Let It Snow

We welcomed winter on October 25th with five inches of snow. Everyone at work reassured me that they don't usually get this much snow this early. But after getting my down jacket, I really don't mind the cold or snow. Besides, it is gorgeous with all the snow, so on Friday we went on a drive through the Grand Tetons.

As soon as you enter the Grand Tetons, there is a small chapel off the main road, Chapel of Transfiguration. Once inside, there is a gorgeous picture window with the perfect view of the Grand Tetons over the altar. Unfortunately, due to bad lighting, those pictures don't look so great.

On the only one-way road in the park, the scenic drive along Jenny Lake was the perfect place for me to open the sun-roof, stand up, and snap a picture of the snowy road surrounded by frosted pines.

Jenny Lake, with the Grand Tetons covered in snow. The lake is so much calmer in the cold.

Another view of the Grand Tetons over Jenny Lake.

Overlooking the Snake River with the mountains in the background.

Ben (the birthday boy today!) on the bridge over the Snake River.

Another view of the Snake River from the bridge.

Bison and Elk and Geysers, Oh My!

In between moving-in and working, we found time to take a trip up to Yellowstone National Park. It was a wee bit cold at 51 degrees, so we only walked around the Old Faithful area of the park. But the short trip did not disappoint.

As any national-park-goer knows, a bunch of cars stopped on the side of the road means that there is an animal around. Sure enough, within perfect view of a bridge were six Elk feeding in the meadow.

A quick trip out of the car gave us a gorgeous view of Lewis Falls.

We walked up with perfect timing to see Old Faithful go off. It was not like last time when I stated that it was "lame" after it seemed to stop halfway through the show.

One of the springs around Old Faithful. The colors in the pools are absolutely amazing.

After watching a herd of bison play in the creeks in the middle of a trail, and watching them then cross the trail incredibly close to some people, we caught an up-close look at the herd.

We stopped at Lewis Lake on the way back south through Yellowstone.

The Kepler Cascades are only visible when going south through the park. We totally missed these falls that were right beside the road when we were heading to Old Faithful. But when we did spot them, we climbed down some rocks to get a better view at the shoreline.

Once we were back in Grand Teton National Park, we spotted an entire field of bison. There must have been more than a hundred. We weren't sure if they were wild bison or domesticated. Just seemed unreal to see the numbers of them that we did at one time.

Two Publications In

I have now gone through two production cycles of the weekly newspaper. The first week was a training period where the now former designer was there the entire time. This week I was on my own except for some of Tuesday night (production night). But overall, I can call the newspaper my design.

After last night I also understand what a production night really is. After getting to work at 10:00 am, and only leaving for a 30 minute lunch and 30 minute dinner, I didn't leave till 1:15 am. Yes you read that correctly. At the last minute we decided to redesign the front page. It was well worth the change, but it sure didn't feel like it last night (or this morning) when it happened.

Below are a few of the designs from today's newspaper.

Page 1A

Painted Landscape - Valley 

"Painted Landscape" is a double-truck in the B Section, or Valley, which is mostly stories on the culture and lifestyle in Jackson. One of our photographers took these amazing photos of the fall colors in a beautiful landscape. My only goal was to show off his work.

Science on the Snake - A Section

"Science on the Snake" is the second front in the A Section. (Sometimes we have two A section drops due to color reasons.)

 Stepping Out Cover

While this design is fairly simple, I liked the portrait of the man being featured. And he lives in Kentucky so obviously our photographers were not able to get more images for me to work with.

Sports Cover