Friday, July 24, 2015

Returning to the Cowboy State

Judy and I travelled to Jackson, WY in June for an National Automobile Dealers Association board of directors meeting. We went in a couple days early and were able to travel up to Yellowstone and the Tetons for a day and then spent a day in and around Jackson.

The Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton National Park are such beautiful areas. I find the Grand Teton to be one of the most majestic sights I've ever seen. My eyes are drawn to it whenever it is in view.



I had not been to the Jackson area for 15 years. Judy and I took the kids to Yellowstone in the early 90's. Then in the summer of 2000, a friend, Craig Kirsch, and I rode in a bicycle ride called Ride Around Wyoming (RAW) which was sponsored by Three Peaks Christian School in Sheridan, WY, then a school of 31 students who supported the ride. I believe the school has now closed and the ride no longer exists.

Atop the Teton Pass el. 8,432 feet
June 30, 2000

I kept a journal during our ride and used a Sony Mavica camera to take some photos. This was at the onset of the digital photography age and the Mavica used removable disks (floppies) as the recording media. It was about the size of a brick and about as heavy as one.

I sent the journal and photos back home each day via email. The photos were downloaded from the floppies and inserted into the email message. I used a modem to email from my laptop computer. In a couple places, this was not even an option.

I wrote the journal in WordPerfect, which was among the major word processing programs at the time. I cannot find a program to translate that file to Word so I have scanned my printed copy (complete with typos) of the journal. digital version. I cannot even get Google docs to translate the .pdf so you will have to download it to view it.



Our six-day ride brought us south out of the mountains and onto the high plateau, into Utah, then Idaho and culminated in an ascent over Teton Pass on the final day. It was a great adventure at the time. But the memories have aged wonderfully - a great week with a great friend in truly spectacular country.

So here is my journal from 15 years ago. Craig and I have both had fun reminiscing.


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