Phaedra and I had a great trip over to the Tetons with a stopover at a small town called Dubois, Wyoming.  Mind you, there is no French influence here - that’s what we were told by the indigenous peoples.  It’s pronounced DuBoys!  (Not very chi chi as Mama says sometimes.)  We camped on a river with great sights and fantastic new smells.  We drove over a pass which was really steep going in to the Tetons, and Mom and Dad really loved the views.

The name Grand does not do justice to these fantastic mountains. They just seemed to have sprung out of the flat ground and rose to great heights. Mom found out that when they were formed that for every foot they rose, the ground fell three feet. Don’t understand what that means but you’ll have to take my word for it.

Father’s day was very exciting. We had lots of wind all day.  Then in the late afternoon, it got really, really BAD!  Mama was on the phone with Parker and Anne and all of a sudden, we heard her exclaim, “OMG! Alan, a tree just came down and I don’t know if it hit our truck!”  Then she said, “Better cancel our dinner reservations at the Jackson Lodge for tonight!”  Long story short, we are lucky to be Irish.  The tree branches on this 40 foot tree got stripped off as it fell through two pine trees on our campsite!  Otherwise, we would have had a “totaled truck” and needed to come back home.  Parker thought that it would have been a great idea for us to return and since we miss her so much, Phaedra and I thought that was a good idea.  Then we thought about all the fun things we have planned and are really thankful for several things - the truck didn’t get hit, we weren’t standing under where the tree fell down, and we get to camp some more.  Anyway, the tree got cleared out by a caterpillar - not Parker’s favorite crawly kind - and within an hour they left us alone, once again, to celebrated Father’s Day at the Mural Room in Jackson Lake Lodge where they feasted  on delicacies that we would love to try!  Still we do get delicacies like elk scat and bison patties.  They never ask to share, either!

This has been a trip of babies.  You know about the baby Great Horned Owls, the baby Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheet, the baby Rocky Mountain Elk, baby Turkeys, baby Bluebirds, and the baby Wyoming Ground Squirrels which are called Chiselers here in the Tetons.  Well, now we have collected baby Grizzly Bears, baby Sandhill Cranes, baby Canada Geese, and baby Bison.  The way Papa and Mama ooh and aaah over them makes me jealous.  So, I am trying to teach them a lesson - when they leave Phaedra and me to go view animals, I pull off the bed covers, throw pillows on the floor, and wait for them to be punished.  It never seems to work out that way, but I’ll keep on trying. 

The first encounters we had with large mammals once we got to the Tetons were with Grizzlies.  So far we have seen 5 different grizzlies.  The most exciting ones are a mama grizzly and her three cubs.  This grizzly is called 610.  She is the daughter of 399.  It turns out that 399 had triplets and abandoned them.  Two of those cubs struck out on their own leaving behind one other cub.  That cub has been adopted by 610 who has two of her own cubs.  You see, bear cubs stay with their moms for 3 winters.  The reason for that is they have so much to learn - how to hunt, what to do if there are no animals to hunt, where to find berries, and how to avoid things like humans and fires.  It goes on.  Even though I am very smart, there is too much for me to remember about what they have to learn.  When 399 abandoned her babies, their chances of survival dropped a whole bunch.  If the two cubs stay together they might be able to survive.  I hope so even though I might be a good meal for the two of them.  You know, most puppies are lucky.  Even though they don’t get to stay with their parents for 3 winters, they often get adopted by people like Papa and Mama.

We had fun one day when Patsy and Bob came to visit us. They are friends from Sanibel who are really good ball throwers. They are working at the Elk Refuge in Jackson about 40 miles from our campground. They took Mom and Dad for the day and showed them places they had never been. They drove to an  area of a national forest called the Red Hills. It was beautiful thou not for our eyes. Mom and Dad were really happy about spending the time with them. They went back one evening and had dinner (left us with kibbles) and enjoyed walking around town. Jackson was having a Japanese Fire Festival. We heard that Mom went into The Cowboy Bar and sat on a saddle as a bar stool. They went one more time south to visit and had dinner again with them. It’s nice to have good friends.

We went on a lot of rides with the folks, but we could not get out too often to run. The

best day was the one we drove all over Yellowstone. We only spent the one day but drove 200 miles. It sounds really silly to do that but we all spent a lot of time there two years ago so Papa and Mama decided to stay in the Tetons this year. We saw Old Faithful, Firehole Canyon, Virginia Cascades, lots of Bison and some with babies, Lake Yellowstone, and had a wonderful picnic along the Firehole River. We were gone 10 hours and had a great time.


They left us a few times to visit the Jackson Lodge which looks out over a large marshy area with the mountains in the background. This became their Panera.  They viewed American White Pelicans, Sandhill Cranes, Cowbirds, Cliff Swallows, Moose, and Elk from the veranda.  They, also, went to The Rockefeller Center in the southern part of the park which was donated by Laurance Rockefeller. They went on a great 3 mile hike to Phelps Lake which was the location of their lodge. We would have loved to swim in that lake!  All buildings were removed at the instructions of the Rockefellers when the property was donated to the park in order to bring it back to the original state. I spent more time with Phaedra and got into a little trouble.

Well, I wish we could stay longer but it’s goodbye to the moose, elk and deer that we saw and on to new adventures. We are heading into southern Idaho to visit Craters of the Moon. I see the moon every night when we look for beaver so I don’t quite understand this trip. Guess I’ll leaving the driving to Dad (maybe Mom?)
Until next time with Phaedra........

Bye from cowboy country.
Zoe, the Magnificent.

P.S. We are really sad about Estes Park which has had 22 homes destroyed by the Woodland Heights Fire.  The Beaver Meadows entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park which we camped next to was closed.  As of today, though, this fire is 100% contained and we are so happy that Estes Park will still be there when we return in August.  We feel really sad for all the people who lost their homes.  And, we are so thankful for the amazing firefighters who battled and continue to battle the worst fire season in recent history.