Trish & Anne RV Adventures

After leaving Yellowstone via the South Entrance Road on Tuesday, September 12, we quickly arrived at the Grand Teton NP (here after called GTNP).

Driving into GTNP, and a view of the mountains from the Coulter Bay parking lot. We stopped here and bought some sandwiches from the general store for lunch.

Views of Jackson Lake.

Views of the Teton Range from US191 which runs right through the park.

We didn’t stay in Jackson, but in Wilson, which is on one of the other roads that leads into GTNP – the Wilson-Moose Road. As Trish’s other sister Cookie and her niece Whitney were joining us we had gotten a VRBO for this part of the trip. So we needed a place to leave the RV while we were there. I’m lucky enough that my college roommate’s sister lives in Wilson just about 2 miles from the VRBO. Many thanks to Laurie and Chip Bay for letting us park and come and go as we needed. It was a good thing we had a mini-van for transportation, as we never would have fit a week’s worth of food, clothing and other necessities into a sedan in one trip. After we got set up at the VRBO, it was off to the airport to pick up Cookie and Whitney. By the time they landed and got their luggage it was almost 9 PM, and the only place open was a hotel restaurant.

Whitney (and her driver Suzy) got up for sunrise Wednesday morning. Whitney had brought her painting gear and wanted to jump right in. The rest of us slept in. When they returned we had some lunch before heading out for the rest of the day.

Our first stop was back to the RV, to pick up something we had forgotten. Laurie had told us that some moose hung around her area, and we were lucky enough to spot them as we were driving in.

Laurie is a docent at the National Museum of Wildlife Art and she had agreed to give us a private tour. Above are some shots of the exterior and and entrance to the museum. It is made of Idaho Quartzite and was designed to look like the ruins of a Scottish castle. The 51k square foot building is up on a hill overlooking the National Elk Refuge and blends into the scenery very well.

On the left is The Humpback and the right is Wyoming Sage, both by Carl Rungius. Carl Rungius is known as the preeminent North American wildlife artist. He was German, but he began his career in Wyoming, not far from where the museum in now. The museum displays the largest public collection of his works in the US.

These two works are Great Hot Springs and Great Falls – they were both done by Thomas Moran. He was the painter on the the 1872 Hayden Expedition to Yellowstone. Do the sites look familiar from my last post?

When the museum first opened in Jackson in 1987 it was the Wildlife of the American West Art Museum. It was in 2008 that the Museum received its designation as the “National Museum of Wildlife Art of the United States” by order of Congress. Since then the museum is broadening its scope to wildlife across the globe. They commissioned these works by Robert F Kuhn, known as the African Suite.

Three more pieces from left to right they are the Mares of Diomedes, by Gutzon Borglum – you might remember him from Mount Rushmore; the Tiger by Ai Weiwei – which is done in Legos; and the Chief by Robert Bateman – this life size bison was created especially for the museum. It was promised for the opening of the new museum building and was delivered and installed the day the museum opened – that’s cutting it close!

After our two hour tour we went into Jackson to get some lunch. We then walked around town, dd some shopping, and got some photos of the elk horn arches that flank the town square. That’s Cookie and Whitney enjoying a quick rest in the top photos. And then Trish noticed there was a live camera feed, so she captured this image of us waving to the camera.

Here is a shot of downtown, and the bar where we decided to have a drink.

The Cowboy Bar is famous for having bar stools that are saddles – not all the comfortable so one drink was enough.

And then we drove to the Moulton Ranch – which is part of the area settled by Mormon homesteaders in the early 1900’s – the area was abandoned by the mid-1900’s and the land was eventually added to GTNP.

And we spotted a rainbow. Then is was back into town for dinner at Hatch – I highly recommend this place if you like Mexican food.

Although we missed the official tour, we were lucky enough that the docent let us into the residence – most of the furnishings are from the Murie’s – pretty much a basic cabin in the woods.

We spotted this barred owl on the property behind one of the cabins. We found out later that they are not native to the area, and the first documented breeding pair in GTNP was found just this spring.

Whitney sitting on the porch of the cabin where John Denver would stay. He became good friends with Mardy and wrote A Song for All Lovers for her – you can hear it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8jqTR9atEw.

Proof that John Denver had visited and a picture of the Murie brothers – that’s Adolph on the left and Olaus on the right.

We had packed a picnic lunch and found a picnic area with this great view of the mountains – and of us – Trish, Whitney, Cookie, Anne and Suzy.

And this was the view across the street from the picnic area.

We stopped at several overlooks for these great views of the Teton mountains.

We drove to the top of Signal Mountain, where we got these views of the Snake River.

We spotted a bison on the floor of the valley – can you find it?

And Whitey painted the scene. I was impressed by what she could do in less then 1.5 hours.

There was also a herd of elk in the field including this bull.

We got up early on Friday for a float down the Snake River. We were driven about seven miles upstream and were dropped off at the private boat launch at the Snake River Ranch.

We were greeted by a hot air balloon drifting by, and this eagle was at the launch.

Some views from the river.

Photos of the passengers on the float.

We saw several more eagles along the river, as well as an osprey just after the guide told us most of them of them had moved on for the season.

We also saw these common mergansers on the river.

Here are some last shots of the river and a video I took during our float: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/mgjmokoi9h9enek6pby23/2023-09-15-09.32.52.mov?rlkey=1qyl5maiozi2lr2yzgyc04t7c&dl=0

Then it was back into town for breakfast/lunch at the Cafe Genevieve, which had been recommended by our river guide. Another short walk around town where we spotted this ground squirrel – these are squirrels that live in burrows on the ground and don’t climb trees. None of us had seen them before.

