We had a fun episode on our approach to the house. We had been taking the "scenic route" there: a longer and more roundabout route through stands of woods with views of the Tetons, instead of the more direct route I'd taken there when I'd visited before, during Christmas holidays. But as we turned off the road and headed up the drive to the house, on the steep and winding slope that climbed up the last few hundred yards, we suddenly found a pair of bison resting along the side of the lane. Kevin came to a stop.
Ten minutes earlier, we had run into a herd of bison crossing the road to Kelly and had just managed to get across before the leading edge of the herd crossed the road.
Kevin was worried that if he honked the horn, they'd charge the Jeep, which was known to happen. In this case, though, their behavior was more that of very large, startled woodchucks than anything else. I couldn't help but be amused (and relieved) at the sheer panic I seemed to induce in them....
Once that was settled, we got ourselves settled for a few minutes in the house, just looking at the great view from the place. I had never actually seen the view, before, since I'd visited before on snowy nights and the like, around the New Year.
Regrouped, we shortly headed off, walking around the area, heading down the lane and back toward the road we had followed to the house. We had the dogs with us, the more rambunctious Guinness was on a leash, and Drew, who had the advantages and disadvantages of increasing age, we trusted to stay with us.
When we got further down to the Hole, in the neighbourhood I think Fran simply called "Golf and Tennis," for its facilities, we joined their friends Nick and Christie, who have children of around the same ages, and spent a funny and pleasant remainder of the afternoon playing a game called Cranium, which was a good mix of trivia, art (in a Pictionary sense) and performance, rather than just being one of those game approaches. It was especially fun to see how wildly enthusiastic and competitive Frannie got: her high-spiritedness, which she shared with Christie, made playing the game all that much more fun, and made for a comfortably casual way to meet and enjoy new people. We grabbed a dinner in town afterwards, passing on the more sit-down Gun Barrel Steak and Game House (here noted for future reference!) just collapsing into a locals' sports bar called the Sidewinder's Tavern where we could order classically American grub like my chicken-fried steak and where the now-exhausted parents could skip cooking and cleaning for the evening. We could keep an enthusiastic eye on this final and critical Red Sox/Indians game to decide the American League Pennant and let Paul and Sophie play in the game room a bit. The night ended casually at home, other than a bit of disbelief in my end of the conversation (or maybe this was the night before?) when in also talking about films, Frannie and Kev confessed their inability to get into or even to finished either of my strongly-recommended Before Sunrise or Before Sunset (although I was baffled as to why they attempted the sequel if they'd not completed the earlier film). Apparently, for two people who themselves thrive on conversation, they found watching a drama composed almost entirely of conversation to be more aggravating than anything else. That these were for me the two most compelling films of my last year, and worth repeated viewing, filled them with disbelief, if not horror. I let them know that they were Philistines, just in case they didn't know.
Kev had to work a few hours later that night, preparing for tomorrow's work, and Fran was off to the new bank construction site in the morning, so we ended the evening early, by our "regular" standards.