Vacation 2016 - Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Parks

 

 Well.....this is a long one.  I just couldn't stop taking photos.   These are just a fraction of what I took and I have not even gone into Elise's collection!

We left in the wee hours of Tuesday morning to get Beckie to the airport by 4:30 and then make our way up to Grand Teton National Park.  I did manage to snap out of my half-asleep stupor as we traveled and take a couple of pictures along the way.

 
 Northern Utah sunrise


 rest stop along the Snake River in Idaho


Downtown park in Jackson, Wyoming.  Almost there.....

And......


Ta Da!  What a majestic sight!  These peaks dominate every view in the Tetons.  Incredible.

Campsites in the Tetons cannot be reserved and I was afraid we would not get up there in time to snag a spot so I reserved a campsite outside the park about five miles from the east entrance at the Fireside "Resort".  Resort can hardly describe the average, run-of-the-mill RV park we found with postage-stamp sized tent sites.   And the fetid, mosquito-ridden "pond" not more than 10 feet away from us.  The wind was blowing so hard when we arrived we dared not set up the tents and leave them.  But, when we returned for the evening, we wished for the wind because it kept the mosquitoes at bay.  Here is what the site looked like:


Ours are the two tents closest to Steve.  You can see how close our neighbors were on either side!
And you can see the water behind Steve in the picture below. 

 

After dropping off our tent and other camp equipment, we drove into Tetons. This would have been around 2:00 in the afternoon.  We were completely exhausted so our first stop was to park next to String Lake, roll down the windows and take a nap.  Then, we explored.....

 

 

 
This is String Lake.  People were actually swimming in what looked to be frigid water.  Outside temperatures were cool so it could not have been a refreshing dip.


We took a small hike....


Keeping our eyes peeled for bears (we DID have our bear spray)

 But found pretty evergreens, instead.






We visited nearby Jenny Lake...





On our way back to our campsite, we saw our only bear of the whole trip.  He was across the Snake River at the Oxbow Bend area.  You can bet he drew quite a crowd!



By nightfall, the mosquitoes AND the wind had died down and we retired early and got a decent night's sleep (thankfully, our neighbors were quiet).  But, we awoke to a light drizzle. 


 The Tetons that morning....

No way were we going to try to fix a hot breakfast in those conditions.  We knew were were going to be setting up our tents again that night (Yellowstone DOES allow reservations and we had one for the Madison Campground) so we just hurriedly packed up everything and said farewell to the "Fireside Resort".  We drove up to Coulter Bay on Jackson Lake and had breakfast at a nice restaurant in that area.

You can see that the sun had come out by then....

After eating, we continued driving north and bid our goodbyes to beautiful Grand Teton National Park....    (this is the north end of Jackson Lake)


And hello to Yellowstone National Park....



We spent all of our day on Wednesday visiting various thermal aspects of the park

First to Yellowstone Lake that has an area of hot springs...






and even one out in the lake itself!


 And then on to the Old Faithful area.....



  In addition to Old Faithful, we also got to see the Beehive Geyser erupt which only erupts twice a day.

 And we walked around geyser row viewing MANY geysers and hot springs of all types and sizes.

 

 









 

 and, right next to these barren, hot spots are beautiful forests and streams!



 We had a much better campsite Wednesday night.  (although, for some crazy reason, they had run out of firewood to buy! We were actually allowed to scavenge for wood and we even found a huge buffalo chip to burn).  We found enough to cook both dinner and breakfast, thankfully.

 
  It got down to 34 degrees that night!

 Thursday, we drove up to Mammoth Hot Springs
 
 


and saw our only elk.  I think they were actually domesticated ones raised to sit in this median for all the tourists....



The rest of our day on Thursday was spent looking at amazing waterfalls.....


Yikes, Elise.  That is a bit too close to the edge!


This is Tower Falls...

And this is Lower Falls in the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone



Between Tower and Canyon, we had to drive up over a mountain (big surprise) where we had to share the road with people on bicycles.  CRAZY!  First of all, to ride a bike straight uphill. Second, to ride on a road with no shoulder nor bike lane.  Third, to require cars to veer into the oncoming lane to pass.  I am surprised there aren't more accidents from bicyclists. 

As we prepared to leave the park, we made one more stop to see the Dragon's Lair Geyser...



 And, we saw a bison.  We saw one earlier near Canyon.  And we saw a herd off in the distance just before Tower.
'
We were rewarded with one last bison as we drove out of the park.  He was just cruising down the road!



Even after we left Yellowstone, the views on our way to Cody, Wyoming were just stunning (and the road continued to be windy and scary)



We ate dinner in Cody and then drove on about another hour and a half to our motel in Greybull.