Hi everyone! I had quite the adventure in Wyoming at AWLS. Check out the white water rafting pictures on Flicker by clicking on to the link. (I'm in the blue hat on the left front.) Also I took some waterfall, buffalo, and moose video clips and posted them to YouTube for your enjoyment. Lastly, if you would like to comment on any pictures please keep them "school friendly"--I will be monitoring this site and my friends, coworkers, and family will be visiting it as well! Thanks so much!

P.S. No capturing these pics and "PhotoShopping" my face to strange places please...

Heather, myself, and Cathie pulling our best "Charlie's Angels" pose with our bear spray. Bear spray is a pepper spray that can deliver a 35 second stream of spray to distract and give it enough discomfort so you can flee the scene without permanently harming it. You have to be careful though as we heard a story about the person who needed it, sprayed it at the bear, and then caught it himself as the wind blew it right back into his face. I can only imagine what that looked like--the bear probably walked off laughing as this person dropped to his knees screaming and rolling in discomfort.

I texted as many as I could and danced in from of the webcam in the town square. What was so hilarious is that some people passing did not realize there was a webcam view point and I just looked like an idiot doing the YMCA standing by an arch of antlers. If you want to see this webcam live I put a link on the right hand side of this page... enjoy!

The mamma moose and her calf. We stayed even further away from these two so she would not get defensive of her offspring. Even though female moose do not grow antlers, I was not going to see how lovely she could charge and trample me. As I said to the group, "I have seen the show When Animals Go Wild" and I do not want to be featured on it!"

Once again, the moose on the day he came into camp for some salt lick treats. We had to go to class and of course at our first break I bolted back out to the back to see if he was still there. Not only was he still there, but a mother and her calf had also moved into camp for some treats. Everyone in camp knew I wanted to see the moose, but we didn't know we would see them so often! According to the staff, we had the best and closest wildlife sightings of the whole summer. I was happy with that!

This is a close-up of the moose on our West Ridge hike. We were a little too close for comfort as we tried to convince the group of three moose to move off the path so we could continue down.

I slept in the teepee one night. It wasn't too cold as it shielded the wind well. I had a very fluffy sleeping bag and lots of foam pads to keep the ground coolness down. That was the night we stayed up and watched the meteor shower. It will probably be the best view I will ever see in my life. The mountain range surrounded the horizon and we were in a treeless field looking straight up. I saw three outstanding ones that had long glowing tails as they streaked across the sky. It was amazing to see the Milky Way in it's glory as well in the moonless, cloudless sky.

This was my favorite view--the waterfall and the mountain. We had lots of nice weather and the few times it did rain or snow/sleet we were either in a car or in the classroom. I didn't mind the sun but I had to use sunscreen every day because it is so intense. I also did notice the thin air on our hikes above/around 8,000 ft. I am in pretty good shape but would have to pause to "catch my breath". That was interesting on how quickly you'd find yourself huffing and puffing--especially those teachers who lived close to sea level.

Did you know you can still see the imprints of parts of the Oregon Trail? This is the Lander Road that leads to the New Fork River Crossing. It was constructed in 1857 and opened in 1859 for travel. I think that this is some cool history--it makes me want to break out my old "Oregon Trail" computer game and try my luck. I wonder how many wagons/people successful traveled this road to make it out West.

This is a picture of the bear we had seen two days before our hike encounter. They have both black bear and grizzly bear in the area. Luckily I we were never close enough to be able to tell which bear it was, but they did inform us that the black bear in that area are much more aggressive than the black bear we have in MI. This picture was take from well across the river and the bear was standing up because we think it caught our scent as we were all downwind from it. Grizzlies were spotted in the Teton Mountain area less than a half a days walk (for a bear) from our camp. I decided I like MI wildlife--"killer Canada Geese" seem like a better option compared to these bears!

On our last morning we hiked to the top of West Ridge. This is my "king of the mountain" shot. You can see the dead pines that still are standing from a forest fire they had in 2000 that came close to the camp. One the way down from the hike we encountered three moose. Once they moved off the trail we were able to continue and then encountered a bear. (Heard a huge crack, crack, crack, thump as we surprised it in a tree.) Well, let's just say the bear spray was out and the safety was off and ready to use. We couldn't see the bear, (I had seen a flash of fur and leaves/branches quickly moving) but knew it was there as it kept walking around (very close to us) when we tried to pass it twice. So we were making noises to scare it off and I was chanting a lovely rendition of "let's Go Red Wings" with clapping and hoping it was not a Pittsburgh Penguins fan. We also couldn't back up anymore as the three moose were directly behind us and we were pinned. I decided at that moment that I am not happy when I am not the top predator on the food chain. I also pondered on if I did not make it back to MI or was attacked to near death they would have to hire a new teacher for our school. After a little more than a half of an hour we were able to go on the trail without hearing the cracking of this large animal approaching our path. (We had convinced ourselves it was the other moose in the area and since it was a teenager it was giving us a hard time.) We booked (without running so we would not be mistaken as prey) down from that mountain and the safely back to camp. The staff sent a search and retrieve team up for Jan who had passed us earlier that morning and was hiking alone. They made it to the top and radioed back that she was not there. Finally, they located her behind the mountain after she had missed the trail up to West Ridge peak. They hiked her down quickly and got all of the teachers back to camp. I'm sure that is a story they will share with every team that comes up in the furture. (Oh, and by the way, it was not the teenage moose because the teenage moose was in camp at the salt lick.)

We got a little goofy at The Grand Teton National Park visitor's center. I decided I was Max from "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" and Cathie was my reindeer. I was surprised that the animals grow these huge antlers in about two months and shed them each year. They have groups (such as the boy scouts) that gather the antlers off the range and then people use them to create huge works of art, use them for education, and sell the extras in the gift shops.

We hiked up to the huge waterfall below "Open Door" rock early before breakfast. This is only a small portion of the lower falls. We scaled up to the top (very carefully as the rocks were steep and slippery). That evening we took a long hike up to the hot springs and crossed the river to come back on the other side. We carefully walked the edge of the cliff back above the falls and the view was spectacular!

Here I am at the 22 rifle station. My nickname here was "sniper" as I never missed the center bulls eye circle and got 100% accuracy when we played the target games. I like to think is was the excellent scope that was attached to the top of the gun and my great vision thanks to the LASIK correction. Also the fact that the targets didn't move except for the wind blowing them a bit. That helped a lot!

We also had a station to practice with a shotgun. This was more difficult for me because I have longer arms and was fitted into the largest shotgun they had. It was HEAVY! I was able to hit three of the clay discs "pigeons" they shot into the air. I'm thinking lazy turkeys sitting on the ground would be easier to hit and much tastier. Behind me are the snow clouds that "sleeted snowballs" down later that afternoon.

On our other shooting day we rotated different stations to try out various guns. I was able to shoot a front-end muzzle loader like they used in the Civil War. I packed down the gun powder and added my ammunition. I learned very quickly that these were not as reliable when it misfired three times before I was able to shoot at my target.

We spent one whole day learning how to teach (and do) archery. I found out I am left eye dominant, so I shoot my bow left handed. Once we got comfortable, we also learned a few games to play and blew up some balloons to pop with our arrows. I found out that I am quite good at archery!

One morning we went on a bug hunt. We searched outside in our river for nymphs of various flies and bugs. I wore waiders because the water was about 55 degress! The outdoor air also varied--we had frost most mornings and on our last morning there it was 20 degrees when we left for our hike. I lived in my winter jacket or layers most of the trip and was very happy I brought gloves and a winter hat too.