landscape photography

Too beautiful to paint

~ MaryG ~ 6 Comments

I was lucky to visit the two most iconic US national parks over the last few years—Grand Canyon and Yellowstone.

I’m now realizing that trying to paint landscapes based on any of those photos is just going to be frustrating. Those views are just too beautiful to be rendered by an amateur painter. I should just be happy I got so many great photos with my cell phone. My pics take me back to the actual feeling of awe.

I want to try another landscape at some point, but need to try something more humble.

Really not happy with this. I’ll keep it out as a way of hopefully learning from it.
This area is called “Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone” in Yellowstone National Park.

Thankful Thursday

~ MaryG ~ 7 Comments

Brizzy Mays Books and Bruschetta is a blog I like. She likes to write about fun destinations in Australia and the unsung women of Australian history. She frequently references Aussie expressions and traditions that I’ve never heard of before—like Barbecue BOATS (do those sound fun, or what?)

Anyway, I thought of her when I visited the cabin of Maud Noble in Grand Tetons National Park in Wyoming. (We went there after Yellowstone National Park.)

Maud’s cabin in Grand Tetons National Park

Born in 1879 into a wealthy family from Philadelphia, Maud Noble moved to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, in 1915. Noble became a significant landowner and operated a homestead and dude ranch in the area. In 1923, she hosted a meeting at her cabin to discuss preserving the Grand Teton region. This meeting included notable conservationists and local ranchers and is credited with sparking the movement to create the national park.

And oh my…what an amazing national park it is.

Thank you Maud.

Lake Jenny in Grand Tetons National Park
Our first view of the Grand Tetons as we drove down from Yellowstone
The Grand Tetons jut up out of nowhere—there are no foothills—very dramatic!
A view of the shrinking glacial ice in the Tetons
Pristine, beautiful Jenny Lake in Grand Tetons National Park
Maud Noble reading in her Wyoming cabin (photo from National Park Service)