A Hike around Jenny Lake

Today we had a beautiful hike (4 miles) around Jenny Lake.  Jenny was a Shoshone, and her husband Richard Leigh was a trapper.  Two lakes are named for them at Grand Tetons NP.  We started at the Visitors Center by the lake and walked around it.  The trail was mostly in the woods and level, which was great.  We did sing and talk loudly and carry bear spray.  But several times we met other hikers, so we felt pretty safe in there.  Here are several photos from the hike.


This is the drive south from Colter Bay to Jenny Lake.


What about that view?  Grand Teton seems to be visible everywhere.



The path in the woods.


We are not speedy hikers.  We take breaks, drink water, and eat trail mix (bear food).


Grand Teton and me!


In a burned area, we saw an osprey nest with two fledglings in it.
They were noisy, waiting for a parent to feed them.


We took a boat ride across the lake to avoid a couple more miles of walking and returned to our
cabin at Colter Bay Village.  John Colter was the first European to look upon Grand Teton.  He was
a Mountain Man and well known in this area.

We were tired and filthy!  The ground is soft, grey dirt.  It was all over us.  We showered and ate a late lunch (2:00 pm) and napped.  Then we went to the Guest Lounge to plan our trip to Idaho, which starts tomorrow.

I have had trouble finding interesting spots to stay.  However, now that it is upon us, I found two airbnb places and two hotels.  So we are set for two nights in Idaho and then almost a week in Washington.  We are running into Labor Day weekend, so I had trouble finding a place for Saturday night.  We'll have to push on to Spokane, a bigger city, to have a room.

So glad we were able to visit Grand Tetons National Park.

A Long Trip to Grand Tetons National Park

This morning Yellowstone's south gate opened for the first time in a week.  We were free to travel directly to Grand Tetons NP.  We left around 10:00 am.  I did not pay close attention since we were just driving south, and we were on roads we'd traveled several times.  I directed George to Fishing Bridge instead of Lake Village.  Oh, no! We went the wrong direction.  We went to the east gate and not the south. We had gone 25 miles out of the way. We were fussy.  We backtracked to Fishing Bridge and turned left, heading finally south.

As we left Yellowstone, we saw fire crews parked on the sides of the road.  Smoke was in the air.
After arriving in Grand Tetons, we passed burned forests.  I have never seen blackened ground like that.


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They were able to keep a strip of unburned ground beside the highway.


We drove to Colter Bay on Jackson Lake.  We were happy to arrive and get out of the car.
I have never witnessed a huge fire like this.  It was burning on the other side of Jackson Lake.
The National Parks folks want to let fires burn out on their own, if possible.

 We picnicked beside the lake. The Tetons towered across from us.  The fire was mostly on the
right end and across.



We set out our chairs under aspens, read, and watched other folks.  Then we ventured into the lake.  The beach was all rock.  They were round specimens of white, grey, and rust.  I would love to take a bucket load home for the garden.  I skipped a few, but mostly they were too round, and I am out of practice.

Later we checked in to our cabin at Colter Bay Village.  There are 166 log cabins set up as if it's a neighborhood.  They have tin roofs, but we will not get any rain.  George napped, and I walked around the area.  There is a guest lounge one street over with ice machines and internet.  Woohoo!
That's where we are now.


This cabin is like ours, but ours doesn't have the golden shrubs in front.

Tomorrow we will explore more of Grand Tetons.  We will just see a smattering, but even going to dinner tonight, giant mountains were at the end of the street.  Beauty surrounds us.

We took a 4 mile hike.

This morning we took a loop hike from Uncle Tom's Point on the north rim of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. We started across a meadow, following some European tourists.  Oh, to be young and tall and loud.  I happily trailed their group of four.  For once, we were not alone.  We had packed water, snacks, and bear spray.  The only issue was George's footwear.  I bet he was the only guy out there wearing boat shoes and no socks.  Most people look like they robbed the REI.


A well worn trail in the meadow.

Then we hiked through the woods and past two lakes, Clear Lake and Lily Pad Lake.  At Lily Pad our
friends turned to the right.  We had to go left toward Artist Point.  Now we were on our own.  So I sang and wished for my Atlanta friends, especially Nancy Zarovsky, who has a lovely voice and enjoys singing camp songs.


in the woods

Having a cell phone that charts the miles helps with anxiety in the woods since that way I know how far we have walked.  We continued to Artist Point and started running into lots of people.  From Artist Point we just walked along the south rim of the canyon.  It was beautiful, full
of orange, yellow, white, and grey rocks.  At the bottom was the river.  The path was quite close to the edge, and we felt nervous when we saw kids walking ahead of their parents on the path.



See the river at the bottom?


