Dangers

Ava loved this sign - and we had all these animals -plus mule deer - walk right out in front of our truck in one park or another.

Near the end of our Tetons trip we had two "western" experiences we hadn't expected: an earthquake and a forest fire. Hard to picture the quake but we were laying in bed, just awake, and the whole trailer shimmied. No wind, no vehicle passing by and I first said "wind" to Ava's query but then I thought "maybe quake" - which the newspaper confirmed two days later. Common, they said.

Common, also, some years but thankfully not this one, was forest fire. We did stop just two miles from our camp on the main road to watch them fight this small one started by lightning. When the ground cover fire reached one of the several dead pines they went up like a torch. We caught the helicopter bringing in, and dropping, water from the lake to help contain this fire - which they did with the help of several rains.