I originally wrote this on on July 22, 2016, but never posted to my blog because I wanted to write about our trip in order and had not finished writing about Lake Powell, Zion National Park, and Bryce Canyon National Park. I’ve decided to go ahead and post it because, obviously, I’m very, extremely behind and I’d like to share the pics from our trip. Hope you enjoy! We certainly did!
Yellowstone

Sorry it’s been so long since we’ve provided an update! There’s just so much to see and do and we are exhausted when we get back in for the day! We’re in Grand Teton/Jackson Hole area now. It is absolutely gorgeous here! I see why it was Branson’s favorite place on earth. He told me about it often and we talked about traveling here together. It has been a bit emotional for me, but it is worth it to see the splendor of it and to feel close to him in this way.

We spent two days in Yellowstone before coming here. Yellowstone is beautiful too, and very unusual, with its geysers, brightly colored pools of boiling water and varied landscapes. If it were not for the traffic, I would have liked to have stayed there longer. They are doing construction on the roads though, it’s the centennial celebration of the parks (Yellowstone was the first) and it’s July. Traffic is like Christmas in the city and I had an attitude to match! We waited for almost an hour in traffic just to get in to see Old Faithful!

Castle Geyser was my favorite. (Below)

We walked along the entire path at the Old Faithful stop and saw some gorgeous pools of water. Bacteria cause the bright colors.

We did not see Grand Prismatic Spring because the traffic was so crazy there and we had already spent so much time in the car. We did see Mammoth Spring, though.

Yellowstone has beautiful landscapes and flowers, and the wildlife is fascinating to watch if you can reach it through the traffic jams. This bison swam across the river and crossed the street, walking right past a huge group of people as if they weren’t there. Guess he liked that patch of grass! 

Oh, and the animals don’t usually cause the traffic jams, it’s the people looking at the animals who cause them! We once waited for 30 minutes, thinking there must have been a wreck, only to find that people had stopped in the road to get a picture of this deer (or elk?)…

I have a herd of deer in my own yard at home, and yet I snapped this picture…if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, I guess!
Here are more photos of Yellowstone…

This little guy (or big guy, depending on your opinion of bugs) was crawling on my windshield.

I like to call this one “The Taunting Trees” because it looks like the group of evergreens is teasing the poor, dead tree. In the Christmas in July spirit of things, I thought of Rudolph being shunned by the other reindeer.

These trees turn white because they soak up minerals from the ground. They remind me of a Tim Burton movie.

Of course, as always, we met friends along the way.  Bill Blaisdell recently won a contest for his car. He built it himself. He calls it the “Grimm Creeper” and he’s driving it cross country now. He is raising money to fund his cross country trip…maybe I should have thought of that!

There were also some “friends” who drove by and yelled, “Hi Angie!” out of their window while we were talking with a couple by the river. For a brief moment I wondered how I would know them and then I remembered that we wrote my blog address in the dust on the back of my car! I felt like a rock star for a few minutes…that was my 15 seconds of fame, I guess!

Yes, I realize that I should be embarrassed…

After we left Yellowstone, we couldn’t find so much as a campsite available for a decent price within 50 miles of Grand Teton…I had no idea it would be so crazy here, but we did find someone through Airbnb willing to rent us this Airstream that is permanently parked in a campground about 25 miles from Jackson Hole. This is our new friend, Elyse! She is soooo not charging enough…I’ll let her know that when I leave!

Here are pictures of the view from the campground this morning…

It is stunningly beautiful here!

We’re here for four days before we head to Colorado to visit one of Ellis’ friends.  Maybe I’ll get around to a complete post on Grand Teton…who knows…I had very lofty blogging goals in the beginning! Too much to see, too little time!

Love to all of you!

Angie and Eli