This spot is an example of how easy it would be 
to step off into air.  Just one step too far...


We took a selfie, seated on a log that couldn't roll. We did see
two young women and a solitary guy step off the path and into
the canyon in order to take photos.  We moved on, not wanting
to hear their screams. As far as we know, all survived.  But the 
behavior of some tourists here is scary.

I finished my last paperback from Atlanta, The Mermaid's Chair, and bought Death in Yellowstone  today. There have not been that many deaths, about 300 recounted in this book, considering that there are 4 million visitors a year to Yellowstone.  We have had a great time here.  Tomorrow we are going to Grand Tetons National Park.  There are fires near two of the exit roads, so we'll have to wait to see how to travel in the morning.


This afternoon we went to the grill for ice cream cones (salted caramel for me) and smelled smoke.
The air carried light ashes.  Here is the view.  I asked at the registration desk about this fire and was told it is a new one, but it's small, just 100 acres.  This is a different world.

We took a 70 mile tour.

Today we drove north to Canyon Lodge.  We went past Fishing Bridge and the marina there, where we had our first lunch.  Remember how there were two bison that day?  Well, today there was a crowd.




Then we went to Hayden Plateau and stopped along with lots of other folks to watch the bison herds on both sides of the road. There are lots of babies in the herd. Bison, wolves, and grizzly bears were all at one time endangered and are all recovered now in Yellowstone.



We checked into our room at Canyon Lodge and toured around the settlement. We looked at the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone from the North Rim, seeing both the Upper and Lower Falls.  It is gorgeous.  Younger and thinner than the Grand Canyon in Arizona but still impressive.



Lower Falls of Grand Canyon

After lunch and nap we went for a long drive.  We drove 70 miles around the rest of the interior.  We went from the Grand Canyon to Tower/Roosevelt.  The road was narrow and curvy and high.  It curved up and down mountains.  We were stuck behind a slow driver, and a driver behind us was impatient.  So he passed a bunch of cars to get away from the slowpoke.  I felt sympathy for the slower person, but it was nerve wracking to follow him. Usually slower drivers pull over and let other cars pass, but he did not.

From Tower/Roosevelt we drove to Mammoth, where there is a huge (mammoth) hot springs area
and the Park Service Administration offices.  The air was hazy, and we smelled smoke the whole way.


Here is the main street of Mammoth, where the officers' housing was.

This was a military base when the cavalry was called in to keep order and remove poachers from 1886 - 1918, before there was a park service.  Now I think park service people have these houses.  The population of the town was 263 in 2016. It is an appealing town, similar to Annapolis though much smaller. The houses were designed by Robert Reimer, who designed the Old Faithful Inn.

After Mammoth we turned south to Norris and then east back to Canyon.  We completed a counter clockwise circle, seeing all the conifers - spruce, lodge pole pine, and Douglas fir - many bison, Canada geese, some deer, and hawks.

We were glad to be back home.  Tomorrow we have more time to explore the canyon and hike.


Another view of the Grand Canyon

Wildlife in our Room

(For some reason I cannot insert photos today.  I will try to put them in tomorrow.  I have some great ones. Imagine a colorful picture at every paragraph break. The internet is SLOW.  George says we're roughing it.)

Last night I heard an animal in our room.  It woke me up at 2:39.  There was this loud noise of something eating and scratching. I wish I had woken George before I turned on the light.  But I didn't.  So I turned on the light, and a sheepish tiny mouse crawled out of our trashcan and whisked away.  He and I met eyes.  What was he eating in there?  I stayed awake for quite a while, wondering if he would return, wondering whether we would go to Grand Tetons or be turned away by fires, wishing I were a better hiker.  Finally, I fell asleep until morning.


Breakfast and the AJC

Today was great.  We drove from Old Faithful to Madison, stopping to see geysers and springs and to hike.  Since it's Saturday, the park filled up around 11:00. Parking got more difficult. So glad I'm not a bus driver here. We walked around lovely blue springs and saw more geysers.  We visited the Grand Prismatic Spring, which has orange, yellow, green, and blue waters.


Sapphire Pool at Biscuit Basin



The Grand Prismatic Spring has orange, yellow, green, and blue waters. 
Even the mist shows a rainbow.

We walked on the Sentinel Meadows Hike along the Nez Perce Creek, which was lovely.


Sentinel Meadows

We ate lunch at Fire Hole River.  Perfect.  Beautiful spot + a few other folks at the picnic tables and no smells or signs of bears.


Our view at lunch.

We came back to the inn and napped.  Then we took a hike up to Observation Point to see Old Faithful from the other side and on the mountain.  It was just a mile hike, but we are bad hikers.  One year ago we hiked up to Lake Topaz in Canada, and George got a bad sprain and was on crutches for two weeks.  So we start up this easy hike, and I feel deja vu all over again.  Last year he didn't have any dramatic injury or any pain until many hours past the hike.  So I will not be totally relaxed until 10:00 pm.

