Those who know me well know I love to wear hats.  Ball caps, that is.  I have an old photograph of me in a cowboy hat when I was about 3 years old.  But aside from then, I can’t ever remember liking them or wanting to wear one.

“When in Rome,” as they say.  Brent, Carl, and I were checking out a western store that sold not only clothing, but bridles, saddles, and all kinds of cool stuff.  The real deals.  So we more or less dared each other to all get a cowboy hat.  A dare or challenge is all 3 guys need, as we all know too well!

The hidden story for me is that this took me back to my childhood.  Not so much the aforementioned kid in a hat, but back to my dad.  “Daddy Gene” loved horses all his life.  I cannot remember a day during my lifetime that he did not have at least 1-2 horses on hand.  His small shed out back behind our rural TN home smelled of leather from the saddle hanging on the wall.  There were a couple of bridles beside it, as well as a set of spurs.  I didn’t care much about the horses then.  I took them for granted because they were always there.  What I loved was not the horses themselves, but the Thursday afternoons I spent with dad after school.  Thursdays were his day off.  He would pick me up at 3 o’clock, and inevitably, we would “piddle” with the horses which meant caring for them, mending a fence, riding them, or plowing the garden with one.  There were plenty of tractors and automation around for working in the garden, but he adored the manual labor of walking behind an old plow or riding an old sled.

So the western store brought back lots of memories with its horse tack.  It seemed fitting to wear a cowboy hat for a day while in WY.  It was also a means of reminiscing my dad’s love for horses.  By the way, I don’t think I ever saw my dad wear a cowboy hat, but the store didn’t have any horses for sale. 

Brent (aka "Hoss"), Carl (aka "Festus"), and Mark (aka "John Wayne!")

Hidden Falls lies at the end of a 3-4 mile Cascade Canyon trail in Grand Teton National Park.  It’s very difficult to capture an image here that shows the true scale of the 200ft. cascade since the area is fenced off for safety.  I’ll let the audio file help tell the story.

We could hardly hear each other speak, even though we were at least 100 yards from the foot of the cascade.  Also, our lens continued to fog over every 30 seconds from the cool air and heavy mist coming off the falls.  As a matter of fact, Brent’s camera was out of commission for about 18 hours afterward due to absorbing moisture during our 15-20 minute visit.

It’s worth noting that Carl and I hiked another 500ft. (elevation) to Inspiration Point, at which time our altitude challenged lungs were met with thunder and lightning!  We started high-tailing it back down, only to be caught in a hail storm.  Ouch.  Hail, lightning, mountain peaks, and middle-aged guys – the perfect storm (NOT!).

Hidden Falls at Cascade Canyon

Audio:

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L to R: Mark, Brent, and Carl (gotta love the Marty Feldman hat!)