We began our Year of the Geyser with a trip to the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone! We took a nine day vacation out west to see these two amazing national parks. All said and done, we hiked around fifty miles! We stayed in the parks with limited internet and no television. It was a special time to spend with the kids. It was fun to watch them explore and develop a love of nature. We saw tons of different animals on the trip too!
We arrived late Friday night and didn't make it to our hotel until after midnight. It was kind of scary to hop in a rental car and drive in the dark with sign after sign warning about bison, bear and deer crossing the road. We couldn't see the view when we arrived to our room, so waking up that first morning was like Christmas morning! We stayed at the Jackson Lake Lodge.
Every morning, I would grab a huckleberry muffin and latte for myself and cinnamon buns for the kids from the lobby.
I knew we were going to spend hours in the car exploring so each kid had a chair organizer full of activities!
It was a little cloudy the first morning. We stopped at several overlooks for views of the Tetons, but the view from our room was our favorite.
We loved our rental car!
Schwabacher Landing
We saw lots of baby ducks.
Taggart Lake Trail
It was a long journey to the lake, but the views were amazing.
Mormon Row
We saw lots of prairie dogs here.
Harper thoroughly enjoyed cat's cradle!
We were very excited about our first bison!
We had lunch at a cute counter restaurant at our lodge. Our waitress was from Davidson College!
Our view from the room! There was a mom and baby moose family we could see each evening.
We went out canoeing Saturday afternoon. There was a strong current and I couldn't make it to the bay area we were shooting for. Ethan was also terrified so we had to switch him to Alex's canoe.
We drove down to Jackson Hole Saturday night for our first rodeo!
It was pretty neat!
We started Sunday morning with a shuttle ride across Jenny Lake for our first hike.
We loved hiking Hidden Falls and Inspiration Point.
Harper made friends with a chipmunk.
Deer
We put charms on the kids shoes to encourage wearing hiking boots and hiking. Ethan wanted a unicorn.
Harper wanted a cat.
Harper collected a few rocks along the hike and carried them in her bandana.
The view from Signal Mountain was beautiful!
We spent some time at the pool. Even though it was heated, it was still very chilly!
This short hike turned into a four mile hike through the woods. We were usually with multiple other people on our hikes, but we were all alone on this one. It would have been a great hike, but I was too busy being worried about bears to enjoy it!
Alex carried Ethan nearly the entire hike.
We saw a cute beaver!
Our first black bear sighing!
Of course Ethan was asleep.
We ate at the Mural Room in our lodge Sunday night.
We did a quick trail Monday morning.
Then we went on a scenic float tour of the Snake River from Jackson.
We saw several bald eagles.
Our guide was great and let the kids captain the boat for a little bit!
We had to stop by Moo's Ice Cream in Jackson.
Jackson Hole
We ate at Dornan's on our way back to the lodge. We were able to catch the Hootenanny that takes place every Monday night in the summer. Local musicians come to play while people eat dinner.
We loved Jackson Lake Lodge and the Grand Tetons!
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