Anyway we start out, I fret, and I ask about the bear spray.  Oh, it's back in the car.  Why did we buy that stuff?  There seem to be no other hikers, and it looks like the perfect spot for a relaxed bear to watch Old Faithful.  So I sing, "Row, Row, Row, your boat..."  We trudge along.  Finally, we reach the top, and there are nine other hikers up there.  Woohoo!  We sit and breathe.  Old Faithful erupts.  It is magnificent.  More photos.  Here comes a young couple.  Oops.  They missed it.  We all walk down.


Old Faithful


George and I retrieve some better clothes from the car because we are going to the better restaurant for dinner.  Then we take our wine out to the balcony and people watch.  What a great spot!

Now I am going to the Tub Room across the hall for a soak.  George reports that it is 1920s luxury at its finest.


This is my favorite spring - Blue Star Spring, located close to Old Faithful.

Update from Sunday - George is fine today.

Yellowstone!

This morning we drove into Yellowstone and were greeted immediately by two bison walking along the road.  I fumbled with the camera and got a picture of fur beside my window.  The big fellow was so close he almost hit our side mirror with his horn.

I got a better photo at lunch when we ate between two bison, inadvertently.  We saw one to the left several yards away.  We ate at a picnic table by the lake.  Then a rock that we'd spied to our right moved and turned out to be a napping bison.  The smell as we ate lunch was overpowering at times.  I felt as if I were eating in the elephant pen at the zoo.


I was also nervous because of all the bear warnings.  There was even a warning stapled to the picnic table. We bought bear spray ($50).  They really can charge whatever for it.  What will you do?  Quibble?  So I was on watch during the lunch, which was not a relaxing meal.

We had wanted to take a cruise on Yellowstone Lake, but the 1:15 tour was full.  So we just took walks and drives.  (Thanks, Berberichs, for your guide book.)  We laughed and high-fived when a storm came at 1:30 and covered our car in sleet.  Thank goodness we were not on the boat then.

Later we saw a mule deer eating calmly beside the road in the sun, which came out soon afterwards. You can tell where the animals are by the crowd of stopped cars.

We enjoyed walking along West Thumb Geyser Basin, a concentrated thermal region.  There were many bubbling pools of bright colors.








It seemed that everyone else on the boardwalk had been issued a ten year old boy with whom to walk.  Watching and listening to those families was a hoot.  Immediately, we were behind a child balancing on the ledge of the boardwalk.  ("Stay on the boardwalk!" has been drilled into our heads as much as the rules about bear encounters.)

Then we heard a boy asking his dad, "I wonder what would happen if you threw a baby in there?" Dad replied, "I don't." I turned around and saw that Dad had his boy in a death grip.



West Thumb is an area on the edge of Yellowstone Lake.

We finally wound our way around to the Old Faithful Inn, where we are staying for two nights. So happy to be in this oldest inn in the oldest national park.  It was built in 1903 - 1904 and renovated in the 1920s by the same architect, Robert Reamer.  Reamer was 29 when he designed the inn.  The style is National Park Service Rustic.  They  used mostly materials from the park.





There are four stories - two are open to the public.  We sat on the lower one tonight and watched the crowd in the lobby.  On the fourth floor is a sort of tree house where a band used to play for guests after dinner.  There was dancing!



We can see Old Faithful erupt from our room.  However, the sound when you're close is really
interesting - deep rumbling from the earth.

Going out now to see the stars.  Amazed that I stayed awake past dark.

More Cody, Wyoming

We just got back from dinner in Cody.  This is definitely a cool little town.  When we read that the population was 9520, we expected a tiny burg with maybe a couple of restaurants.  This is a full on cowboy saloon spot.  We enjoyed walking down the three blocks of main street, studying menus and ogling western wear shops.  Many large men are walking around in boots and cowboy hats.

We finally decided to eat hamburgers at the Proud Cut Saloon. They were delicious!  We were sitting beside Ryan, who ate a huge meal of French onion soup and prime rib.  I asked Ryan if he was from Cody.  He said no.  I said, "Are you traveling?" He answered, "You could say that." He did not volunteer any other information, so I did not ask any more.  Later we heard an exchange about fires between Ryan and the bartender.  I said, "Are you a firefighter?"  "Yes," he replied.  He is working the fires near here.

Yesterday he was working the fire near Jackson, which has jumped the road.  The highway between Yellowstone and Grand Tetons is closed due to this fire.  We have been following this on the news since we hope to go that way in a week.  He said the fire grew from 1700 acres to 7000 acres yesterday.  I thanked him for his work.  I also said it sounds scary.  He said his work now is not scary.  He is working with a helicopter unit now.

