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

Moose Sighting

Before we even arrived at the gate to Grand Teton National Park, we had our first animal spotting: a moose! He was standing in the Snake River, in perfect view from the bridge. He was even still there when we exited the park almost two hours later.

Here is the view of the Tetons as you looked left from where we were standing to watch the moose.

On our driving trip through the Tetons we passed by Jenny Lake and saw some gorgeous views of the mountains over the water.

It was a great day at the park, and we bought our annual pass for all the National Parks. Might be going to Yellowstone sometime this weekend!

Exploring the Town

So much has happened since we made it to Jackson:

-We have a place to live. We move in on October 1st. It is a two-bedroom, two-bath condo. It has a fireplace and an awesome balcony overlooking Flat Creek. It even has covered parking. We are super excited to move in and make it feel like home.
-I went to my first day of work. All of the people are super nice and I think it will be a fun environment. The now former designer started training me and will go through an entire production cycle with me, which is Sunday-Tuesday. I already designed my first page. It was a page for the daily (I work for the weekly) that has arts and entertainment information for the weekend.

-We went on our first hike today. It was a shorter hike, about an hour and a half, but went pretty far up above Jackson. It was cool that we could look down into the town and see the mountains beyond. Jeremy had a ton of fun on the hike and even got to go swimming in the creek at the end of the hike (same creek that goes past our new place). There was some nice fall-colored leaves on the trees. Can't wait till all the leaves have changed.

-We found the dog park. And Jeremy found his way out of the dog park. Yes, on the first day there. We'll see how often he gets to return due to his sneakiness.

Time to keep on exploring and making Jackson home.

Driving, Driving, Driving

I have been driving for three days straight. Tonight we will end in Jackson. I can't explain how excited I am about this. It finally feels like we are moving. Too bad we have a whole lot of stuff to do in the next few weeks. The big things: get an apartment, buy a new car, start my job and get everything from the pod to the apartment, but the pod doesn't deliver to Jackson.

Last night we stopped in Denver with enough time to enjoy the city. We went to the REI flagship to look at warm jackets. We didn't buy anything, but we have a better idea of what we might want. Then we walked through the parks and across the gorgeous bridges to find some food. Even though it is 8 or 9 hours from Jackson, I can see us coming to Denver for a long weekend.

On Friday, when I got to Jackson (Mississippi), Ben and I went to test drive the Subaru Forester. We need a vehicle that can drive in the snow. The car drove really nicely, and there is even an all-weather package that we could get with heated seats. Looks like we will no longer have a truck.

Have to get on the road. Next time I update we will be in Jackson Hole!

One Week Out

Since being home from New York, I have been continuously looking for a job. During a vacation to Florida with Ben, I started interviewing with the Jackson Hole News & Guide. On Friday I accepted a job offer and will be moving to Jackson, Wyoming in less than a week.

My job description, to put it simply, is to design the weekly newspaper. I am the sole designer. I am super excited about this opportunity to explore a new side of myself as a designer. But I'm sure it will be a challenge. Not only will every page be my responsibility, on a deadline, but I will not have other designers to bounce ideas off. I got used to having a group of twenty designers to go to while designing Vox. Now I will have feedback from editors, reporters and photographers, but no designers. Hopefully I will try to push myself out of my own comfort zone and stretch my creativity.

Part of this adventure will be moving to a town with 10,000 people. There is no Wal-Mart in Jackson. In fact there is not a Wal-Mart within 50 miles. I'm not as much scared about the size of Jackson as I am about the cold of Jackson. During my freshman year of college, right before winter hit, my friends laughed at my coat situation. Essentially I didn't have a winter coat. I would not be surprised if that happened again this winter in Jackson. But I'm ready for the snow, the cold and most of all, the mountains.

Follow my blog to hear about our 1,700 mile road trip (all with our dog Jeremy), our search for an apartment, my new exciting job, perhaps some wedding updates, my attempts to learn to ski or snowboard, and of course see gorgeous pictures of the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone.