Thursday, June 9, 2016 ~ We began our early day with a light hotel breakfast followed by the arrival of our Jackson Hole Wildlife Safari guide, Jeffrey Meehan, and his trainee, Moose, at 7:30 am to begin our safari in the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Park.

By coincidence, Jeffrey’s father was a Navy Flight Surgeon stationed in Pensacola in the early sixties and Moose is from the St. Petersburg area and has two daughters who still live there. Jeffrey is retired from the Army and has a Master's in Public Health Administration, speaks several languages and has worked as a safari guide for ten years. Moose has a Ph.D. and has been a wildlife photographer in various areas of the world, including Siberia. Both were very knowledgeable and made the safari a real treat for all of us. I just wish I could remember the names of all the sights we saw.

Old Faithful was around 15 minutes past the scheduled time. Jeffrey said it reached around 125 feet, about 40 feet higher than average, so it was well worth the wait.

After Old Faithful, we had lunch in a small picnic area. The safari company provided a wonderful gourmet lunch, complete with tablecloth and cloth napkins.

We had great opportunities for photographs of bison, elk, waterfalls, and rainbows. The boys love to make fun of me for taking pictures of flowers and birds. The flowers are easy, but birds, not so much. We did see an eagle, but it was so far away, the pictures are a little blurry.

Our safari concluded at 7:30 pm, 12 hours after it began.

We walked around downtown Jackson and had burgers at Liberty Burger. AJ and I had regular beef burgers, but Jacob was adventurous and ordered the bison cheeseburger, which was so delicious, I wish I had ordered bison instead of beef. Maybe next time…

Collecting Memories - Not Things, Summer 2016 ~ Paula, Jacob, and AJ