Grand Teton, small world

Wow, have we been remiss in our blogging. Never fear, Madi here, I'll catch you up. Sitting in traffic yet again. How we can be in wild Wyoming, the least populated state in the country and sit in traffic every single day, and more than once a day, is beyond me. But I'm on vacation so where do I have to be?

So, where were we? Oh wait, that's what I'm supposed to tell you. Let me see...


After we left Red Canyon and Bryce, we hit the highway hard and Drove to Dinosaur National Park in Utah. That was one long drive, about 250 miles or so. On the way we stopped at the Prehistoric museum in some Utah town and searched without success for a geocache under the velociraptor. Guess he ate it. Oh, and that's where we saw the Got Poop on the porta potties. Casey and Alec had to think about that one. Too funny!

Then we pedaled to the metal to the dino park to look for real bones. It was hotter than Hades up there. We touched all the bones we could before taking the bus up to the top of the trail to search for real fossils and bones. We hopped out of the air conditioned bus into the arid 115 degree desert to begin our search. Our skin immediately turned bright red and we all drank all of our water by the end of our 3/4 mile hike. We did see some prehistoric clam fossils, some small dino bones and some ancient petroglyphs mingled with some 2005 petroglyphs probably left by hominids, subspecies idiot. Sigh. We missed the huge dino bones labeled with white arrows probably because we were suffering from heat stroke. I think you need a geology degree to find those. We all agreed that this was the least exciting part of our trip so far, and the furthest drive for the least reward.

Oh well, upward and onward. We went into Vernal, Utah (gotta love that name) to find dinner. Casey was thrilled as we found the 4th book in the Stephanie Meyer's series and bought it. Neat cause Ms. Meyer's is Mormon and we actually bought it in a Mormon book shop. The Cobblerock Brewery unfortunately didn't have their liquor license yet so there was no beer with dinner, but it was still yummy. And there was a geocache right next to it. We tried to find a hotel that night but everyone in Rock Springs, Wyoming was booked so we stayed at the KOA, got up early and left for the Grand Teton National Park.

The Tetons are beautiful. Jackson Hole, or Jackson as it apparently wants to be known as now is very touristy. I hear everyone runs into at least one person they know out there, but I'm getting ahead of myself. We camped in Colter Bay which is about 30 miles north of Jackson and right on Jackson Lake. We walked down to the lake from the campground and the kids and Mike swam in the lake in the shadow of the Tetons. What a gorgeous setting. Simply stunning. The next day we went in to town and did a little of the touristy thing. Spent too much money, signed up for a whitewater rafting trip and had lunch. On the way back to our campsite we went to Shadow Mountain as per our friends in CO and took the minivan 4-wheeling. Oddly enough, there was a geocache up there so we left a "Dick Cheney Skis in Jeans" sticker there for you Sean. Got a cool magnet of the Tetons naming each mountain in exchange.

Note - this is a draft from www.snakeriverphotos.net; unfortunately, they don't sell digital images for download - only physical packages of 5. Since they took only one passable photo of us, I'll have to work out some kind of fair compensation with them once we get home...

Today we went white water rafting, not floating but white water. Granted, it is summer and the water is a little low, but much higher than last year. The youngest they'll take is 6 so we just got in under the wire. 4 of us loved it, I mean loved it. The 6 year old, well, he survived it and finished the ride in the front of the boat on the rapids so I think he did just fine. He says he won't do it again but I don't believe him. We have to find the pic the photo company took at the "Big Cahuna". It should be awesome! Also met a nice family from the Netherlands. Actually they are from California now. They also had 3 kids, a girl and 2 boys. Neat people.

We had just gotten back into Jackson and were walking back to the car when someone started honking and waving to someone. I was looking around to see who they were waving at. It was us!!!! Guess who we saw???!!! Adam Driscoll and Tracy are in Jackson for the weekend and drove right by us on one of the main streets. UNBELIEVABLE! Alec says that's the most random thing that's ever happened to him. So we got a pic to show you all. Mike bequeathed Adam his vacation hat now that we are out of the really hot weather (hopefully). It looks smashing on Adam imo. Adam and Tracy (forgive me if I'm not spelling your name right Tracy, please?) were looking for a trail to go for a run on so we sent them off to Shadow Mountain but told them to avoid the buffalo. Hope you guys have a great weekend and a safe trip home.

So, now we are in Yellowstone and almost to Grant Village where we actually have reservations for once. Ha, can you imagine? The kids are still singing Hawk Nelson. " Come on if you're feeling, if you're feeling allright..." I'm just hoping we don't have to eat chicken noodle soup for dinner.