Short and to the point since I’m on the BB:
We woke up at 6am for some wildlife watching. This proved a bit tricky
since we don’t have binocs, but we still managed to spot the elk herd
and a few of them crossed the road just a few feet away. Next, a 6
mile hike around Bradley and Taggert lakes. The weather was perfect,
the trail was verdant and there weren’t many people. The Teton
rockscapes and canyons reminded me of Desolation Wilderness.
On the way back, we had a late lakeside picnic lunch at the Chapel of
the Sacred Heart, then headed back to the cabins for a much needed
nap. Cynthia was out like a rock and slept till almost 4:45.
Afterwards, we paid $7 between us for showers.
At 6pm, we drove out to Jackson Lake lodge for a ranger meet and
greet. We didn’t find the rangers but did locate the Blue Heron Lounge
for drinks. Next, fishing license in hand, we drove back to a fishing
spot on the Snake river I’d scouted earlier. The mosquitos we’re
absolutely swarming – the were literally hundreds buzzing in my
personal space – so thick it was hard to see well enough to thread the
flies. Thankfully, Cynthia had picked up a vial of industrial strength
99% DEET. I only picked up a few bites, but might grow a third arm.
I could wade far out in to the river, but struggled with my longer
casts since I’d really never had the chance to use them. I am getting
slowly better and was casting best in at the end. The cutthroat were
rising all around me but I couldn’t get a bite. Even so, I
fundamentally love being in the river striving for tight loops, water
cool through my waders as the sun sets and the heron fly over.

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7 hrs of driving later and we made it to our spacious tent cabin with
a covered porch. A storm rolled through (the first rain in three weeks
apparently), and we were glad to not be in our 2 person tent, unable
to cook and miserable. After dinner we did a short hike out to Jackson
Lake and got some incredible shots of stratified clould over the
Tetons. We also checked out a couple of ranger programs on elk and
how indians lived in the park. The second speaker was an Native
American and had a really relaxing cadence that got us in the mood for
bed (in a good way). Tomorrow we stay in Grand Teton for wildlife
viewing, hiking, and fishing.

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Cynthia’s ailment has passed and I seem to have dodged the same
bullet. We’re rolling through McDermott, NV on our way to Nampa for a
visit with the mother-in-law, and then we’ll head for the Tetons and
Yellowstone, hoping for some luck with first come first serve
campsites and/or backcountry permits. Otherwise, it might be a short
trip with a lot of driving.

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It’s been a slow few days here – we’ve spent most of the time puttering around the house, watching TV, and catching up with the friends we hadn’t seen for a month.  I’ve gotten feedback that you people like lists, so here’s a list of the things I’ve fixed:

• Fixed poorly located water heater strap
• Flushed water heater
• Replaced missing but non-critical roof rake tile (which has been on my list for literally four years)
• Fixed gate latch on fence
• Re-mortared some damaged brickwork

We also began planning next week’s trip to Yellowstone and the Tetons, but this morning Cynthia came down with a nasty stomach bug.  Two suspects here – our recent international travel, or the flu that all some friends had last week.  Everyone we’ve seen had already gotten over it, but they were all here making themselves at home on Sunday and theoretically contaminating everything with their poor hygiene.  She’s miserable and there’s not much I can do about it – I’m making Jello and some chicken soup but as of this moment she can’t keep anything down.  Hopefully she’ll be feeling better tomorrow, or we’ll be forced to start cancelling some reservations.  The silver lining is the flexibility of sabbatical means moving dates around a bit is no big deal.

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We flew back from San Jose Sunday, overnighted at an airport hotel in LAX, and were back home by 1pm yesterday. We’ve spent our time tuning the house and yard back up.

We had entrusted Dave and Sharaun to watch our house, mow our grass, collect our vegetables, etc. There was some risk in this, as we have pranked them a couple times- once, when they were away peeling all the labels from their cans, numbering them, and then subsequently and unintentionally losing the answer key. The other prank involved a styrofoam monolith placed early one morning in their front lawn.

So, it was inevitable that they would return the favor, and they did so with a vengeance. I cannot fully describe the act here. It involved no less than the tight coordination of 14 of our closest friends, each of whom came to our unoccupied house and besmirched it in a way both shocking and utterly, absolutely hilarious. There was professional photo documentation of these acts placed onto a wall that once held innocent pictures of our family members. To those involved, hats off. Your efforts cannot possibly be topped and we’re completely flattered.

I’ve finally finished uploading all of our pictures from Quepos as well as the videos from ziplining. If you check nothing else out, you watch the videos: Tarzan Swing and Zip lining. Click on “Download File”. Note that the files are about 8BM each and you will need a divx player to watch them.

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