The place was pretty cool. We met a volunteer named Jim who was in charge of the place and told us all about the Miller family. Jim used to come up from Texas every year and park his motor home in the park for $85 until he found out that you can stay in the park for free if you volunteer with the National Park Service. Jim told us all about how the Miller house was very extravagant for its time and that most of the other homes of the time would have been much smaller. He showed us their barn, which was pretty creepy, and the pond outside their house where we found an elk skull!
After the Miller House, we decided to continue driving through the Elk Refuge to get a better view of the mountains across the plain. We slowly made our way up to an amazing scenic viewpoint. 
My mom found a carcass of what must have been an elk at some point. We took turns picking it up and speculating on where the rest of it was.
On our way out, we saw a (possibly) abandoned bus in the woods that looked strikingly similar to the one in Into the Wild
On our way to the actual National Park (so far we had been traveling outside of the park boundaries), we saw something that we had to stop for. Literally. 
A herd of bison was crossing the road in front of us. This was the first wildlife sighting we had seen on the trip so far, so of course we were elated. We each took way too many pictures on our cameras, which looked especially cool with the mountains in the background. 
After the bison finished crossing, we headed for the Visitor's Center. The Center was showing a film about the Park that lasted about a half hour. In it, they explained how the mountains formed, when certain wildlife are in the area, and what you should and should not do in the park. Apparently, you are not supposed to touch any animals or animal carcasses, as the animal that killed it may still be in the area. Whoops. After the film, we went back outside to check a nearby homesteader house (similar to the Miller house), general store, and church. 
From the Visitor's Center we drove to Mormon Row, a street with a few historical farms that some Mormon families lived on some time ago. One of the barnhouses is in nearly every postcard picture of the Grand Tetons. My dad took one in black and white:
We walked along the road to see the other houses, some of which had been abandoned for a long time. 
As we approached one of the houses, my mom and sisters noticed three little birds lying on the ground attempting to fly. One of them was really having a hard time rolling over, so my mom gave him a little nudge to get him on his way. There were also dozens of little chipmunks crawling around the house.
The next house we stopped at had even sweeter animals. On our way to the house, some guy told us that there was a baby owl in the tree next to the house. When we finally got there, the first animal we saw was not a baby owl but a baby fox, camped out next to the porch. He must have been living inside the abandoned house because he kept crawling back inside a hole in the wall. The chubby little guy was my favorite animal of the trip so far.
The baby owl, on the other hand, was not quite as cute as the fox. In fact, it was downright spooky. Whenever we looked through the binoculars at him, his head would slowly rotate around and he would stare at us. Then he would blink a few times very, very slowly. 
From Mormon Row we headed further into the Park. We stopped at the overlook for Snake River, where Ansel Adams took his famous photograph. We tried many times to replicate the photo but didn't get it exactly right. Near the overlook were some trees with these weird pinecone formations that looked oddly similar to a starfish. 
Our next stop was at a small house/cabin where a shootout took place a century and a half ago. Apparently, two horse thieves were living out the winter in the house when they were surrounded by a group of vigilantes. In the ensuing gunfight, both thieves were killed and frontier justice was served. However, it is now believed that the men may not have been horse thieves at all. So much for frontier justice. 
When we left the house and started heading towards the Indian Art Museum in the northern part of the park, we saw a long line of cars parked along the side of the road which can only mean one thing in a national park: someone saw an animal. By this point in the day, we had seen quite a few animals: bison, antelope, deer, elk, beavers, horses, and chipmunks. This would have to be either a really cool animal or an animal doing something really cool for it to be worth us getting out of the car. As we walked up the hill, we overheard the park ranger, "Yeah I had to come up here about three hours ago when he started crossing the street. Now we just have to keep an eye on him even though he's way out there." As soon as she finished saying those words, we saw it: GRIZZLY!!!
Grizzlies are apparently really rare to see in the park even though there are quite a few of them. it was a long way off, but man, it looked awesome. We even drove further down a side road to see it closer up. 
We watched it for a while until it went back in the woods, then we headed to the Indian Art Museum. Unfortunately, the museum closed at seven and by the time we got there, it was already 6:40 (all of the animal sightings had majorly slowed us down). The museum looked good, so we planned to come back the next day and see the rest of it. By this time, we were all pretty tired and ready to head back to the hotel, so we drove out of the park. On the way out, it began raining and getting really foggy, which hid all the mountains from view. We saw more animals on the way out of the park, so of course we stopped and took more pictures. It is impossible to say how many animals we saw on our second day of the trip, but I think it is safe to say that it was more than we had ever seen in a single day, except for days when we went to the zoo.
Grand Teton looks like one of the coolest national parks! I love little fox.
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