Friday, July 9th

We will shortly bid adieu to the Hideout Motel, with our room that looked like a movie set. It was charming, but nothing worked! The owners are charming, too, and the Wifi in their office/playroom does work, so we begin the day by sitting there posting our blogs and catching up on email. I even get an IM from Stu! What fun!

We finally hit the road a little after ten; it was a rocky night but we’re itching to see what new adventures await us! We’re heading, basically, north and spend a brief amount of time in Idaho before crossing back into Wyoming. Along the way we see some strange metal sculptures, a cow (?), an bird (?) and an I-don’t-know! It’s similar to an I’ll-be-damned!

We stop at the Lander Cut-off of the Oregon Trail but none of the ruts from the old wagon trains can be seen. Later on we try again to spot them, but one can only go so far on a dirt road before giving up and moving on!

Several photo stops later we are in need of a potty break and find a Burger King. We’ve fixed ourselves salads to have for lunch but the aroma of sizzling beef does us in and we buy a burger and a fish sandwich. ( I confess, the burger was mine!)

Passing through Afton, WY I can resist taking a shot of the arch over the main street. It is composed entirely of elk antlers! Then, when we reach Jackson, we find that the four corners of the town square are marked by similar elken arches! As we follow the Snake River there comes a point when we can pull over and watch the white-water rafters. Sometimes there are as many as five rafts as a time coming down the stretch we can see! No one turns over but there are lots of screams! We even see two kyakers!

Woohoo!!! We can see Grand Teton and all her friends! (If you don’t know what teton means in French, look it up!) We are all set to see some animals! Driving along we notice several cars pulled off the road and a man with a huge view camera! The folks say they saw a moose! We are patient and our patience is rewarded! There is a family of three! Even though it is raining we stick it out until they disappear into the thicket. What a thrill!!

There are yellow daisies in bloom everywhere and it is really hard to resist taking yet another photo of the snow-capped mountains with the yellow fields at their feet! How magnificent they are! Wait! What’s that? OH! It’s a herd of bison! And look! There are more on the other side of the road and even more further down! Look how close they come to the road! In fact, we saw three of them cross the road right between the on-coming cars!

There is a group of young people (Japanese maybe?) who have a great idea for a photo. They are hunkered down in one of the ubiquitous fields of yellow daisies and are taking photos of one another with the Tetons in the background. The main photographer offers to shot us there, too, and we happily accept! The photo is lovely, if we can Photoshop out the red car that is turning! We wait ‘til they leave and “borrow” their idea!

The visitors’ center at Moose has a courtyard with two huge stones positioned in it. It reminds me of a Zen garden with the raked sand, except there isn’t any sand! Down the road we stop at Blacktail Butte which is a straight-up cliff used by climbers who want to practice before tackling a “real” mountain. As we approach there is a man halfway up and by the time we park and climb up a ways he has reached the top and is gathering up his ropes. Marilyn is hoping that he will repel down again. I’m just hoping that she won’t want to climb the trail all the way to the top!

Just a short way down the road is one of the many turn off and overlooks. This one is called BlackTail Ponds Overlook and, although there aren’t any other cars there, we decide to stop and see what there is to see. At first we are excited to see a female deer (doe, a deer, a female deer) quite a ways off in the distance; but as we look down closer to our feet in the shallow ravine below us there are a mother moose and her baby! As we watch they amble along, make a slow u-turn and disappear into the woods! While we watch other people come to see why we stopped and they are disappointed to have missed them. The patient one are rewarded as the moose take a brief curtain call!

Several more stops, including one at the Triangle X Ranch to photograph their beautiful horses, and another at the Snake River Overlook. This one was especially recommended by Bill, our unseen tour guide, and is lovely but would have been spectacular if the weather would quit spitting on us! We’ve been to the ranger station and have our maps and plans for tomorrow and we’ve passed through the official gate, flashing our Senior Pass and ringing up another twenty-five dollar savings! We’ve also stopped to confirm our reservations for tomorrow night’s float trip down the Snake River and found out that the float is carpeted! We won’t even get our feet wet, much less our cameras! And – the ranger said that he was sure neither of us were old enough to qualify for a Senior Pass. I love that boy, even if he is about twelve!

It’s late and we’re hungry and ready to find our cabin and regroup for tomorrow’s continuation of our saga! We are spending tonight and tomorrow night at the Coulter Bay Village near the north end of the park. We have a rustic cabin with two beds, hot and cold running water and a bathroom en suite (I think this will be considered a luxury later in the trip!) and lots of room and outlets. We even learned when we checked in that there is WiFi in the office and guests’ lounge! I should be able to upload this in the morning, complete with photos!