Back from West Yellowstone

I’m back from West Yellowstone, Montana.

I left on June 7th for W. Yellowstone and had a 6 hour lay over in Salt Lake City – ugh! When I got to W. Yellowstone that evening, I went to pick up my luggage and found it had been lost – actually it stayed in Salt Lake but was delivered the next day. The down side to that downside was it was very cold when I landed. I thankfully had my leather jacket with me and didn’t wear sandals like I had planned. Needless to say though, I was rather stressed.

The next morning I had planned on going on a bus tour to Yellowstone but after many calls to the airlines and making sure they had my luggage and would deliver it on the one flight into W. Yellowstone that morning, I missed the bus. As it turned out, that wasn’t a bad thing because I met up with Rich Adams (who organized the workshops for Mike Sibley) and his wife who were taking Mike and his wife through the park. I was able to join them and had a much more personal trip through Yellowstone than I would have had on the bus.

Over the course of my stay I saw lots of animals in the wild and took lots of pictures! I saw eagles on their nest, a black bear, lots of elk and bison with their babies, a coyote, a golden mantle squirrel, a chipmunk, a yellow bellied marmot, a prong horn antelope, lots of ravens and some beautiful blue birds, and then at the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center I saw grizzly bears and wolves. What magnificent creatures! I was lucky enough to get a few pictures of a wolf that climbed up on a small rock water fall and then stood up there howling! What a melodic sound the howling was – truly beautiful! It is much softer than I had imagined. Then, before I left, a group of us went on a trail ride at one of the nearby ranches. The views were breathtaking!

Beside all the animal pictures, I took a lot of landscape pictures too – some with snow and some not. Yes it snowed while I was there! In June it snowed! Mind you I left behind 100 degree weather in Texas. In fact on the day it snowed really hard we went to the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center – nothing like taking pictures of grizzly bears and wolves in a blizzard! The roads were actually shut down in and out of W. Yellowstone that day because it was snowing so much. I got a few pictures of Old Faithful too on one trip to the park but the day was rather dreary at that point so the contrast wasn’t that great between the clouds and the steam of Old Faithful. Still it was a magnificent sight. Also I was able to get some beautiful pictures of the Lower Falls in Yellowstone. That is a lot of cold water going over the falls!

The workshops were full days and long nights. During the day, Mike Sibley gave his art workshops on different techniques he uses in drawing realistically. The Rich Adams gave presentations on taking pictures with digital cameras, workflow and printing; and Owen Garratt gave presentations on art marketing each evening. There was a lot of information thrown at us during a short period of time – hopefully some of it will stick!

The best thing about the entire trip was meeting my good artist friends from Art Papa in person that I’ve known for years on-line and then to make new friends too. Not to mention the beautiful location! At one point during my ride through Yellowstone I was actually brought to tears because of all of its beauty.

My flights back on the 15th were uneventful and I had no long layovers – my luggage even made it back with me! I’ve spent a couple of days visiting with my daughter and grandson before taking them to the train station yesterday. They came down from North Texas to take care of my animals and house sit while I was gone. Sassy and Samantha were very glad to have the company while I was gone. Billy Bob was just glad someone was there to feed him and let him out to the pasture.

Now to get back into the swing of things. . .

PS. I apologize for not posting any photos – I’m still sorting them out and trying to use what I learned in the workshop. I’m a slow learner - you may just have to wait for the drawing or painting the way I’m going.