A Day at the Jackson Hole Hill Climb

Sorry - this is a bit of a long post. But it's been a bit of a long day. A very good one, but long.

Today was a day of watching. We went to Jackson Hole to watch the annual Hill Climb. This is one of the biggest snowmobile races (straight up Snow King Ski Resort's lift line) on the Hill Climb circuit. And, it's a lot of fun to watch. It was a gorgeous day - clear, sunny and about 40 degrees. Perfect!

We only have one pair of binoculars (something we need to fix), so we used a spotting scope too. Everyone took turns so we could all see up close.

We sat right at the base of the resort, just behind the lift line.

And this is what we saw. The racers have to zig and zag their way up the mountain, making it through gates. The hill is very steep, and after awhile the path becomes rutted and mushy from all the traffic. It gets pretty hairy up toward the top.

My husband's cousin's son raced and won two of the divisions, (this was only qualifying day), and has earned himself a full-time ride next year as a Skidoo sponsored rider. It is quite an accomplishment. I think he is 18 years old.

The kids - especially the seven year old - had more fun just playing and being kids than watching the race. The seven year old even made several friends, and finagled his way into using one of their sleds.

Here they are loading up three kids for the ride, including the sled owner...

Uh-oh...

Yep. Saw that coming. They had a great time :)

The two year old is terrified of ... well, a lot of things. He won't try using the potty because it scares him to sit on it. It took all day to convince him to climb up the playground equipment. Then his big sister took him down the slide. See the death grip he's doing with his legs? This picture just cracks me up.

Of course I was wanting to test out my camera and see what kind of scenery shots we could get. Not bad, eh? Of course it's hard to take a bad picture of the Tetons.

I like how the lighting is in this one. We were driving about 60 mph when I took this one out of my window. I'll just say I'm very pleased with this camera, and am going to keep it.

I also wanted to see if I could get a good picture at the Elk Refuge. Not bad, I'd say, considering these elk were a good 100+ yards away.

Sometimes the elk are right up by the road, and sometimes they are far away. I don't know if you can see it in the photo or not, but if you look at the top edge of the picture, you will see hundreds of elk in the brown area in the background. Many of the elk have already left the refuge, but most that were there were laying in the brown areas, where they are well camoflouged. I'm guessing that is more about the fact that it's more comfortable to lay on the dry ground. Who knows. I don't think I have much insight as to how elk think. I can never seem to find them during hunting season, anyway.

Oh, remember the other day I said I could only find one paperclip? I figured a trip to Staples would cure that problem. Well, I wanted to buy a small box of silver paperclips. Easy, right? Not. They didn't even have a single box of the silver ones. The only thing in a small box was gold colored, and from the price, they must have thought they were gold plated - $4.49 for a small box. Are you kidding me? I'm not trying to make a fashion statement. This enormous package of 1000 plastic coated paperclips in hideous, "trendy" colors (which my daughter actually likes) was on sale for $3. I do not need 1000 paperclips. But I also don't need to spend an extra $1.49 to get the smaller amount I actually wanted. It just seems so wasteful to me to have to buy 900 more paperclips than I really need. They did have some silver ones, but those boxes came shrink wrapped together, and you got somewhere between 6-10 boxes at once. Ridiculous. So I was stuck buying the big package. I don't even know what I'm going to do with all of them. My grandchildren will be inheriting paperclips, I guess, and I'm sure by then those trendy colors will be horribly outdated. Think avocado green and harvest gold if you have any doubts. Good grief.

So I pulled out a few - less than a tenth, probably, and put them in a small baby food jar so I can use them for my crafts. Crazy. Should have gone to the dollar store first. They had a small package of 100 for $1... in normal, primary colors.

Speaking of crafts, I did manage to talk my sweet hubby into stopping at the quilt store long enough for me to pick up some darker turquoise fabrics. I'm not sure these will work well either. I took my hexagons with me, and picked out the best I could find, but the quilt store there carries more of the standard, traditional quilting fabrics, rather than the new, fun stuff. This is what I came home with. I wasn't sure about the stripe, but my daughter thinks it will tie in the greener shades I already have, and make me satisfied to keep them in the quilt. We will have to see. I won't know until I get some sample hexagons made out of these fabrics and can do a mock layout. I definitely want to include the bolder turquoises if possible though. They are more what I had in mind.

I took my crocheting with me today thinking I could crochet between riders at the Hill Climb. But they kept it moving fast enough, and I was into taking pictures of the kids having fun, so I didn't even pull it out. I was going to crochet on the way up there, but ended up driving instead, so oh well. I'll save that project for another day ;) And speaking of new days, since it is now 12:02 AM, I better get to bed. (Told-ya it's been a long day). Tomorrow will be busy too, with church services, and our regular pianist gone for Spring Break. My daughter and I will both be playing for the services. Good night!