The rest of the day was mostly relaxing – we were all pretty tired. We celebrated Cookie’s 80th birthday and Suzy’s upcoming 65th birthday with a wonderful Grilled Steak and Salmon dinner that Trish cooked up for us. Then we played “What do You Meme?” and had German Chocolate Cake for dessert.

On Saturday, Trish got up early to drive Cookie and Whitney to their 6:30 AM departure for their all day Yellowstone tour. When it was time to take Suzy to the airport we both went. Then it was back to town for the farmers market.

On the walk through town we came across a slew of benches that we hadn’t seen before. I got to sit with some famous folks: the Wright brothers, Thomas Jefferson, Sojourner Truth, Amelia Earhart, Ben Franklin and Mark Twain with Tom and Becky.

While we were in Jackson, they were having the Jackson Hole Fall Arts Festival. One of the highlights of that is the QuickDraw, which was going on on the town square at the same time as the farmer’s market. There were 30 artists set up on the square, and they had 90 minutes to complete there artwork (they were allowed to block in the beginning before hand, but needed to do the bulk of the actual painting that day.)

We arrived just before 10:30 as they were finishing up so we didn’t get to see many of the artists working but we did catch this woman, who we had seen working on the smaller version of this the day before in one of the galleries in town.

Above are some other examples of the artwork. Not everything was painting and it wasn’t all wildlife. When we drove back through town about an hour later, they had started the auction. Don’t know which painting or artist it was but the bidding was up to $16k – not too shabby.

We then drove through the National Elk Refuge. It was still too early in the year to see any elk here because the snow and cold weather have not driven them down from the mountains yet. The refuge was started in 1912, and is now nearly 25k acres.

The area is a glacial plain with rolling hills and a narrow, winding creek, lying between the two mountain ranges. It is managed to provide habitat for elk and bison, as well as other native species such as wolves, trumpeter swans, bald eagles, bighorn sheep, and cutthroat trout. If it is necessary because of a harsh winter where the animals can not get to the grasses to forage, they provide supplemental feeding of alfalfa pellets.

We didn’t see any large wildlife but we did see this hawk that spotted something to go after.

There was also this belted kingfisher and a flicker. We saw some other birds but I couldn’t get any decent pictures.

The scene on the left is the Miller homestead, it was built at the turn of the last century and was originally the home of the superintendent of GTNP. It and 1,200 acres were bought in 1914 as the beginning of the refuge. There is still some private property within the refuge, and there were these eagle and elk statues outside one of the ranches.

It was a great day and the temperature was in the mid 70’s, so we decided to go the the Astoria Hot Springs, which are about 1/2 hour south of Jackson. They have six outdoor pools filled with spring water and controlled at different temperatures. I didn’t take any pictures there, but this is the red bridge across the Snake River that you need to go over to get to the springs. Good thing we weren’t in the RV.

No one needed to pick up Whitney and Cookie, as their driver/guide agreed to drop them at the VRBO. They arrived home tired but happy to have seen many of the Yellowstone sights – their tour was the Lower Loop that hits many of the highlights – like the tour we did on the first day we were there.

On Sunday, Sept 17 we got up early and were on the road to Jenny Lake by 8 AM. We made a couple stops at photo ops along the way including this herd of pronghorn and some aspens that were starting to turn.

We got to Jenny Lake by 9 AM and were able to get a parking spot in the lot pretty close to the visitors center. Here are some reflection views of Teton Range. Jenny Lake is one of the highlights of the park – photographers and painters come here for sunrise – it’s where Whitney came to paint the first morning she was here.

Kayakers on Jenny Lake and another view of the lake. There is a boat that can take you across the lake or a trail that goes around the lake. We decided to walk around to the boat landing on the other side, and then take the boat back.

We thought the trail was 1.5 miles, and Cookie decided not to join us. That was good, because the trail was actually 2.5 miles, up and down and lots of tree roots – it took us over 2 hours to walk it.

Views of the mountains and more aspens along the trail.

Near the end of the hike Cascade Creek runs into Jenny Lake. At this point you can walk up the canyon and go to Inspiration Point or Hidden Falls, we left those for our next trip, when we take the boat over to this side of the lake. Instead we walked a little further and finally came across this sign.

What a relief!

This was the boat we got to ride back to the other side of the lake.

Some shots of the lake from the boat.

These are the photos we took when we got back to the other side – very happy hikers! We found Cookie wondering what had taken us so long to get there.

We saw some more pronghorn on our way into town – where we had burgers at Liberty Burger. On the walk back to the car, I took this picture of the American Legion statue. Then it was back to the condo to begin packing up as we were all leaving in the morning.

We picked up dinner from Bubba’s BBQ and went to Laurie and Chip’s house for dinner that evening. And we had another moose siting when we got there. That’s Laurie, Chip and Laurie’s brother Robert who was visiting from Cheyenne. We had a great time visiting – reminiscing about the Cirone family and catching up on the 45 or so years since we had seen each other.

We left the VRBO at at 5 AM on Monday, September 18 to get Whitney and Cookie to the airport for their 7 AM flight. Then we napped for about 45 minutes before going to look for the sunrise. It wasn’t great but I got some decent photos.

On the way back to the VRBO to finish packing up, we caught site of this fox – our last wildlife for this portion of the trip. We packed up the car, went back to Laurie’s and repacked the RV. Then we had to take the rental car back to the airport.

This is the statue and the sign that greet you at the airport – which I finally got a picture of on our last trip out of the airport.

But soon we were leaving GTNP for the last time and driving along the Snake River on our way to Idaho. All about that next time.

Until then, safe travels!