Tetons and Taggert Lake
We hiked to specific locations to try to find a moose, and ended up seeing one with a couple of hundred other people just a few hundred yards from the visitor center right at the bridge over the Snake River. Go figure.
 Our rental house in Driggs, Idaho Driggs is on the west side of the Tetons. The peaks are visible but don’t dominate the skyline like they do when viewed from the east side. While there are trailheads leading into the backcountry (like up Teton Canyon), we kept our hiking simple with a short hike in what is apparently the cross-country ski area of Grand Targhee Resort. We were surprised that for such a small community there is a nice paved bike path running between Driggs and Victor. We did a pleasant 20 mile ride on this trail. For the second time this year, we were without an internet connection even though the owner touts it in the property description. In this case the connection was provided by a wide-area wireless that just didn’t work. Luckily, we had a good cell phone connection, so I could still do email and twitter. We liked the peacefulness of the place and would go back, except it is a long drive to get there. Links Bannack, Montana was a gold mining town founded when gold was discovered in 1862. The mining was primarily placer mining, including dredges. Like many frontier towns, Bannack had its share of characters. One of the most notorious was Henry Plummer, the sheriff. He was accused of being the ringleader of a band of outlaws (whose password was “I am innocent”) and hung on the town gallows by a group of vigilantes. Many of the buildings are open to explore. When we were in the saloon we were regaled by an (amateur?) historian recounting a gunfight over cheating in a card game. The story goes that one night a miner accused a professional gambler of cheating. Both jumped up, and dodging around emptied their Navy revolvers at each other. Neither were struck but a bystander was mortally wounded. Two other men, sleeping in bunks attached to the back wall of the saloon, woke up to find their friend wounded and seeing the two original assailants beating a hasty retreat, opened fire. The professional gambler was hit, staggered outside, and disappeared in the darkness. In the morning he was discovered dead on the side of the saloon.  Old wagon in Bannack, MT |
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