"" Writer's Wanderings: Road Trip 2015 - Onward Through Grand Teton

Monday, October 19, 2015

Road Trip 2015 - Onward Through Grand Teton

The day we set out to leave the Yellowstone area the sun was shining brightly. After so many days of cloudy, rainy and even snowy weather, I had some mixed emotions about leaving it behind. I'd seen enough elks and bison but the one picture I really wanted to capture was a good shot of Old Faithful against a blue sky.

To get to our next destination we had to drive past the interchange where Old Faithful is. There is actually an interchange there sort of like a freeway exit and entrance because of the heavy traffic that would obviously be there in the busy season. As we approached I asked Bob if we could give it one more try. We'd drive to the information center and see what time was posted and try to catch it before we left.

As we neared the area my heart sank. I'd seen Old Faithful go off twice the day before and I was pretty sure that all the steam in the sky was from it erupting as we drove into the parking lot. Sure enough the sign on the door indicated we had just missed it! We circled around and headed south for Grand Teton National Park.

Once we passed out of Yellowstone, we were in the John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Memorial Parkway. It connects Yellowstone and Grand Teton and commemorates the contributions to conservation by Rockefeller on behalf of the National Park System. At Headwaters Lodge at Flagg Ranch, we stopped and got a cup of coffee (a nice way of saying it was time for a restroom),

Jackson Lake Lodge lobby.
Relieved and getting over my disappointment about Old Faithful, I began to realize that we had passed into a more mountainous area and it was getting more beautiful by the minute. When we reached Jackson Lake Lodge, we stopped for lunch. The lodge was amazing and the scenery was breathtaking out the window of the dining room.

I knew we had quite a few miles to go ahead of us but I really wanted to linger. How had we missed planning more time here? We should have spent the night if for no other reason than to spend some time sitting in a chair and drinking in the fresh air and the view of the majestic mountains around us.

Our view for lunch
Reluctantly we pressed on but now I was truly wishing we'd not planned in so much detail. Perhaps the idea of just striking out and looking for places to stay along the way would have been better. But then I remembered that infamous trip to Niagara Falls where we were forced to sleep in the car one night. . .






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