With Family!

 The end of July brought us to Dalles Campground on Rock Creek near Missoula, Montana where we met up with Mary and Hoppy - on purpose! Mary and I had fun walking a couple of miles each morning with Bea while the guys fished.

 The evenings and mornings were cool but after the sun was up a while we shed our fleece and enjoyed the beautiful weather. Our adjacent sites were perfect. We don't need media (TV, internet or music) to keep us occupied when we have SO MUCH to talk about! We'll meet up again next time we go out west, that's for sure!

 Then it was off to Idaho and Jim's first race at Boiling Springs Campground, only 22 miles or so from the main road up in the mountains. In the above pic we are thrilled to meet up with Jim going down this mountain we had just hiked up.

 Way to go Jim!

 Great race!

 Our next destination was Grand Teton National Park. Even though we only had one afternoon/evening/night we enjoyed every minute. On our evening walk we spotted this moose in the Gros Ventre River!

 The mountains are majestic even when shrouded with rain and clouds.

 John and Jim fished the Green River out of Dutch John, Utah after our trip to Yellowstone which I will blog separately. Jim had a fantastic trip, catching big rainbows and browns all day!

 The water is so clear sometimes you can see these beauties when you look over the edge.

 This is the river where we accidentally met up with Mary and Hoppy. We're already looking forward to going back in two years.

 Jim's next race was in western Wyoming at Cottonwood Lake. The dirt road to the lake is single lane, overgrown with bushes, bumpy, and tried our patience because there is almost no place to pull over if you encounter an oncoming vehicle. It's gorgeous country, though. John and I hiked up the first very hilly mountain until we were puffing. It was cool and misty but cleared up later on.

 Cottonwood Lake

 John ran across the finish line with Jim.

 Jim's imitating the badger that badgered him and some other runners before Jim chased it off by tossing some rocks at it.

What a treat it was to see this snowshoe hare by the side of the road on our way down to the main road. In fact, we saw snowshoe hares in Grand Teton N.P, Wyoming, at Connie and Steve's in Montana and near the Arkansas River near Buena Vista, Colorado. They are huge compared to cottontails!