Magical Mountains

We landed at Jackson, Wyoming at 1:00 pm. In the airport one is greeted with a very surprising illuminated display from the town of Jackson. It advises tourists:

It is not wrong to stop.

It is not weakness to turn around.

Before doing something foolish or dangerous, honestly measure your strength, ability, and experience against the mountain you have chosen.

When I saw that message directed at the thousands of tourists who come here, I knew this was no ordinary place.

Cowboys who used to come down from the north had such a steep drop from the surrounding mountains they named this place Jackson Hole. The sun shining on the tops of the Grand Teton Mountains was utterly breathtaking. There are no more beautiful mountains anywhere in the world. I was happy to see the park in the center of town. I recognized it from the webcam but somehow I had failed to notice that the archways at the corners of the park are made of huge elk antlers. I just hope the elk had gone to a different heaven before their antlers were harvested. I stopped in at the Judge Roy Bean Photography Shop and told the owner that the Judge was from Abner, NC in Montgomery County just north of Troy. He didn’t know that Bean was a Tarheel. We have returned from an interesting Tex-Mex restaurant called the Merry Piglets. Our tummies are full. We are safely tucked into a lovely, warm log cabin with a modern, yet rustic interior here at the appropriately named Rustic Inn of Jackson Hole. The wind is howling and the temperature is a bone-chilling 4 degrees F. I don’t even want to know what the chill factor is. Late tonight a blizzard begins. Pray for all the critters hunkered down outside tonight in these majestic hills. I know they’re accustomed to the cold, but a night like tonight can’t be easy, even for them.

But we are warm.

And very happy.Read more