Day 4: Moving on to Yellowstone

Day 4 was our last day checking out those magnificent Tetons as we moved on to Yellowstone National Park.After checking out of the hotel, we piled in the car and started driving towards Yellowstone through Grand Tetons National Park. Unfortunately, we didn't get very far before noticing a strange sound coming from the front tire wells of our rented Chevy Tahoe. It sounded like something scraping against the bottom of the car or pressing against the tires, so we decided it was better to be safe than sorry and we drove back to the airport to see about getting a new rental car. Hey, it may not perform well, but it sure does look good silhouetted against the mountain covered skyline.

The rental agency apologized and gave us the keys to another Chevy Tahoe (charcoal-colored this time). We drove out to the lot to pick it up and soon after repacking all of our luggage into the new car, we noticed that the A/C did not work. At all. So my dad ran back inside to see about getting a new car.

The new car they gave us was a Yukon...which didn't have a middle seat for Allison...so my dad went back in to get a fourth car. This one finally worked. It was a white Chevy Suburban...even bigger than the Tahoe. We didn't even have to put the backseat down to fit the luggage in the trunk!

Before we left for Yellowstone, we drove back to the Grand Tetons Visitor's Center to send a couple postcards. As we were leaving the Center, we saw a bunch of cars pulled off to the side of the road which, as you already know, means that there's been an animal sighting. My mom reached for her binoculars and looked through the trees to see...a moose! It was one of the few animals we hadn't seen yet (I have been waiting for years to see a big-horned sheep, which I still have yet to see..) so it was exciting to see it, especially when we were just about to leave the Grand Tetons. I also used this opportunity to take another shot of a Chevy against the skyline:After checking out the moose for a while and waiting to see if he was going to do anything cool, we decided to finally head out to Yellowstone, which is just north of Grand Tetons.

We entered at the southeast entrance and our first stop was at a place called Clark Lake (or maybe Clark Falls) where we took pictures of a waterfall and a small bridge. Next, we stopped at a cool sign marking the Continental Divide and the current elevation. I guess the road that we were on curved back and forth across the Continental Divide, because soon after we began seeing signs for it every mile or so.

From that point on, we basically made our way through the park bit by bit, stopping every time we saw an animal or scenic viewpoint. And let me tell you, in Yellowstone it is very, very hard to go more than a mile or so without seeing one of those two things. There were animals everywhere! Elk and bison definitely made up the greatest majority (they are more populous than squirrels and birds are on the east coast).

We eventually made it to the Visitor's Center, which had a cool exhibit on the famous wildfire of 1988, which affected 36% of the park and forced it to close down to visitors until it was eventually put out by snowfall in early September. We also went into the theater at the center to watch a film on the fires, which ended up being a half-hour long propaganda piece about how the National Park Service was right in their decision to let wildfires burn out naturally in the park instead of stepping in to prevent them (which they did end up doing) and that the fire was, in the end, a wonderful thing for the park. Apparently, the "self-proclaimed experts of wildfires" in the American media and public were completely wrong about viewing wildfires in a negative light. You'll notice some of the dead trees lying on the hill in the back...it's as if they are saying, "Thank you, fire."

We left the theater and decided to go to Old Faithful next to see the famous geyser erupt. On this day the geyser was going off at 90 minute intervals, so we had to wait about an hour once we reached the Old Faithful area. While we were waiting, we went into the small Old Faithful lodge and got a bite to eat and an Old Faithful Ale to drink.
By the time Old Faithful was planning to erupt, we were sitting outside on one of the hundreds of benches surrounding the geyser. It began giving off little bursts of steam, which got everyone extremely excited and caused Allison to use nearly all of the memory on her camera recording a video of what was happening. A chipmunk waiting for Old Faithful to go off.

Finally, the real thing happened and yes, it was very awesome. The thing blew up very very high and everyone clapped after it went off for a few minutes. After Old Faithful, we decided to walk along this wooden path that gives you a tour of some smaller geysers nearby. There were warning signs everywhere about stepping off the path into the "thermal area."Apparently, you are not supposed to jump up and down on the geysers.

