On our third day at Yellowstone, we drove to the Grand Tetons.  Unfortunately, it was over a 3 hour trip through Yellowstone National Park to reach Grand Tetons.  We took the quickest route through Yellowstone, but it was still a LLLLOOOONNNNGGG drive.  I took a turn sitting in the very back row of the car where it is quite cramped for three people, but I wanted the kids to know that I was willing to suffer through it right along with them.  If this overweight 49 year old can get back there and spend 8 hours or so riding in the back of the car, it shouldn’t be worth so many complaints from 20 year olds and under. 

It was a rainy, dreary day so we didn’t even get out of the car very much once we made it to the Tetons.  We stopped at two different chapels that were built in the early 1900s in the park.  The first was the Catholic Chapel of the Sacred Heart and the second was the Episcopal Chapel of the Transfiguration. 

Finally we stopped by a historic area of the park where we learned about a few of the early homesteaders.  They discovered that crops didn’t grow very well in that environment, so they decided to go into the tourism business.  They began opening dude ranches to give people the experience of ranch life.  Eventually they sold their land to the government to create Grand Tetons National Park.

The Grand Tetons are really a very beautiful place.  We did manage to see a sizeable herd of elk on our way out of the park.  We haven’t really been able to do the park justice in the amount of time we’ve been able to visit there.  Each time we’ve had to drive from Yellowstone to get there, and both times it has been quite a lengthy drive, so we’ve spent more time in the car than time visiting the park.

When we drove back into Yellowstone, we decided to go the somewhat longer route back to the campground because it took us through areas where bears frequent more.  This time we were in luck!  Charlie rounded a bend and spotted a bear on the side of the road.  We had a great time watching him/her.  He/she was just frolicking around, turning over a log of wood to see what kind of food he could find beneath.  We ended up determining that he was a cinnamon colored black bear.

We drove further along and saw a group of people off on the side of the road watching something, so we jumped out to see what they were seeing.  And again we were in luck as they were watching a mama black bear and one or two cubs (we were never sure exactly how many we were able to see).  They were a good distance away, so we took turns watching them through binoculars.  Oh but they were so much fun to watch!  The mama jumped up vertically onto a tree, and a couple minutes later we were able to watch one of the cubs climb a tree.  It was like she was out there teaching him! Pictures didn’t really turn out since they were so far away.

We were pretty satisfied with our wildlife sightings, although we were still hoping to see a grizzly or two.  Off we went back to the campground reminiscing about watching the bears.  Along the way we spotted a herd of buffalo with lots of babies close to the road as well as some pronghorn and deer.

We were going to give grizzlies one more chance early the next morning, so there was still hope.

Rebecca