National Park #8, canceled July 28, 2019
We planned out our 2019 summer road trip to hit six national parks in the Rockies and the Great Plains. My best friend and Jeremy’s sister’s family joined us for the whole trip, and Jeremy’s parents were with us at the beginning in the Grand Tetons. I have family in Utah, so that’s where we launched from. There was a lot of road construction along the way, and between detours and one-way delays we arrived in Colter Bay three hours after we intended to. Jeremy’s sister snagged us a campsite next to theirs, and we got everything set up before too long.
We drove back down to Jackson Hole to meet up with Jeremy’s parents, who brought the girls after their summer visit with them. There was a herd of buffalo along the road as we went! We all had dinner together at Dornan’s Chuckwagon, then returned to camp, enjoying the sunset behind the Tetons along the way. We stopped at Oxbow Bend where there was a beautiful reflection of Mt. Moran in the Snake River, and we watched a beaver swim across.
My friend and I got up early the next morning and went down to Colter Bay to take some early morning pictures. We saw a rainbow and some ominous clouds that revealed themselves to be rain clouds shortly afterwards. On the way back to camp a fox crossed our path! We met everyone at Jenny Lake where we found a lovely spot for a family photo, and we were lucky to have the rain let up and the peaks appear through the clouds when we got down to the lake. Jeremy’s parents said their goodbyes after our little walk down to the lake. We were sad to see them go, but really glad to connect for a little while. The rest of us explored along the Discovery Trail to a neat little bridge before heading up the road to the Jenny Lake scenic drive.
Our next stop was supposed to be Signal Mountain, but it was raining pretty hard and we didn’t think the view would be all that great through a cloud. We decided instead to go straight to Jackson Lake Lodge and look for moose over Willow Flat on the back viewing deck. We ended up climbing Lunch Tree Hill where J. D. Rockefeller had lunch one day and, inspired by the view, decided to help protect the Grand Tetons. When we got back, there was a raptor presentation with a peregrine falcon, two owls, and a bald eagle. After lunch, we tried our chances at Signal Mountain. The view was actually pretty great, despite it raining at all the overlooks. We even saw some young elk bucks on the way down.
Then we went to the visitor center at Colter Bay where we arrived just in time for a ranger program. The girls finished their Junior Ranger books and earned their first of many badges this trip. We randomly decided to take a hike over to Swan and Heron Lakes. They were both covered in lily pads, and in Swan Lake we saw a trumpeter swan and a beaver swimming to his dam. Sadly, though, no moose. But we did see a deer on the way back. Dinner was at Leek’s Marina, a place I enjoyed when I worked in Yellowstone during summer 2001. We enjoyed delicious pizza and ice cream, even though they didn’t have the huckleberry ice cream I remembered.
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