Back at the Ranch...!

Our stay at Zion National Park was the final "tourist" stop on our trek to our summer jobs at Luton's Teton Cabins in Moran, Wyoming. This will be our second season, and it's a testament to how much we loved the area and our jobs that we broke our standing commitment to spend a year at a job and move on to a different area. This area has so much to offer between Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone National Park and we still have so much to see, do and experience here. The fact that we landed in a great job with some of the best folks we've ever met is the icing on the cake.

Leaving Virgin UT we traveled to Salt Lake City, a drive of about 300 miles. We stopped here since the truck needed a service/oil change done, and since we were in the area, we wanted to take it to Young Ford in Morgan UT. This is the dealership that replaced the engine for us last year. Once again, they took good care of us, and the next day we were on our way to our final destination, a 340 mile drive to the ranch!

We did arrive about a week early, as there was some dental work I needed to get done and I figured it would be best to get the bulk of it behind me before I started in for the summer. I had made an appointment at Teton Oral Surgeon before I arrived in town, and in short order was scheduled to have a troublesome wisdom tooth extracted. They were really nice, and as I opted to have the "sedation" package (being a total wimp), it was all over without me even remembering anything! That's a good thing :-).

As it has been for much of the country, the weather here has been dismal. Rain, clouds, a little snow, hail, more rain....very gloomy. We have been out in the Park to see what we can find, and testing the new lens we ordered. We decided on the Nikon 18-300 mm f/3.5-5.6G AF-S DX. This is replacing my prized 18-200mm that we drowned in the unfortunate kayak incident back in March.

This is the morning after we had snowfall. We took a ride over to Colter Bay and walked along the lake shore for a little while. It sure looks cold!

Last summer we kayaked String Lake on a beautiful sunny day. Looks a bit different now, but still beautiful.

We had reports from co-workers Elaine and Larry that there had been a moose mom and baby in a small pond near Jackson Lake Dam. We kept checking for several days, never saw the moose, BUT we did see this sub-adult black bear!  

One of the iconic views of Grand Teton National Park, Oxbow Bend. You'll see many pictures of this overlook in various stages of the seasons.

We started work this past Wednesday. There are five of us returning workers, and three newbies coming in by the end of the month. We have been finishing up the spring cleaning of our cabins, getting ready for a new season of eager guests. We have been pretty busy this Memorial Day holiday weekend, with 11 of our 14 cabins full. We've been refreshing our memories with the cleaning routine, and I've been learning my new duties as office staff. I had learned a lot training under my friend Jodi last season, but we have a whole new reservation system in place this year, It's pretty intuitive, and seems to be quite user-friendly, always a good thing. Al will be resuming laundry duties three days a week, and will also be training the newbies when they come in. We are looking forward to a great summer season this year, working with good friends and giving our guests an exemplary experience.

Casey has been in seventh heaven with the cows being so close. 

Of course, you know us, and things can never seem to go off completely without a hitch. With all his romping through the fields of the ranch, Casey has managed to cut his paw. We're keeping it clean and treating it with neosporin, and it seems to be healing. It sure doesn't keep him down! My extracted wisdom tooth is slowly healing, but I did develop dry socket, so I have this gunk that I need to cover the incision area with a few times a day until it heals over completely. I am also somewhat sad to report that I can tell anyone traveling to the area that the hospital in Jackson is very nice. Al developed severe abdominal/back pain Friday afternoon, and when he has pain that brings him to his knees its time to get it checked out. It turned out to be what we thought it was, a kidney stone. I have never had one myself (knock on wood!), but he has had them before. A CT scan confirmed it, and he was sent home, armed with hefty painkillers, to wait out the passing of the stone. Luckily, it was passed in about 24 hours, and he is fine again. It is astounding that a speck of crystal about 2mm in size can cause such excruciating pain.  

Lastly, we were able to meet our good friends Pat and Diana Brown for a late lunch as they passed through Jackson on their way to Alaska. We had an excellent time at Signal Mountain Lodge, and can't wait to hear about their journey when we meet again in Campbellsville in October.

As soon as the weather decides it would like to clear up a little bit, we hope to get out and hiking, biking and kayaking this gorgeous region again, Oh yeah, and there's plenty of work to get done as well!