Visit to the Grand Tetons

So after many adventures we headed off to the Grand Teton National Park with our new tow car trailing obediently behind.  This time we opted to stay inside the park itself, and found a spot in a campground run by the Park Service.  These campgrounds have minimal services, with no hookups for water, electric, showers or the like. But since our rig is self contained, we are comfortable anyway.  With our senior discount we paid $10.00 a night for a lovely spot.

Well, once again the park is not overrated - there are stunning views everywhere and wildlife all around.  One of the most attractive parts of the park for us was the bike riding options that it provided.  They had just opened a new trail of about eight miles- completely off the road, and travels along the base of the Grand Tetons all the way, providing stunning views the total distance.  Each end of the trail has a visitor center and store, so you can get a well supported break, and the trail is mostly level and easy.  I had a great time riding it one afternoon, while Ivy watched a local artist demonstrate her techniques with poured watercolors at one of the visitors' centers.

Ivy and I  took another ride on the back roads near our campground.  These roads were open to traffic and had little or no shoulder, but the traffic levels were so light that riding was quite easy.  You had to keep an eye out for buffalo near the road, but we were able to complete our little journey quite easily.  We stopped to admire some longhorn cattle at a local ranch by the side of the road.   Ivy wanted to paint some of the scenery, so we loaded her paints into the saddlebags and headed off to a spot on Antelope Flat Road that provided great views.  She set to work.  I biked back to the campground to get the car so that I could pick her up after a few hours working outside.  After my afternoon nap, I drove the car back to pick her up, and just in time.  The afternoon thundershowers that are common in that area were just gathering and we scooped up her bike and the paints and retreated to our RV for an afternoon of rain.

Another treat was a ride on the aerial tram to the top of one of the mountains in the chain.  You have to go out of the park to the Teton Village, a resort community totally devoted to the Tetons, skiing, hiking etc.  But the views of the Snake River valley  from the top were lovely, and with the drop in temperature from the dramatic rise in altitude,  hot cocoa was in order.  A short hike around to admire the views and take some photos, and down we went.  

We discovered the National Museum of Wildlife Art, located just outside of Jackson Hole, on our way to our campground.  They had some great work by many of the most accomplished wildlife artists, including a painting of a buffalo by Robert Bateman, whom Ivy admires a lot for his paintings.  An accompanying video by Bateman talked about the creation of the painting and the techniques that he developed to do it. 

This visit, too, had its challenges.  The afternoon before we left, a sudden thunderstorm came up and lifted one of our canopy awnings on the RV off the ground, flipped it over the top of the motorhome, and snapped off and bent some struts.  After an hour or two of effort we were able to disassemble it and remove the remains from the RV and store the parts under and inside the RV for later repair.  Fortunately, an awning is not an absolutely vital component, so we will wait until parts and repair resources are available to fix the damage. 

The next morning, as we were pulling out heading for Yellowstone, we saw a small crowd gathering.  That's almost always a sign of wildlife, so we looked and sure enough, a pair of moose had wandered into our campground and were busily munching away on the local vegetation.  Ivy got a couple of pictures, though the male was down in the brush and harder to see.  A good omen for our travels, though, as we surely need some.