Exploring the Grand Tetons - 2022/08/23

This morning we spent our day at Yellowstone, but right next door is the Grand Tetons National Park! We're on a mission today to find a moose and rumors are they can be found south of Yellowstone in the Grand Tetons! Let's go!

Exciting Yellowstone to the south, the John D Rockefeller Jr Memorial Parkway connects to Grand Tetons National Park. 

Guess it's been a tiring day already. 

Welcome to the Colter Bay Visitor Center! Time to earn another Junior Ranger badge! 

We met with a Ranger who gave them their books and then explained what they'd need to complete. Knowing we likely wouldn't be back before they closed, they gave us the badges and let us give them to the kids after they completed everything. 

The booklet centered around a lot of things in the lobby area. Animals. 

Horns and antlers. Ooh, I spy moose antlers. 

Answering questions about the different parts of the park. 

One of the questions we had was, where is all the water? Jackson Lake is manmade and water is controlled by the Bureau of Reclamation for who gets to use it. The drought has caused water levels to drop, as evidence by the boat docks here with no water in sight. 

Looking towards the Tetons, including the Grand Teton mountain which tower 13775 feet high, and it 7000 feet above the Jackson Hole valley. 

Fun to see, but we're looking for moose. We asked the rangers and they pointed us further south. 

Moose like to hang out near water. We kept our eyes open, but only found 1 human swimming in the river. 

A large gathering of people was off the side of the road and we decided to investigate. Is that something under the tree? No, just a dark branch. 

We went out into the grasses and spoke with others there. A large bull moose was seen a half mile away and was headed this way. 

And so we waited. And waited. And got eaten up by lots of mosquitos. And waited more. No moose showed up! Grr. Back to the car. 

Driving along the plains we found a large herd of bison! 

They've got places to be. 

Everyone has to keep up. 

The herd of hundreds came by us, broke into a run, then crossed the road a few hundred feet in front of us. If they started coming closer to us, we would have ran back to the truck!

We drove further into the parks to the Mormon Row Historic District, founded by homesteaders back in the 1890s. 

We knew which direction we wanted to go, and there was a road that led there, but it's recommended for 4 wheel drive, high profile vehicles only. I think The Beast fits both of those! Let's go!

This road is closed from November to May. It wasn't too bad though. 

This area is known as the Antelope Flats, along Antelope Flats Road in Moose, Wyoming. We didn't see any moose, but we found antelope! 

Driving down Moose Wilson Road we had no luck either. These moose are elusive!

For dinner, we all grabbed McDonalds. We had amazing luck with the app and the rewards, getting offers for free Big Macs. Good thing all 5 of us have McDonalds accounts (even the kids)! Being able to get more rewards after 15 minutes meant that we could add fries and desserts cheaply too. Jacob priced it out and we only paid $15 for what would have been $58 at regular price. 

Instead of backtracking through what we've already seen, we continued up and through the Teton mountain range. 

Looking back towards Jackson Wyoming. 

Welcome to Idaho! I hate when it's covered with stickers. 

Earlier we were on the east side of the Tetons. Now we're seeing them from the west side. 

And were treated to a beautiful sunset. 

It's been a long day of driving. Almost 8 hours in the car. 

And a look at the large loop we did today. Sadly we didn't see any moose today, but it's still been fun!