We might get a few more flowers from the dahlias. All of the potted plants are indoors and the flowering maple seems to be putting out a lot of flowers early.
We might get a few more flowers from the dahlias.
Dahlias and marigolds are still going strong. I think the cosmos is about done.
Dahlias and marigolds are still going strong. I think the cosmos is about done.
Frontier Airlines
Frontier Airlines
I start my trip to the Imaging in 2020 (http://www.imagingin2020.com/) conference by waking up at 2:30 AM. You never know if there’s going to be a hiccup with the shuttle van from remote parking or if TSA is going to have a long line. I had prepaid for one checked bag and one carry-on bag with Frontier Airlines. It’s the first time trying Frontier. A personal item, such as my book bag is free. When I arrived at the baggage check-in, the agent says that my poster tube is considered a carry-on item. Are you f*king kidding me? So I would have to pay $50. I seriously thought about putting the poster in the trash. This has never happened to me before. I had one of the students bring my poster back. No way was I going to pay again. On the return trip, I got to the airport early. I figure I’ll check my bags in (minus the poster of course) and I’ll just read a book. I’m standing at the Frontier Airlines check-in counter when I notice a sign. It says something about check in starts at 1 PM for a 3 PM flight. It’s 10:30 AM. I scan left and right. United, check. American Airlines, check. Delta airlines, check. Only the Frontier counter is empty. I’ll never fly their cheapass airline again. Never again.
Jackson Lake Lodge, Jackson, WY: Grand Teton National Park
The conference is held every other year. This year’s theme/title was Visualizing the Future of Health Care with MR Imaging. It was a pretty good line up of speakers. I’m mostly an MRI guy even though I do nuclear imaging too. For the scientists in the audience, it’s set up like a Gordon Research conference, with an important twist. The location. A good 3-4 hours is set aside each day for activities, such as horseback riding, river rafting, hiking, etc. in the Grand Tetons. The conference was great but you would be surprised at the service at the lodge considering the price-point. They had buffet style lunches. Twice they ran out of salad. I thought I’d wait but I was kind of holding up the line so I moved on. As I got to the bread and cold-cuts to make a sandwich, the bread was out. Should I go back in the line for a salad? There was also some run around regarding the horseback riding. Did you sign your waiver forms? What waiver forms? Do you have tickets? What tickets? Sort out your internal problems. Don’t make the guests/customers deal with your inefficiencies.
Birds
I saw an eagle while we were rafting on the Snake River. OK, I saw a bird and our guide, Kent, said, “trust me, it’s an eagle”. I did see an eagle up close with a handler from a rescue organization. They stopped by the lodge with two owls and a hawk as well. I also saw a hawk while hiking but the picture isn’t close enough. You’ll have to trust me.
More animals
The river rafting was super leisurely as was the horseback riding. A couple of us brought decent cameras, figuring we didn’t have a serious chance of getting wet, other than from rain. The most exciting animal we saw while rafting was probably the moose. We saw an eagle (we have to trust Kent) and an eagle’s nest. There was a raccoon along the bank of the river. There was evidence of beavers but alas, no beaver was seen. For the teenagers in the back, be quiet. There was some species of duck, that our guide said eats fish. What the duck?
I saw some bison from the car, meh, too far away. I saw some deer while hiking, after the conference. A couple had nice racks. I said be quiet in the back. We also had a coyote casually stroll through the campsite. We heard them yipping in the morning. If you haven’t heard it before, it’s not exactly howling (like wolves).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjUCS1Qm5_o
We also heard elk bugling in the morning.
As I mentioned, horseback riding was super leisurely. I was given What about Bob. He also answers to just Bob. I was put in the middle of the group because Bob apparently doesn’t like the slow, leisurely format. He almost got kicked in the head because it was hard to keep him from getting too close to the horse in front. This isn’t NASCAR Bob. It was still fun as it was my first time riding a horse.
On the first day of the conference, one of the attendees saw a black bear. She was eating lunch with some friends and heard some twigs breaking. The bear came through some bushes, or something like that. She stood up, yelled bear, swinging her arms. That’s pretty much what you’re supposed to do. Make yourself look bigger. Don’t run. The bear left. No one, including the bear, was hurt. gnostic pasta saw a bunch of cars stop on the way to picking me up. Apparently a black bear was eating in the tree. He tried to get a photo with his phone but it didn’t turn out too great. He also brought bear spray, because you know, you can’t fly with that stuff. See airplane camping below.
