Day 18: Wandering ‘Round Wyoming

Yesterday afternoon I was feeling particularly lethargic. I’d really wanted to crash out in my sleeping bag for a while, but decided a hike was more productive.

The first little bit of the hike wasn’t very fun, but as I found my rhythm and some gorgeous views, that changed. It was only 2.5 miles but it was in the woods, in the mountains and along crystal clear lakes. In other words- Glorious.

After that I was chock-full of endorphins and happy thoughts. I was pretty productive for the rest of the day, wandering and photographing til the evening, then shooting the stars after dark. I also found time to organize all my gear and come up with several possible game plans for the next few days.

In the morning I was back at String Lake to try (again) for the photograph that was a goal of mine before even getting to the Tetons. Last year I had taken a photograph in portrait/vertical format. One of my sisters had liked it, but was looking for a landscape/horizontal format photograph for her walls. I ran into two problems when I tried for the shot the other day- it was overcast and my 20mm was not wide enough to encompass all that I wanted in the photo in landscape format. This morning the light was perfect, as was the sky and the colors. I took several series of vertical shots which I will attempt to stitch together into large landscapes in post processing. I’m excited by the results so and hope they are just as satisfying off my camera.

That shot wrapped up my shooting in the Tetons and I decided to explore elsewhere. I headed to Jackson, WY first. That town is a lot of fun- most of what I saw is designed to look a bit like the old west, right down to wooden sidewalks in some places. I went looking for lunch (via HappyCow.com) and found Lotus Cafe. Reviewing that place while typing on my blackberry just wouldn’t do it justice. I’ll be posting a full review once I have internet access again. For now I’ll just say that Lotus Cafe is AMAZING and I will likely revisit multiple times on each Tetons visit.

After breakfast I headed out to wander my way across Wyoming. I stopped multiple times along the way to photograph. This state is stunning. I may likely never be able to fully portray just how vast and beautiful it is in my photographs, but I’ll keep trying.

I ended up in a campground a bit past Laramie. I can’t wait to photograph the sunrise here.


Leave a Reply