Ryan works for the forest service in Arizona.  He said they got rain starting in June, so he was sent up here to work.  What a job!

Another "not in Atlanta" sight was this:



We took a brisk walk after dinner, and George stopped abruptly by this car.
"That is something you would not see in Atlanta," he said.

Look closely:



Yep.  We're not in Georgia.

Casper to Cody, Wyoming

We were amazed at the beauty on our drive from Casper to Cody today.  This isn't one of the roads marked with little green dots to tell you to drive on it for a pretty tour.  No, we were on good old Wyoming Highway 20.  But it was gorgeous.  Just high prairie and rock faces all the way.

As always, the photo does not capture the drama of this setting.

We stopped halfway to Cody at Thermopolis and went to Hot Springs State Park.  Some people were taking a soak at the welcome center.  We took a stroll on the boardwalk.  The springs nearby were not too hot.  (George checked.)  As we walked higher, the springs got hotter.  Steam rose. Micro-organisms made the run-off beautiful - orange, green, and yellow colors. 

This is the view from the suspension bridge over the Big Horn River.

The bridge swayed, but I was brave.

We ate lunch at the welcome center in Cody.  Then I went to the laundromat, and George did some

engineering work at the motel.  We reunited in a quick trip to buy more fruit and lunch items. 

George did another hour of work while I reorganized the car and my suitcase - adding warmer clothes and putting away the swimsuits.  

Soon we are going out for dinner and walking around downtown.  Cody is a much cuter town than I expected. This is a fun town with shops and saloons.  We missed the concert in the park and passed on the daily rodeo. But we do love to walk around downtown.  Woohoo!

Walking on the Oregon Trail and then driving into Wyoming!

We walked along the Oregon Trail through Mitchell's Pass at Scott's Bluffs this morning.  It was very cool to walk down the path, looking at the ruts and imagining pulling a wagon through here.  On a mild, cool day it would be hard work.  On a stormy or blistering hot day, it would be rough.  Those people were strong.  When they reached this spot, they were done with the prairies.  They had completed 1/3 of the trip, the easy part.  The mountains lay ahead of them.  George and I wondered why more didn't stop in Nebraska.  We were told that it was pretty much a desert and Indian territory.

We followed the North Platte River most of the day, and it looks like a good place to make a home.  As we drove, we had the North Platte on one side and the railroad on the other.  Trains carrying coal travel east, and trains with empty cars travel west.
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Prairie grasses along the trail.



This is part of the actual Oregon Trail.



Mitchell Pass was a landmark to the pioneer families.

We moved on to Wyoming today, driving to Casper.  Casper is on the way to Yellowstone, where
we are going on Friday.  There are more beautiful parts of Wyoming, but we needed to drive in
a northwest direction.  Tonight we are staying in an RV in someone's driveway in Casper.  This is an airbnb connection.  How smart of this couple to rent space in their RV, that is just sitting in the
driveway anyway!


Our home for the night.

We took a walk around the neighborhood, which is full of new homes.  Very different from the south.
Fewer trees, more trucks and RVs in the driveways, lots of rabbits.  Yes, we saw many bunnies hopping around.  They seem to live under the fir trees.  Are they the Wyoming squirrel?


Look closely and you can see two rabbits under there.

Ogallala, Nebraska

Today we walked through the Great Platte River Road Archway in Kearney, Nebraska. This is an arch that crosses I-80.

Inside we put on headphones and took an escalator up to see scenes from the Oregon Trail crossings and hear stories from pioneers' diaries.

As we walked through the 3-D scenes, we heard tales of daily life on the trail, near disasters, and miraculous rescues.

A group of Mormons set out late on the trip, taking hand carts instead of wagons. When

they got stuck in an early snowfall in Utah, they almost perished.  Brigham Young sent 

a rescue party out to save them.

Native Americans told of the importance of bison to them. Every part of the animal was used. 

Then we saw bison running down the hill toward us.  

After the trail stories, we learned about Highway 30, the Lincoln Highway, which runs across

Nebraska.  I-80 now parallels it.  At the peak of the arch, we looked out the window and saw 

that we were on top of the interstate.

At the end of the show, a voice came over our headphones: "Many pioneers had to abandon their belongings along the trail, but YOU can buy souvenirs at the Great Platte River Trading Post!"

We howled with laughter.

We drove on to Lake McConaughey just past Ogallala.  We are the only people staying in

a cabin here tonight.  We have #11 - good old #11.  We did take a chilly dip in the lake this afternoon.

We just went outside to see the sunset.