Grand Teton National Park

Idaho Falls, Idaho

As we drove into Grand Teton National Park, Liam asked "So what's this park have?" So far, most of our national park visits have sort of had a theme: tall trees, fat trees, cliff dwellings, geysers. I told him that this one was mostly about the amazing mountain views. The problem with that is that there is currently so much smoke in the northwest that we really could barely even see those amazing mountains. It made for a fairly disappointing trip. Or at least it felt that way. But I am hanging on to a few great experiences we did have despite the smoke filled skies that blocked out those mountain backdrops that I know were there!

We entered the park through an unmanned backdoor just north of Jackson and drove basically a counter clockwise loop around the park with slight detours from that main loop. There were lots of pullouts to stop and see and photograph the views, but the views were mostly obscured by that smoke. We did eventually go through an actual entrance and have to show our pass, but that wasn't until halfway through the day. Still, we did get to see some pretty great things.

The first pretty great thing we saw that day was the Mormon Row Barns. I think I have already demonstrated that I am pretty taken with abandoned buildings, and these did not disappoint, even though the magnificent mountains that stand beyond them were mostly invisible. There are houses in addition to barns but the barns are definitely the main attraction. The birds everywhere were a bonus.

At the Schwabacher Landing beaver ponds we saw a mama and baby (okay, adolescent?) moose. Everyone watched them for a really long time. In fact we would have missed the baby if we hadn't stuck around as he emerged from the grass after we had been watching his mama for a good thirty minutes. Animal sightings in the parks are a real favorite, though we still haven't seen any bears.






Next was a short walk near Jackson Lake at Colter Bay.  Whenever we let the kids out of the car at a big body of water, well any sized body of water, they always, always start throwing rocks in.

The best view of the mountains all day was at Jenny Lake. It was beautiful, if still a little hazy.

And then we drove out through Teton Village. It really wasn't a bad day, I mean you really can't call a day in which you saw a baby moose a bad day.

Yellowstone!

Idaho Falls, Idaho

Seven years ago, we visited Yellowstone park with all ten of our children, ages 4 through 19. Kris was on crutches after a pretty severe and scary knee break a few weeks previously, but our reservations at the KOA had been in place for months and we were getting dangerously close to the time when our kids would begin to move out on us, so he was determined to pull off this vacation as planned. So we did. Yesterday we returned to Yellowstone with only five 'children' and no crutches.

Near Yellowstone Lake

Yellowstone is huge. There was no way we were going to be able to see it all in a day and we were not sure if we would have another day to return, so we decided on the lower loop which would at least get us to the most geysers. Our house in Idaho Falls is actually about two hours from Yellowstone so we planned to leave as early as possible to get the most of our day and 'as early as possible' turned out to be right about 8 am. Because early is just not our thing. About two hours later we arrived at the west gate of Yellowstone park and got started.

Hayden Valley

Our basic plan was to drive around that lower loop and stop at as many sites as we possibly could. So we did. And we saw lots of geysers, and bubbling 'paint pots' of mud, and waterfalls and bison. Lots and lots and lots of bison. Practically as soon as we were in the park we spotted the telltale sign of a wildlife spotting-lots of cars pulled over at the side of the road completely ignoring all those signs that say NOT to stop on the side of the road even if you see something spectacular-it turned out to be an elk which actually isn't all that exciting to people from Colorado, so we drove on to the next traffic hold up and this time it was a bison which is way cooler than an elk and so we did stop. In the nearby parking lot like good rule abiding citizens. Later in the day we encountered huge herds of bison crossing the road and walking right next to the road and even in some cases walking right ON the road and that one lonely bison we saw earlier lying all nonchalantly in the grass by the creek seemed pretty tame.

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

At the first geyser basin we stopped at, Fionnula asked why the ground and the water was so hot, so we revealed, a little nervously, the truth about the entire park basically being within the caldera of a volcano. She can get a little anxious over potential dangers and so I was worried what her reaction would be, it was still early in the day and I wanted to see lots of things still and not have a panicked 11 year old on our hands all day. She asked if it could possibly erupt. I didn't think that lying was the way to go here and so I said that technically, yes, it could erupt and then one of her brothers was all "Well if I have to die, being here for an eruption would be one of the top ways!" and interestingly, that was the end of the conversation, she was good. Sometimes I overthink things I guess.

Old Faithful

We arrived at Old Faithful right after it had erupted and so had approximately 90 minutes to wait for the next one. We ate our lunch. We played with a raven. We listened to all the accents and other languages all around us which has been one of the greatest parts about visiting the parks this summer. Some of us may have napped briefly. After several false starts it did finally come through and erupt for us, though it took more than the predicted "90 minutes give or take 10" that had been advertised.




Then we moved on, from geyser basins to the "Dragons Mouth" cave to the lake to the canyon and its waterfalls and back to more geyser basins and finally finished at the artist paint pots as the sun was setting and then headed out of the park and back home to Idaho Falls where we were too tired to even care that we had missed dinner all together.

Artist's Paint Pots