Greetings from Kelly, Wyoming! The fall has definitely arrived: the quaking aspens have turned an impossible shade of golden yellow, snow has started to glaze the tops of the Tetons, and the bison are on the move. (Except, of course, when they're in the middle of the road at 6:30 in the morning and I'm late for work...)

If you're wondering where Kelly is in the world--you mean you don't know where Kelly, Wyoming is?! Shock!--you can click here and check it out. Besides our wonderful and unique yurt community, Kelly's only other claim to fame is that eighty years ago it was wiped off the map in a spectacular flood.



This is the view of the yurt park from the entrance to Kelly. While you can't see all of them, there are eleven yurts in total. There are only thirteen yurts allowed in Teton County... as far as I know the other two are artist studios in Wilson. We've been doing a bunch of research and as far as we can tell, we might be one of the few non-resort yurt communities anywhere.



Kelly boasts a general store AND a post-office. We're all living the high life now. While the post office is the size of a walk-in closet, there's a post-woman there everyday (except Sunday, of course) from 8 until 3. The general store, unfortunately, has been under construction since we moved out here. Not to inconvenience weary travelers, there is a cooler in the middle of the parking lot that says "Soda Pop $1.00" with a little honesty box full of loose change next to it.



The rusty triceratops sculpture sits just a bit down the road from the general store. I'm not sure what its story is, but it makes me smile every time I drive past.



The yurt park essentially resides in someone's backyard--one of the reasons the community was saved from Teton county's cull of "temporary housing structures" way back when. Apparently, tent cities full of hippie ski bums were popping up and making the town look bad. (Now we have tourist buses that make the town look bad...)



We're in the yurt park now looking at the Teton Range and Peter's (one of our neighbors) yurt.
You might notice that the Tetons look like their smoking... the peaks are so high (the Grand stands at 13,770 feet) that they generate their own weather systems. You can see it even better in the photo below.





Yurt Row: We're living in the yurt to the left in the photo. You can just see the mudroom and the deck.



There she is! Just to the left of the yurt you can see the giant wood pile I've been working on. We had three cords of wood delivered and I've spent a lot of my free time chopping and stacking.



From here you can see the the yurt is a good three feet off the ground. The couple that lived here before us actually had two yurts connected by the mudroom. They moved to another spot in the park leaving us with a great deck--a prime location for a hot tub, or a waterslide, or a chicken coop, or a secret laboratory... you know... something useful.



Our fence isn't in the best state at the moment. I think it's a project I might save for the spring, though. It's not be the best looking thing...but it'll keep the moose and the bison from munching on my baby aspen trees.



Looking down the path that leads from the front door of the yurt to the bath-house. (We're the closest yurt to the bath-house--which means I only might have to throw on my snowshoes for a late night jaunt to the commode.)



Sitting in the front yard looking at the yurt. We found a little push mower at a garage sale so I've been trying to tame the yard. If you look close you can see one of the park cats (Sophie) that have taken a distinct liking to me. (Her brother, Bob, keeps showing up with very large--and very dead--birds.)



Sophie trying to be the center of attention.



A look at the front yard from the door of the yurt. In the background you can see a stretch of Kelly houses...many of the families keep horses in their backyards.



Our little Hobbit door. According to the Mongolian tradition, the spirit of the yurt lives in the threshold of the door, so it's bad luck to step on it.



We're inside the yurt now! The walls are just about five feet high. You can see that behind the lattice and the roof beams we've insulated with several layers of blankets.



The stove and the "dining room."



Apparently, these Fishers are some of the best wood burning stoves around. (Judging by the fact that sometimes I make the yurt a little too warm at night, I'd have to agree.) I found that the name of our model is the "baby bear."



The yurt is twenty feet across, which gives us just about 314 square feet of space. As you can see, we've tried to think small with most of our furnishings.





I'm fairly proud of this little drainage system that I set up. The vanity was in pieces when I found it at the Habitat for Humanity store and put it together when I got home. (And no matter what I do to it, the door hangs all wonky. The thing's as sturdy as can be... it just looks a little... off.) Anyway, with a wee bit of drilling and a creative afternoon with some PVC pipe, we now have a little basin to drain pasta water, brush our teeth, dump out old coffee... the usual.



The kitchen. The stove runs off a propane tank that we keep outside (and works really well, at that!) If you look close you can see a big green water jug on the counter next to the refrigerator. Between that, the water cooler, and the jug over the sink we keep a fair bit of water on hand.



Through that little window is a great view of the Grand.



The bed definitely takes up the most space. It gives us nice amount of storage underneath, though. It's also so high off the ground that it keeps us away from the cool air that creeps in (no matter how many blankets I stuff in the walls).



The "reading nook." Just so everyone knows, that rather sizable boot collection is not mine.



At it's apex, the dome is twelve or thirteen feet of the ground. It lets in a ton of light and gives the yurt a very open an airy feel. At night, when all the lights are off, you can see the stars.



I just wanted to give a bit of a close up of how the yurt is held together. The lattice that makes up the walls are two big pieces. (If we ever took the yurt down they accordion up and roll into a hoops.) As you can see in the picture, when the lattice is set up, a long steel rope is placed in the crooks where the lattice boards come together. Then, the roof beams rest on top of the rope (just like notching an arrow on a bowstring). The roof beams all meet at big wooden wheel--you can see it in the picture below.



The wheel serves two important purposes: 1) It holds up the dome (which is made out of some plastic/glass like substance, I think). 2) The wheel is what gives the yurt it's strength. Its weight (combined with that of the dome) is directed down and out by the roof beams, keeping the walls up.



Just a quick shot of the mudroom--we're basically just using it for storage. When we moved in it wasn't much different than a garden shed. I did a bunch of insulation and carpeted the floor. It still doesn't stay very warm, but it keeps out all the drafts.



Night comes to the yurt park in Kelly. I miss everyone and hope you're all well.

Love,

David