Some of the geysers were really cool and were really blue or bubbled up with weird-looking mud. Some of the geysers gave off really funky smells.
When we finished the walk, we went over to the magnificent Old Faithful Inn, which is probably the most incredible hotel I've ever seen.
We spent some time in the gift shop inside the hotel and by the time we finished it was time for Old Faithful to go off again. We went outside to see it from a different angle and in a different light, which actually made it look even cooler than before.

When the geyser finished exploding, we went back to the car and made our way out of the park. On our way, we saw another group of bison with their children:

Day 3: Hiking Jenny Lake

We spent most of Day 3 hiking around Jenny Lake in Grand Tetons National Park. We started out from the Jenny Lake Visitor's Center where we suited up in all of our warm clothes and headed out. The lake was beautiful and the water was extremely blue and clear. We made our way around the lake, stopping every few minutes (or sometimes, seconds) to take tons of pictures. It was the kind of place where you could close your eyes and blindly take a picture and it would still come out looking like a postcard. Our first destination was Hidden Falls, a giant waterfall coming down the mountain. It took us almost two and a half hours to get there, but we made it. The view of the falls was great and the water was freezing (we didn't swim, we just stuck our hands in). Our next destination was Inspiration Point, 7,200 ft. above sea level. From Hidden Falls it took us around 45 minutes to make the steep climb to Inspiration Point, which was on top of a rocky ledge that oversaw Jenny Lake and much of the National Park. The view was absolutely worth the 4 mile hike.
Some guy being inspired.

From Inspiration Point we continued up the mountain a little further through what is known as Cascade Canyon. We had not seen much wildlife on the hike, but in Cascade Canyon we saw many, many marmots. Some were eating, others were just lying in the sun. We also saw our first piles of snow, which we were not used to in the middle of June. We each threw a few snowballs at each other and I built a little snowman:Shortly after, we decided to head back. We were all tired, hungry, and pretty sweaty. Luckily, the Park had boats going back and forth across the lake, so we only had to walk about a mile and a half to the boat dock. When we got there, a nice guy named Matt let us onto the boat. The ride across was much better than walking another two and a half miles and the view of the lake was great the entire way across.
When we reached the other side, we went straight back to the Visitor's Center for a much needed bathroom break. We also picked up a little snack in the store and went back to the car where we ate lunch from our cooler. After lunch, the girls walked around outside while my dad and I took a short nap in the car.

After our nap, we drove back to the Indian Arts Museum where we finished up the exhibit we had been looking at the day before. The museum was nice and had plenty of cool artifacts (notably, a tomahawk turned into a peace pipe).

We left the museum around 5:30 and headed towards the exit of the Park. On our way out, we decided to check on our baby birds, baby fox, and baby owl that we had seen the day before. As we drove towards Mormon Row, we saw a line of cars on the side of the road and looked around for an animal. Once again, it was a grizzly! It looked similar to the one we had seen on our second day and it was near the same place, but there was no way of knowing if it was the same bear.

As we traveled down a narrow dirt street near Mormon Row, another sighting made us stop. This time, a herd of bison were crossing the street right in front of our car. The video below shows them entering a farm, which is actually not where they are supposed to be. The gate just happened to be open and the bison simply decided to walk into this unfortunate farmer's yard.



When we finally reached Mormon Row, we saw that the baby birds were no longer there. We decided that they had either flown away or been eaten. We hoped it was the former.

Next, we went to see the owl, which was actually flying when we pulled up to the house. We all watched it fly (its wingspan was incredible) and land on a telephone tower. Since this owl looked bigger than the baby, we guessed that it was most likely its mother.

The fox was not in the same place as it was yesterday. It had actually moved to a place behind the shed of the house, where it was sitting with another fox that looked exactly like him (since we were pretty far from where the foxes were, there was some debate as to whether or not the two animals were foxes or coyotes. They looked similar to the one we saw yesterday, but from where we were we could not tell exactly what they were, only that they had pointy ears).

