GRAND TETON NATIONAL PARK

When we moved here to Riverton we knew we were in beautiful country.  Yesterday we took a day trip to the Grand Tetons. A day trip! Can you imagine that? We kept saying to each other that this is in our "backyard". 

We took off about 9AM and 2.5 hours later even after stopping for a soda and a picture or two we were there.
 We just HAD to stop here. It is a jackalope of course. You can see them all over this part of Wyoming. We thought the kids would smile a bit. We do have a family picture standing in front of a huge prairie dog in South Dakota. I'm a sucker for theses things. You notice I don't have a picture of Cindy sitting on it.

This convenience store is in Dubois (pronounced Do-boys) west of Riverton half-way to the Teton range. There is even some beautiful country around Dubois. It looks a bit like the Grand Canyon although above ground.

I'm not sure where it happened but we turned a corner went over a hill and there the views became breathtaking.

We headed to the Jackson Lake Lodge for lunch. This is probably where we will take our guests to eat. The food was really great and the view from our table was of the range. While eating we were constantly looking out toward the range across the flatland. I thought we might see some wildlife. We did. We saw a ground squirrel/chipmunk, wild turkey and just as were leaving some sandhill cranes. No big game yet.

Since this was our first trip we wanted to get the lay of the land. So we drove north of the lodge toward Yellowstone just to see. We finally turned around and headed south. Of couse we stopped every so often to gawk and take pictures.

Normally when you see cars and people along the side of the road you know there is something to see. We were passing one such group when I noticed they weren't looking at the mountains. I pulled over very quickly because they were looking into the forest. This is what we saw. It was a momma black bear and her two cubs. I'm afraid this is the best I could do. She looked around at us and her cubs and started ambling up the hill deeper into the forest. Wow!



At another site I noticed people with cameras gathered around the river bank. Sooo - we did a u-turn, pulled over, parked, ran to join the crowd and there was a moose. She was laying down in some bushes next to the water.                                                                                  

There is really not much more to say really. The park is gorgeous and filled with wildlife. Beside these animals we saw another moose, a herd of elk right next to a herd of buffalo, antelope, mule deer, geese with gauslings, but no porcupines. Sorry Matt. We looked!    

                                                                  

Come and visit.

Next weekend we are thinking of going on another day trip. Either to Yellowstone National Park or Cody.