Hiking
You’ve hopefully heard of car-camping. What about airplane camping? I brought a second suitcase full of camping/hiking gear: tent, sleeping bag, trekking poles, medical kit, hiking boots, hydration bladder, day-pack, headlamp, etc. At first, someone on Twitter suggested a solo-overnighter near Jenny Lake. However, I made plans on airplane camping with the usual suspect from Boise, which is only five hours drive. He brought his youngest son, which was fun.
A group of us from the conference signed up for a day-hiking slot. The driver was supposed to drop us off at the Jenny Lake visitor center. Most people hike to Hidden Falls, around Jenny Lake. Some in the group had already done that, plus we knew that was a moderate/easy hike. Looking at the trail maps, we decided to try Cascade Canyon. So we asked the driver to drop us off and pick us up closer to String Lake, which is between Jenny Lake and Leigh Lake. It was about a 3 mile hike with 748 ft elevation gain and 197 ft descent. We decided not to go all the way through Cascade Canyon as we didn’t want to miss our ride back. However, we did decide to hustle to see Hidden Falls, as most had not seen it yet. It was about a quarter of a mile with 180 ft elevation gain and 164 ft descent. From Hidden Falls, it was 1.8 miles back to the pickup point, with 135 ft of elevation gain and 138 ft of descent.
I went on two hikes after the conference. The first hike was, the one that many of the conference attendees did, which is around Jenny Lake to Hidden Falls, starting at the ranger station. GP’s son did really great. 2.95 miles with 525 ft of elevation gain and 492 ft descent. We decided to take the boat shuttle back to the parking lot which was a thrill for the little guy. Along the hike to Hidden Falls we met Wendy from Minnesota. She was hiking alone and apparently trying to tag along with a group of young hikers from Germany. They more or less left her in their dust. As they passed us and she saw us, she explained that she was alone and wondered if she could “join” our group. We said OK. She was genuinely afraid and new to hiking. At least she had water. There was one section where it was narrow and full of rocks. She was complaining how scary it was. It was tempting to catch up to GP and his kid but I felt the right thing to do was stay back and let Wendy know we weren’t going to abandon her. She often asked GP’s kid if he needed to take a rest. “You’re tired aren’t you? You need a rest right?” Even he said she was strange and annoying. We shared our protein bars with her when we got to Hidden Falls as she didn’t know that you need water and food.
I probably mentioned earlier that I bought a Garmin Fenix 5 Plus for its GPS capabilities. I wanted a GPS device that’s also waterproof, not water resistant, for kayaking. A GPS watch was the best option I came up with. I had fun tracking my hikes and seeing the elevation changes with my watch.
Airplane camping
Although I brought my own tent, it was smart to just use GP’s 8-person tent. It was 24°F in the morning a few nights at the lodge. I knew it was going to be a little warmer but my sleeping bag is only rated for 29°F and my Sea to Summit Thermolite Reactor Liner only adds a few degrees, and that’s debatable. I figured the liner plus long underwear would be comfortable around 30°F but not much lower. BTW, the etymology of “long johns” is unknown. You can check the Wiki page. GP brought a butane tent heater. We probably could have lived without it but it was nice in the morning to warm the tent up a bit.
We bought some gluten-free tortillas to eat with Himalayan beans, which I had on the last camping trip in Idaho (the beans, not the tortillas). It turned out that the gluten-free tortillas were only partially cooked. Even after trying to cook them on GP’s stove, they were horrible. We decided to have dinner at Tapper Grill at the lodge a couple of nights. The view was fantastic. The food was OK and not horribly expensive. We had dehydrated camping food for breakfast except the last day, when we had breakfast at Tapper Grill.
Nearly everything in Jackson Hole is expensive. The showers at the Signal Mountain campground are $6 for 7 minutes and you have to buy tokens. If you use a credit card, you can only spend in increments of $5. So $10 shower it is. So even though I showered before heading to the airport, my boots were still pretty funky from hiking. When the TSA lady asked me to take off my boots, I smiled and asked, are you sure? I’ve been hiking for a few days. Revenge!
To the weirdo lady listening to YouTube in the airport, while I was trying to read my book, get some damned earbuds!
And yes, it was Simple Minds that sang Don’t you, forget about me. It was blasting from some boat on Jackson Lake near the campground.
September flowers 2018
September flowers 2018
I returned from a conference in the Grand Tetons and was happy to see the squirrels had not ruined all of my dahlia buds. One of the surviving cosmos (from seeds) seems to be determined to put on a show all by itself. Similarly, one of the marigolds (from seeds) is hanging on and producing flowers. We’ll do better on the seeds next year. For the dahlias, it’s mainly a problem with the weather and the squirrels.
Preview of photos not showing on last post. Good job Google. Let’s try again.