GETTING CLOSE TO THE PARK

Ponds Resort (about 40 miles from Yellowstone)

Sunday, August 1, 1926
Dear Girls:
We’re just about ready to leave for the park. It was surely cold last night. We’re getting up so much higher. We had a tube fixed for a tire in Idaho Falls yesterday morning and it was nearly 9:30 when we left. Then we didn’t drive as fast as we had been before and went to see the great Snake River Falls and took off about an hour. But it was well worth it. It was wonderful and picturesque. I’m surely missing you, Shirley Jean. I must stop for lack of room. Wish you were here, Love, Shirley

[The photo above I posted previously. Near the top right you can distinguish the family viewing the spectacular "Snake River Falls." Mike says he thinks they may be located near St. Anthony. He said he went there in the '60s and has a view very much like this one amongst his slides. (Slides -- an obsolete photo medium of questionable use even during the era. Mike's trays are well-organized and I still cringe at the thought of searching for a certain photo.)

And the photo to the right is of my aunt, Ethel Dobson Robinson, and her 6-week-old baby, Shirley Jean Robinson Johnson, lovingly nicknamed S.J. by the family. Aunt Ethel, Aunt Myrtle, and Shirley Jean stayed at the farm while other family took a road trip to Yellowstone. I discovered Shirley Jean was born in June 1925 so was actually a year old in 1926. Note the wonderful wicker rocker in the photo. Aunt Myrtle threw it on the burn pile in the '60s, along with some other wonderful things.]