"I never ever saw the stars so bright...."

Gold star count:
Jimmy - 2
Jennie - 1

Jimmy drove the entire way from Boise, Idaho to Moran, Wyoming and received another gold star in the process clocking another 400+ miles yesterday. The Blackfoots of Idaho sent us off with another nice sunset....



and before long, we were entering Wyoming...

The dark night made those windy curves and steep downgrades a little scary. Despite my utmost trust in Jimmy's driving, I continually grabbed and hugged the arm rest in the passengers seat as we rode in the darkness alongside of what I could only imagine to be a huge cliff. I know this drove him nuts......as did my continuous "Jimmy be careful, be really careful here....are your high beams on? They are? Oh! Go slower around that curve." At a point, I just had to take my eyes off of the road.

We did get to drive through Jackson Hole, WY long enough for me to hop out and snap a few pictures....



....our plan will hopefully bring us back there tonight for some dinner!

We arrived in Moran at the Grand Teton RV Park later than we expected since the last stretch of road was slow going. It took us a bit to figure this place out in the dark once we got here. Eventually, we got it and were hooked up at spot #114 and had the heat cranking. It was a low of 15 last night, afterall. We used almost 1/2 of our tank of Propane just to keep us warm for the night, too.

The funny thing about arriving at night is not knowing what your surroundings look like. When we stepped out of the RV this morning we were greeted by the snow capped Grand Teton's in the distance.


They are something. Our plan is to explore them today so I imagine we'll be getting great photos up later tonight or tomorrow. We weren't sure if we'd get reception in the middle of nowhere but we do.

Before we decided to turn in for the night, we wanted to go out and check out the stars. Since it was so dark, we'd knew we'd see them shining brightly. We leashed up Daisy for her last walk of the night and stepped outside of the RV. We looked up at the sky and got our barrings.

There it was - Orion. We look for this constellation every night now. It recently become very special and now carries a deeper meaning. Its a symbol of loss and of love and there it was. So bright, so big, shining above us. I was looking for the bow and had just spotted it when I saw a shooting star. It looked as though it came from Orion's bow. I was instantly brought to tears, it was beautiful. Within seconds, there was another that went right through Orion. TWO shooting stars in mere seconds. I knew we were meant to be out there at that exact moment to experience those and I'm so glad we were.

This beautiful moment quickly turned into something else......fear.

Not far from where we were standing we heard a bark. My first thought is, "Oh cool, there is another dog at the park. Maybe Daisy can play with it while we're here." The second the bark happened though, Daisy froze. Then, we heard the loudest howls that both of us had ever heard. We don't know if it was a wolf or a coyote, but I sure as hell wasn't staying around to find out. I was positive it was signaling its buddies to tell them human and canine dinner await tonight. Jimmy said he's never seen me run so fast, lol. I bolted back to the RV as quickly as possible and was happy once I was safe inside. We burst into laughter after what we'd just experienced and it was then that I exclaimed, "I'm not stepping foot out of our RV when its dark".

We're taking our time this morning/afternoon. We slept in, and are in the process of getting ourselves ready to head to Grand Teton National Park. The RV Park we are staying at rents cars so shortly, we'll be on our way!

*~Jennie~*

****Editor's Note: I received an email from my mom after she read this latest blog. "What bow?" she wanted to know. She didn't know about the bow I was talking about in Orion. I took it to Google and quickly realized that I don't have my facts straight. Orion is not carrying a bow and arrow, but rather a sword and shield. All of these years I had thought it was a bow and arrow. I even took Astronomy in high school. I sat through all of those cool lessons set to spacey music in the planetarium, too. Anyway, the first shooting star that I saw last night was NOT shot from the bow but bounced off of the shield.