Cold mornings in Jackson Hole, WY! We arrived late evening on the 8th after a long drive from Eagle, CO. The drive over the Rocky Mountains on N 131 was spectacular. Then back on the plateaus while on N 13 into Wyoming was not with out some interesting landforms. Next, i-80 W were MILES of nothing, massive head winds, a few wild horses, and natural gas dwellings speckled along the way. Later we saw coal mines, power plants, and interesting rock formations. The Western direction was about as entertaining as crossing Kansas. But all of the Northerly routes have been insanely awesome. Finally 191 took us through the Bridger-Teton National Forest. The mountains and landscape were truly breath taking. We saw eagles, one very large female moose, and our eyes peeled for the lone Grizzly! I’m sure we don’t look like FL tourist at all…. 😉

Our first morning camped along sided the Snake River we spent catching up on school. I can’t tell you the amount of discipline this takes. Savannah also had to take her first on line high school elective course, and finding Internet was a trick. We ended up borrowing the camp host’s pc, to get get logged on to her course with literally 1 minute to spare and only one bar of coverage! School took the better half of the day, so we decided to save Sup’ing river adventures and hiking for the next day. Instead we headed down to the banks of the Snake River to work on an art assignment “History of Art Architecture” where Savannah was to supplement her lesson by drawing a “Greek Temple”… instead, we built one with the rocks along the bank on a improvised peninsula. “Greece is nearly an island, but not quite since it is surrounded on only three-not four-sides by water.) Next door to Greece is another near-island or peninsula called Italy. The capital of Italy was (and still is) Rome, and after Greece had lost her power, Rome became the capital-that is, the head-of most of the Western world.” Hence building on a peninsula off the Snake River! My roll was the architect, and Savannah’s roll was the builder… “The Greeks were great architects, but the Romans were great builders.”   Savannah built Corinthian “rock” columns and a Pantheon style building. So there was both Greek and Roman traits to our structure, for learning purposes. The green leaf represented the Corinthian columns. The story behind the design of the Corinthian is as follows: “The Greeks started a new style of column called the Corinthian, but they didn’t like it very much themselves and hardly used it at all. The Roman architect Vitruvius, who told us the story of the Ionic column, tells us another to explain the Corinthian capital. Vitruvius said that a basket of toys with a tile covering the top was placed on the grave of a little girl in Corinth, as was the custom in those days. By chance, the basket had been placed directly over a thistle plant and the leaves of the thistle grew up around the basket. An architect, seeing this basket with the leaves curling round it, thought it would make a good design for a capital of a column, so he copied it in marble and put it on an Ionic column in place of the Ionic capital. In this way the Corinthian column was invented. So the Corinthian column is just an Ionic column with a different capital. The Greek thistle is called the acanthus, so the leaves that curl upward and outward on each side of the Corinthian capital are acanthus leaves. Just underneath the tile are four corner scrolls or curls. The Ionic curls face front and back, but the Corinthian, curls face cornerwise.

 That is your “History of Art Architecture” lesson for the day!

 Off to hit the Teton trails! The fall foliage is gorgeous!