going home.”
Ansel Adams
Something will have gone out of us as a people
if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed. We need wilderness
preserved - as much of it as still left, and as many kinds - because it was the
challenge against which our character as a people was formed. The reminder and
the reassurance that it is still there is good for our spiritual health. It is
important to us when we are old simply because it is there - important, that
is, simply as an idea. Wallace Stegner
"National Parks are the best idea we ever had. Absolutely American,
absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our best rather than our worst."
Wallace Stegner
The brook would lose its song if we removed the
rocks
Wallace Stegner
“Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit,
and as vital
to our lives as water and good bread.”
Edward Abbey
“I never saw a discontented tree.” John Muir
“In every walk with Nature one
receives far more than he seeks.” John Muir
“Few
places in this world are more dangerous than home.
Fear not, therefore, to try
the mountain passes.
They will kill care, save you from deadly apathy, set you
free,
and call forth every faculty into vigorous, enthusiastic action.” John Muir
Jenny's Lake
Here we chatted with a fellow who lives right in Washington DC.
Viewing the peace and tranquility,
we asked him if he came out here to get out of the political mess.
He quoted a friend about the debate
with a drunken uncle.
He actually was here for a convention in Idaho Falls.
Here we chatted with a fellow who lives right in Washington DC.
Viewing the peace and tranquility,
we asked him if he came out here to get out of the political mess.
He quoted a friend about the debate
with a drunken uncle.
He actually was here for a convention in Idaho Falls.
There was a picture of Jenny's Lake and the Tetons
in the Valley Cafe all the years I worked there.
I could tell tourists where it was
but I had never been there.
in the Valley Cafe all the years I worked there.
I could tell tourists where it was
but I had never been there.
We tried to pull faces
but there wasn't much change.
It is love and friendship,
the sanctity and celebration of our relationships,
that not only support a good life, but create one.
Through friendships, we spark and inspire one another's ambitions.
Wallace Stegner
But what pleasure it is to know that there is
back county for them to retreat to, that nobody is going to push roads through
that wilderness, that no RVs or trail bikes or tote goats will roar through
those forests and stink up that clean air. The best thing we have learned from
nearly five hundred years of contact with the American wilderness is restraint,
the willingness to hold our hand: to visit such places for our souls' good, but
leave no tracks.--Wallace Stegner
As we approached Jenny's Lake on the trail,
a car drove right to the lake.
"How'd you do that?"
"You just take the boat ramp exit," they explained.
Verla and I decided to start walking down the road
while Carol & Verda walked back to get the car
and pick us up.
The road went on and on,
so we stopped and figuratively hugged a tree.
Wait. Wait. Wait.
Not daring to leave for fear of missing them,
we didn't try to go back the short distance to the parking lot.
They couldn't find the boat ramp road
so they went back to the parking lot
and Verda backtracked to find us.
And that was our exciting adventure of the day.
Shadows.
“We
need wilderness whether or not we ever set foot in it. We need a refuge even
though we may never need to go there…. We need the possibility of escape as
surely as we need hope.” Edward Abbey
Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed. . .We simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more
than drive to its edge and look in. - Wallace Stegner
Water is the true wealth in a dry land.
Wallace Stegner
Today, we must realize that nature is revealed in the simplest meadow, wood lot, marsh,
stream, or tidepool, as well as in the remote grandeur of our parks and wilderness areas. -Ansel Adams
I know that I am one with beauty and that my comrades are one.
Let our souls be mountains. Let our spirits be stars. Let our hearts be worlds.
Ansel Adams
“Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken,
over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is
going home; that wildness is a necessity; and that mountain parks and
reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers,
but as fountains of life.” John Muir
Something will have gone out of us as a people
if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed; if we permit the last
virgin forests to be turned into comic books and plastic cigarette cases; if we
drive the few remaining members of the wild species into zoos or to extinction;
if we pollute the last clean air and dirty the last clean streams and push our
paved roads through the last of the silence, so that never again will Americans
be free from noise, the exhausts, the stinks of human and automotive waste. And
so that never again can we have the chance to see ourselves single, separate,
vertical and individual in the world, part of the environment of trees and
rocks and soil, brother to the other animals, part of the natural world and
competent to belong in it. We simply need that wild country available to us,
even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in. For it can be a
means of reassuring ourselves of our sanity as creatures, a part of the
geography of hope.--Wallace Stegner
I had never seen this sign in a restroom before.
Verda said its because some cultures were ruining the toilets.
“One
touch of nature makes the whole world kin.” John Muir
After a magnificent view, this little boy told Carol
that he would rather throw rocks into the lake.
His parents took the time to hike down to the water's edge
so he could throw rocks.
Let us leave a splendid legacy for our children. . .
let us turn to them and say, this you inherit;
guard it well, for it is far more precious than money. . .
and once destroyed, nature's beauty cannot be repurchased at any price.
Ansel Adams
I know that I am one with beauty and that my comrades are one.
Let our souls be mountains. Let our spirits be stars. Let our hearts be worlds.
Ansel Adams
I believe the world is incomprehensible beautiful -
an endless prospect of magic and wonder.
Ansel Adams
“May
your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most
amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.” Edward Abbey
Verla's essentials to travel home: Purse, Coke, and Snacks -
(leave the garbage can for the maids so they'll have something to do).
(leave the garbage can for the maids so they'll have something to do).
What is a resource worth? Anything it costs. If we never hike it or step into its shade, if we only drive by occasionally and see the textures of green mountainside change under wind and sun, or the fog move soft feathers down the gulches, or the last sunset on the continent redden the sky beyond the ridege, we have our money's worth. We have been too efficient at destruction; we have left our souls too little space to breathe in. Every green natural place we save saves a fragment of our sanity and gives us a little more hope that we have a future.--Wallace Stegner
“There
is a love of wild nature in everybody,
an ancient mother-love showing itself
whether recognized or no,
and however covered by cares and duties”
John Muir
“The
world is big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark.”
John Muir
Verda Johnson Salter
Verla Esplin Galloway
Carol Esplin Muprhy
Jeanette Esplin Hugh
October 10-12, 2016
