Road Trip Part Three: Wyoming to Washington

After doing laundry and getting a good nights rest in Salt Lake City, we headed on to our next stop: Grand Teton National Park.  Just outside Grand Teton we stopped in Jackson Hole and it was freezing!  Well, a lot colder than SLC was.  I think we left at around 90 degrees out and it was about 40 or 50 in Jackson Hole.  At a visitor's center we had to sit in our car for a bit to wait out a hale storm that blew through. 

We entered Grand Teton and drove around in awe of the amazing Teton mountains.  All the campsites were full for the night so we found a site just outside the park on a small lake.  The next morning we woke early and went on a hike up to see the tallest of the Tetons.  On the drive there we saw a bunch of Bison along side the road grazing.  It was like we were on a safari. 

We read that it's a good idea to make noise every so often to prevent startling a bear.  At first we felt silly, but it paid off when just a few minutes into the hike Josh saw a bear and her cub right on the path.  We backed off a bit and waited until they moved on.  You definitely don't want to get in between a mother bear and her cub.  After 40 minutes or so of waiting and making noise (the line of hikers was backed up and about 15 people waited with us) we all decided to make a ton of noise together and force the bears to run off the trail.  It worked and we continued hiking. 
 

The veiws along the way were amazing.  Right near the top we saw a couple glacial lakes: Surprise Lake and Ampitheater Lake.  Just before the first lake we saw snow packed off to the side of the trail.  Snow... in July!  Well, we were quite high up in elevation.  We rested at Ampitheater Lake enjoying the nice weather and the view of the top.  On the way back down we ran into the same bear and her cub close to the trail.  Josh made a bunch of noise and we passed back warnings to a family who were not far behind.  We think they were black bears and not grizzly bears.  I'm glad we read up on how to handle bears if you encounter them while hiking.  After the hike we found a campsite up at Lizard Creek near Jackson Lake.  We took a quick dip in the fridgid waters of the lake and went to dinner. 

The next morning we got up early and headed on North to Yellowstone National Park.  We grabbed a campsite at Lewis Lake early since they normally get snatched up pretty quick.  There was so much to see and we knew we wanted to start with Old Faithful.  When we arrived we had just missed it.  Good thing there are tons of hot springs, small geysers and pools to see.  After following the boardwalk through the small geysers we grabbed a good seat for Old Faithful.  We waited and the crowds filled in.  After waiting about 30 minutes (Old Faithful was a little later than they predicted) it started with a small sputter, then a blast of hot water shot into the sky.  It was pretty cool to see, but we expected it to be bigger. 

The next place we stopped at was the Grand Prismatic Spring.  Driving up to it there was a rainbow hued mist lingering over the spring.  We could barely see the entire pool since it was so foggy and misty, but we caught a few glimses.  The heat and smell of all these springs and pools are so strong.  Sometimes it felt nice to be warmed by the heat, but you have to be tolerant of the smell.  We continued driving in the massive caldera of the park and saw more geysers shooting off.  We stopped at the Fountain Paint Pots too, which are mud-like bubbles that form clay looking pots.  It was a long drive that day and we made it back to our campsite to rest up for the next day of driving.
 









In the morning we hit the road early and headed out of the park.  First we hit Montana.  Then we kept driving and went through the top of Idaho.  Idaho was quick to drive through and then we hit Spokane.  Tempted with the idea that we were now four hours from Seattle we decided to keep going.  We arrived in town around 11pm and found a hotel.  Finally, we made it to Seattle on July 30th!