christmas in wy continued...

christmas in WY continued... 

in addition to skiing, we did lots of other fun activities... spa, eating loads of food, checking out jackson hole and teton village, and an animal spotting trip.

here are me and caitlin spotting bison with our binoculars. we saw tons.

hey look! it's me and caitlin again! with binoculars... again! and pretty sure with bison in the background!

gorgeous views from this vantage point. we saw a moose from here, i believe. and loads of birds including vultures and bald eagles. i believe that's the snake river. 

at the same gorgeous overlook...looking for animals!

here's my brother, caitlin, and me. it was freeeeezing that day! well, and every day. brrrrr!

here's mom looking thru the big scope with our guide whose name escapes me at the moment. he was great and goofy and super knowledgeable and had seriously good eyesight!

me and my momma.

caitlin and ellen spying animals from close to our vehicle for the morning

this was the coolest part of the trek: big horned sheep just hanging out on the road. there were tons of them and they came right on up to the cars. apparently the county does not use salt on their roads, but other counties do and so the sheep love the salt and come up to cars hoping to find salt licks on the wheels and wheel wells. 

hi guy! shot from the window, inside the car.

we saw moose! love them mooses!

so, on our trek, we saw: moose, bison, deer, ravens, hawks, vultures, bald eagles, big horned sheep... maybe something else too... who knows, but it was fun to see and mom loved every minute of it.

i took this while skiing. i'm not the best, but i can handle the blues... usually. apparently the blues at JH are  rather more difficult than most resorts. yeah, i found that out and ate it down a super steep area on the mountain. that was fun... but i did get to capture some pretty amazing views and a couple of pics. AND! i conquered that mountain after a lesson i took on the last day we were there. walter was my instructor and while it was supposed to be a group lesson, it turned out to be just me and walter! he'd been there since 1968 and was awesome. i learned so much and had such a great time talking to him. if you ever go to JH and want to take a lesson, you have to ask for walter!! 

this is the tram. or the gondola. i can't remember. they have both and i was totally mixing them up the whole trip! we took this one up one afternoon for lunch at the restaurant at the top. it's called couloir and it has the most amazing views - and is almost 10,000 ft high!

our resort! loved the ski in/ski out ability. this is right where the gondola, tram, and a few other lifts are. so easy, so fun to hit the slopes!

so cute - the day before Christmas, the hotel set out cookies and beverages for Santa... and on Christmas, there was the cutest note and the 'eaten' cookies and 'drank, drunk, dranked, drinken???' milk. so cute!!

we went in to the town of Jackson for dinner a few times and also checked out a shop or two. This one store was awesome. all kinds of stuffed animals... the real kind... kinda icky, but also pretty cool... see below:

holy lord, loved the hunter squirrel!!

and the fishing squirrel!

check out the kitty in the santa hat... he's trying to grab a big bird. 

in the town square, the four corners and entrances are marked by four arches - made by the antlers from  the bucks. they shed their antlers, so don't worry... no pain! 

i liked this sign. they even spelled it correctly!

the airport had lovely artwork and photos of mostly nature and the area... loved this one!

and this one!

the airport was gorgeous and small... and even had this fireplace in the middle of it! and cozy relaxing nice leather lounging chairs and such. nicest a