If it constantly feels like you're looking at a calendar to figure out where and when each of these adventures are occurring, you're not the only one. Of course when one decides to blog, you can have the best intentions to blog 3-4 times a week but then of course life happens or you end up not having great wifi or you're up until 10:30 putting the baby to sleep and you just don't end up blogging as often as you hoped. But since I don't want you to miss out on any of these adventures, I will continue to play catch up and will most likely confuse you in the process.
Remember now? Ok, so we drove 3 miles into town and parked at the city park for the day so Jared could work. About 30 yards away was a geyser that erupted on the hour, every hour. The kids and I sat in a picnic shelter nearby writing postcards and waited for the geyser to go off. After seeing it, we walked through the town, visiting the library, the post office, and the grocery store. On the way back to the trailer, we stopped at a drugstore and had "old fashioned milkshakes" which were literally just a regular milkshakes. Once Jared was off of work, it was off to Gros Ventre Campground in the Grand Tetons.
Saturday morning we drove up to Colter Bay, snagged a campsite (they are first come, first serve) and headed out. We hadn't decided what we were going to do exactly so we checked out the visitor's center and decided to rent a boat to go out on Jackson Lake. This might sound like it would be amazing, except that by the time we got the boat at 1:30, it was 98 degrees outside (and we were required to wear life jackets, so we were all dying), there was basically no breeze at all and Gryffin was ready for a nap. So while it was still really cool to go around the lake on our own, we were honestly all a bit crabby. See for yourself:
After the not so serene boat ride, we headed to the "beach" to cool off. I say "beach" because it was full of sharp and pointy rocks that scalded your feet. The water was of course too cold for me to go in, but Avery, Ophelia and Jared went in and Gryffin had an amazing time playing with all of the rocks. We were happy to be able to grill over the fire that night as most places we've been to have been under a fire ban. So while we didn't have to worry about potentially starting a forest fire, we did have to worry about bears, as the abundant signage made clear. The main thing you have to worry about is your food- if you don't leave it out, then a bear will not come to get it. But seeing as we have children who walk around leaving trails of cheez-its behind them, this made me very nervous. I was sure to comb our campsite for crumbs several times before we went to bed. I must have been thorough as we woke up to find that we were not visited by any bears.
On Sunday, we had to check out of the campsite but then headed back to the visitor's center area to hike the Lakeshore Trail around Jackson Lake. This 1 mile hike looked much easier for us and the kids (no elevation changes!). It took us over an hour because we stopped a lot and the kids enjoyed at least 20 minutes of playing with the rocks along the lake front. The kids liked this hike much more than the hike we did in SLC so I think they left with a greater appreciation for nature hikes.
Ok, so last you heard, we were in Salt Lake City. On the blog post before that one, we were in Moab, but I started by telling you that currently we were in Soda Springs, ID after being delayed multiple time while leaving SLC. So I will start off there, on Friday, 10 August. We were in Soda Springs, ID and woke up to this view:
Remember now? Ok, so we drove 3 miles into town and parked at the city park for the day so Jared could work. About 30 yards away was a geyser that erupted on the hour, every hour. The kids and I sat in a picnic shelter nearby writing postcards and waited for the geyser to go off. After seeing it, we walked through the town, visiting the library, the post office, and the grocery store. On the way back to the trailer, we stopped at a drugstore and had "old fashioned milkshakes" which were literally just a regular milkshakes. Once Jared was off of work, it was off to Gros Ventre Campground in the Grand Tetons.
Gros Ventre is a campground on the southern end of the Tetons and we planned to stay there so we could leave early the next day to drive up to Colter Bay and explore the Tetons from there. Our campsite had amazing views and I think we would have stayed there longer except that it was too far away from anything else we wanted to see.
Saturday morning we drove up to Colter Bay, snagged a campsite (they are first come, first serve) and headed out. We hadn't decided what we were going to do exactly so we checked out the visitor's center and decided to rent a boat to go out on Jackson Lake. This might sound like it would be amazing, except that by the time we got the boat at 1:30, it was 98 degrees outside (and we were required to wear life jackets, so we were all dying), there was basically no breeze at all and Gryffin was ready for a nap. So while it was still really cool to go around the lake on our own, we were honestly all a bit crabby. See for yourself:
After the not so serene boat ride, we headed to the "beach" to cool off. I say "beach" because it was full of sharp and pointy rocks that scalded your feet. The water was of course too cold for me to go in, but Avery, Ophelia and Jared went in and Gryffin had an amazing time playing with all of the rocks. We were happy to be able to grill over the fire that night as most places we've been to have been under a fire ban. So while we didn't have to worry about potentially starting a forest fire, we did have to worry about bears, as the abundant signage made clear. The main thing you have to worry about is your food- if you don't leave it out, then a bear will not come to get it. But seeing as we have children who walk around leaving trails of cheez-its behind them, this made me very nervous. I was sure to comb our campsite for crumbs several times before we went to bed. I must have been thorough as we woke up to find that we were not visited by any bears.
On Sunday, we had to check out of the campsite but then headed back to the visitor's center area to hike the Lakeshore Trail around Jackson Lake. This 1 mile hike looked much easier for us and the kids (no elevation changes!). It took us over an hour because we stopped a lot and the kids enjoyed at least 20 minutes of playing with the rocks along the lake front. The kids liked this hike much more than the hike we did in SLC so I think they left with a greater appreciation for nature hikes.
Overall, we enjoyed our time in the Tetons even though it was rather short. This would be another place to go to when the kids are older so that we can go on a lot more of the hikes.
Up next on the blog: Yellowstone
Love the pic of you and the kids looking at the mountain! Beautiful! Thanks for the update!
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