Summer vacation

Yogi IS Smarter Than the Average Bear!!
I watched Yogi Bear as a kid--that was one of my favorite cartoons. Years later, Judy's mom advised us that if we ever got a chance to visit his home at Yellowstone Nat'l Park, go. God provided that opportunity during the summer.

After we left here August 21, we vacationed in a friend's cabin in Wyoming. We invited two couples and together we had a great time--one of them took us up there in their car, which gave us much precious fellowship and also enabled us to get there without having to rent a car!!
We went to Yellowstone and also the Grand Teton mountains--simply beautiful!! The jagged Tetons rise majestically to almost 14000 feet. Imagine our surprise when a local told us that skiers climb up and then ski down the tallest peak!! That's extreme--no, VERTICAL--skiing!!

Yellowstone had its share of surprises--Inspiration Point, the picturesque YS canyon, with the YS lower falls at the head of the canyon, a waterfall of over 300 feet. We saw Old Faithful, and she blew water up about 100 feet, right on schedule. OF is in the middle of a seeming inferno of hot springs spewing steam--it's actually a part of an active volcanic region.

We noticed that bison like the hot springs--we saw a whole herd of bison right next to the road (and dutifully got good pictures of these monsters!) They are very big, ugly (sorry, they just look ugly!), and make this snorting noise unlike anything I've ever heard! We also saw the Mammoth Hot Springs that form snow-like cakes of sulphur (right?) from the springs. They are all over the place and spread out--the park provides boardwalks to get to the springs.

We did eat a little bison meatloaf at Old Faithful, and it was really good! We looked for bear and moose, but we didn't see any. Yogi didn't show up--neither did BooBoo. So I don't know if Yogi's smarter than the average bear, but I didn't get a chance to say hi (maybe I didn't want to either!) Rafting down the Snake River, we did see several bald eagles and their HUGE nests. The largest ever recorded weighed over 1800 pounds!

We did visit Virginia five days and got rain from tropical storm Hanna--dad said that we received 5 inches on Sat 8/30. So we cozied up, enjoyed the rain--central VA needed it--and thanked the LORD that we still had power and that the wind hadn't hit us hard--we had one gust of 20 MPH (?). One caller on VA's northern neck region said he had a gust of 40 MPH. We missed Gustav and Ike--we flew over Gustav from DFW to Richmond and Ike turned east of Dallas, giving us some rain but little else.
Back here, we are getting a lot of visits from our Haitian students who are glad to see us!I'll download pictures as soon as I get a chance.