A year ago at this time, Anne and I were in Wyoming. We visited Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. It was the first time for both of us that we visited these two great parks. Later in the trip, Jay, Carl and Ashlan joined us there and infused new energy into our vacation. It was a great vacation. The pictures in the gallery above and the movie below, of the Lower Yellowstone Falls are from last year. The movie was shot pre-oil spill, so the water is clean.

I’m looking backwards, partly because it is the anniversary of this trip, partly because I am home alone, but mainly because it is too darn hot out. I know, I’m sounding like a broken record about the weather these days and for those in Saint Louis, this is certainly not news. It is just that the weather and work dominates my day. I can’t talk about work, but I can talk about the weather.

I get up at 4:30 and to beat the heat I am on the bike by five. I’ve ridden 15 miles both Monday and Tuesday. Even at five in the morning, the temperature is in the eighties and the humidity is even higher. At work, I’m in air conditioning all day. The complex that I work in and the multi-faceted nature of my job, leads me to walk a fair about at work, sometimes as much as four miles. Speaking of work, I am successfully wrapping up a project this week that I have been laboring at all year-long. Woo Hoo! After work, I am forced to break the air-conditioned air lock and venture out into the heat of the day. The heat hits you like a slap across the face. You breathe it in and it warms you from the inside out. As I scurry across the parking lot, I am reminded of a 1950s science fiction movie that I once watched, many years ago. In this movie, astronauts creep from shadow to shadow on the surface of the moon. One unfortunate member of the party slips and falls into the sunlight. He instantly bursts into flame and is soon reduced to a smoldering pile of bare bones, which pretty much describes me about the time I reach my car. I then dive into the blast furnace that is my car. I turn on the A/C; I mean the car and toddle on home. Unfortunately, the long-range forecast indicates that this pattern will continue, at least for the foreseeable future.