After checking on all of our animals, we finally headed back to the hotel for the night. As we drove back, we watched the sun set behind the mountains.

Day 2: So Much Wildlife

Day 2 began early. My Dad and I went for a run along the Elk Refuge where we came across an old historical home called The Miller House. It looked awesome so we decided to come back with the rest of the family at ten when it opened. 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 WildOn 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.

Day 1: Flying into Jackson, WY

Our trip began today, Saturday, June 12. We flew out of Reagan in D.C. to Denver where we caught a connecting flight up to Jackson, Wyoming, which is hands down one of the coolest places you can fly into. You see the Rockies as soon as the plane begins descending, then you notice the enormous expanse of open prairie with lone houses every few miles. These are the sorts of houses that instantly make you jealous of the people inhabiting them.
Pictured on the edge of the wing is Cloe, the deer fawn who accompanied us from Denver to Jackson. Frontier airlines has one of these animals featured on each of their flights.

The airport in Jackson is basically a huge cabin with security scanners, a baggage claim, and a lot of people with cowboy hats inside. It is exactly the kind of airport you would expect in Wyoming at the base of the Rocky Mountains. We rented a silver Chevy Tahoe (definitely the largest car we have ever been in) from the Hertz rental car agency and we left the airport. On our way out, we took a picture in front of this sign:and this one:

Before driving to our hotel, we stopped at a nearby arts museum with cool architecture and sculpture out front. We didn't go inside the museum but we did stop to take pictures of a bunch of marmots we saw. They are basically fat squirrels.
We also stopped at the Visitor's Center for Jackson to find out about all the awesome things that you can do here (ex. white water rafting, horseback riding, etc.) and to check out some souvenirs. My mom took the opportunity to check out some birds she had never seen before flying around the elk reservation outside of the center and Allison took the chance to read the book, "There's a Hair in My Dirt! A Worm's Story". I walked upstairs past a wildlife exhibit to find an old historian reciting the story of Lewis and Clark and Sacajawea to a group of about two dozen elderly adventurers. I found out that the guy telling the story was actually a writer/historian and long-time activist for the Sacajawea dollar (side note: he is currently lobbying the U.S. government to abolish the $1 bill and replace it with the coin in order to save taxpayers money spent each year on destroying $1 bills). Anyway, the guy was so entertaining that I stayed up there to listen to him finish his entire story.

We left the Center a little while later and reached our hotel around 5. We are staying at The Lexington, a beautiful little hotel in the middle of town.

From the hotel we went to Billy's, a burger joint recommended to us by the hotel concierge. If you ever come to Jackson, we all recommend that you stop at Billy's and get a burger. They were delish.

We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening walking around Jackson, stopping in shops to look at more souvenirs and t-shirts. We also did a little bird watching and reading with the locals.




We finished the day by walking to the Dairy Queen at the edge of town where Julio made us a few of the finest Blizzards and sundaes. The walk back was freezing but the trip to DQ was definitely worth it.
Of course, the day would not have been complete without a family picture under an antler arch:
Tomorrow, Grand Tetons!

Another Summer, Another Trip

The trip is a little shorter than last summer (and by that I mean a lot shorter) but it will cover some pretty gorgeous territory and national parks. Wyoming and South Dakota are beautiful places to drive through.

This summer (2010), my family and I will be spending two weeks in the mid-northwestern part of the United States. We are flying into Jackson Hole, Wyoming where we will see the Grand Tetons National Park. After a few days in Jackson we will be driving out to Yellowstone National Park. Finally, we will be going to South Dakota to see Badlands National Park (my favorite National Park), Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse Memorial, Deadwood, Wounded Knee, and of course, Wall Drug. We will also be stopping at the Pine Ridge Reservation. After that, I am not sure what we are doing, but we will probably head back towards Jackson, WY, since we are flying out of there. Anyways, it should be a great trip. The weather will be much cooler than the trip last year which will definitely make for a different experience.

It feels great to be traveling again! I highly recommend coming out west to see the national parks if you have not seen them yet. As Ken Burns says in his latest documentary, the national parks were America's "greatest idea." I could not agree more.