Grand Tetons to Home

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

The view kept changing as the sun came up on Grand Teton. We couldn’t see the lake from our campsite, but it appeared foggy clouds were lifting off the lake and shrouding the lower part of the mountain. It was very pretty.

After breakfast we broke camp about 9 am and set off for the Jenny Lake VC. After many photo op stops along the way, we did eventually get our stamps at Jenny Lake VC, then at the Moose VC. There were road restrictions on the road to the last place we wanted to go, so we had to leave it for another time.

Feeling like we had done everything we wanted to do in the park, except see wildlife, we went out the Moose entrance station and headed for Jackson, known to many as Jackson Hole. There we fueled up and decided to go over the mountain route toward Idaho Falls.

The mountain route was pretty, but was definitely a mountain. We didn’t have to get out and push because our pickups are plenty powerful, but the 10 percent grade for several miles was kind of extreme, and equally steep going down the other side.

In Idaho Falls we stopped for lunch, then found our way out of town on route 20, planning to stop for the night at Craters of the Moon. We arrived there and stopped in at the VC. They have a large map of the world where you can put a small headed push pin in to indicate where you are from. Our area was already thickly covered, but we saw lots of coverage all over. Europe was pretty much covered also, and lots from Australia, New Zealand, Guam, eastern Asia, and on and on – just about anywhere you could imagine. We asked how long that had been up to get so many different countries represented, and they said they remove all the pins every year and start fresh. That was totally amazing to us. We had no idea they would get that much traffic from all over the world.

We went on down to the campground and found a camper in distress so we stopped to help. He had tried to back a camper van into a spot without guidance, and hung up on a rock. Trying to get out, the tires just dug a hole in the loose lava sand, and he was trying to jack it up to put some boards under it for traction. We must have spent about an hour there before success. They were from North Carolina. It chewed up a portion of the fiberglass, and scratched up their bumper, but could have been worse.

Glad to help them get out, but by then we didn’t want to get our much heavier units off into the loose stuff, so headed for home, arriving about 9 pm. It was a long day.

We had a really great trip, and Wilma can knock Glacier National Park off her bucket list. We have much to do to get the rigs cleaned up, resupplied, and ready to go on our next adventure.  That might be in the next couple of weeks or so, so stay tuned!