Hi Grandpa,

How are you doing?
Far too long since we have spoken.
I just got your new email address by Nina forwarding a message with some nice old pictures you had taken.

I am still over here in Beijing, China. I have lived here almost 3 years, once fall arrives.

Just yesterday, I had a very funny experience. I went to a fake “Jackson Hole” north of Beijing, past the Great Wall. Supposedly, the developers copied the master plans directly from the Wyoming town, and just plotted the whole thing down onto some hilly countryside on the border of Hebei Province (the province surrounding Beijing). As a development including more than 1000 new homes, it’s not finished yet but there are already a few weekend “cowboys” living there.

We were there because of some interest the developers had shown in supporting our organic farmer’s market—but I found it incredibly difficult to get past the innocent and yet eerie surroundings (innocent, because what do they know about Jackson Hole? and so an innocent delight in surfaces; eerie because of such enthusiasm for surfaces—but I suppose the same could be said about the “real” Jackson Hole!).
Most of the wood was just imitation, made of plastic; although our guides claimed the rocks were real, and kept asking me as we toured a house “Is this how you live in America?

After the tour they gave me a cheaply-made bolo necktie with “Jackson Hole” on it.

They couldn’t tell me which house was a copy of Dick Cheney’s.

I thought you would like to see some of these images.
I hope all is well!

Love Michael

Hi Michael

So good to hear from you. I talked to your father yesterday and he told me who or where you were in that group picture that Nina sent to me. I would never have known you with all those whiskers.  Is that Emi beside you?

I am sending you some pictures of Lupine in the Big Horn Mtns taken on July 9, 2011. We had lots of snow in the Mtns this past year so the wild flowers are flourishing. We also made a trip to Jackson so will have to send you a few of those pictures. The pictures you sent about building a replica of Jackson Hole are interesting. Cheney, I believe, is still in the east. Think he has to be pretty close to medical assistance and he isn’t that popular.

I thought that was fun looking back at pictures when you and Nina were little. I thought she may have been interested.

Arleen and I are doing quite well. We take trips into the mountains quite a lot. She is legally blind with macular degeneration but she does very well. She has had quite as few sick days since you and Emi were here.

Lets keep in touch Michael, it’s so good to hear from you.

Love, Grandpa Eddy

(Note: Grandpa Robert Eddy lives in a town called Cody, Wyoming, named for the 19th century showman “Buffalo” Bill Cody, and situated at the eastern gate of Yellowstone National Park. Last time we visited Grandpa Eddy, he took us south to the Grand Teton mountain range and into a valley called Jackson Hole, where the small elite ski town of Jackson was home to ex-US Vice President Dick Cheney and John Walton (son and heir of Wal-Mart founder), and where “nobody looks twice when Sting, Sandra Bullock, or Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston whiz down Dick’s Ditch on snowboards.”)