7/18/2013–A Day Trip to Jackson, Wyoming

While still in Teton National Park, we decided to take a day trip to Jackson, Wyoming.

A beautiful view of the Tetons.

We came across a large bison herd.

We made a quick stop and walked in to see the historical Cunningham Cabin.

They were either very short or had to duck on entering the cabin.

A current resident at the cabin.

Jackson is home to the National Elk refuge where large herds from Yellowstone migrate there during the winter months and return in the spring.

That’s a lot of elk antlers!

The visitor’s center had some very good exhibits.

After lunch in town, we drove to the west of Jackson, then drove up the eastern route through the Tetons on the way back to the RV.

This was a good sized beaver hut.

A couple of views of Jenny Lake.  It’s a popular place to visit in the park on a beautiful day.

Jackson Dam.

And then it was back to the RV for the evening.

7/17/2013–A Day Trip to Old Faithful

When we got going on the morning of 7/17, we didn’t have any particular destination in mind other than to drive about 8 miles north to look at another campground near Teton National Park.

This is our campsite in Teton’s Colter Bay Campground.

We hadn’t packed a lunch to bring with us for the day, but we decided to drive on into see Old Faithful for the day and get some lunch in that area.  Old Faithful was great…the lunch was just okay.

Driving back to the campground, we go by Lewis Falls.

We decided to make a trip to Jackson the following day.

7/16/2013–Day Trip to Lamar Valley in Yellowstone National Park

On Tuesday, July 16th we drove north into Yellowstone National Park on a day trip headed to the northeast entrance of the park.

We were lucky to see a grizzly sow and last year’s cub along the way.

These two young ones seem to be putting their heads together to see what they could get into.

We stopped along the river to watch a bison make it across.

We saw a few of these old tour buses.

While we’ve seen very few wildlife sightings throughout the park where we would normally see them in past trips, they were very scare.  It was very interesting to get up to the Lamar Valley in the northeast section of the park to see very large herds of bison of well over 1000.

We stayed in that area long enough that we were able to tell that there was going to be a mass exodus of the herd crossing the road in front of us, so we got in a good position to get some photos.

A couple of bald eagles sat in a nearby tree to watch the show.

And after the crossing, this one had to roll around a bit in the dirt.

 

Bison Rolling in the Dirt

 

After a long day of touring we returned to the RV for the evening.

07/15/2013–Cody, WY to Teton National Park

We had a short distance to go today, but it would be slow winding roads all the way, so we were on the road early.

Ken spotted this unusual building on the hill as we headed west.

After an hour or so, we approached the east gate to Yellowstone National Park.

After going over Sylvan Pass, we went by Sylvan Lake.

As we got close to one of many construction areas, we had a view of Yellowstone Lake through the trees.

Our next obstacle was a couple of bison in the road daring cars to pass them.  There was another one off to the side of the road.

There were several pelicans resting in this pond we drove past.

Traffic slowed down quite a bit to take a look at these antique cars in a pullout.

The Tetons range.

After we got parked and had lunch at Colter Bay Campground in Teton National Park, we went out for a drive.

At our first stop, we were just sure this was a moose near the water.  We could swear we even saw it move…however, when we stopped again on our way back to the RV, we saw that we were wrong.

Our next side trip was up a road to Signal Mountain.  I’m thinking it’s called that because there was a cell phone tower at the top.

Here’s a view from the top of that road.

Another view of the Tetons.

Next we took a one way road marked Jenny Lake.  This doe and her fawn crossed the road in front of us.

At the Jenny Lake Overlook, we could see across to a tour boat stop.

This next view is of the waterflow coming out of Jackson Dam.

Then it was back to the RV for dinner and an evening of rest…no cell phone signal, no internet (this will be posted later)…only quiet time for us.  Tomorrow the plan is to head back north into Yellowstone and see what it looks like for getting into the park later in the week.

7/14/2013–Cody, WY–No Traffic Signs

We were wrong in assuming that we would be able to move to our next campground site prior to noon today.  It was next to the one we were currently in, and there check out time is 11am.  We started getting things ready and we watched as our new site was slowly being dismantled…and then they quit and just sat out on their lawn chairs.  We were finally able to move somewhere around 12:30pm and got set up, had lunch and headed into town for the afternoon.  We decided to head to the gun show, but as we approached that, it was obvious they were packing up and closing down for the day.  So from there we did a little bit of last minute shopping to prepare for our move into either Yellowstone or Teton National Park for the next several days and stopped to fill the truck.

Rather than driving back on the main highway, we took the South Fork Road.

We really liked the main gate going into this ranch.

The ranch buildings were also nice looking.

Our next turn was on to Stagecoach Trail which took us for the remaining distance back to our campground.

Interesting!…a sign that indicates no traffic signs.

We certainly don’t want any human-bear conflict either.

Oops!  Looks like I caught the one on the left in a slightly embarrassing position.

Back at the RV, in anticipation of several days of dry camping, we filled the fresh water tank.  Ken cleaned the front window hoping for some really good photo opportunities tomorrow and the truck is hooked up and we’re ready to go.  We’ll make a quick stop at the dump station in the morning and be in our way.