Last Day of Vacation - Floating With the Eagles

Our last full day of vacation, and some brilliant person (me, of course!) decided that a SUNRISE float down the Snake River in the Tetons would be way cooler than a normal time of, oh, 9AM. So, we set the alarm and got up at 4:30, to get ourselves to our meeting point at 5:45. Knowing it was chilly in the mornings, we came prepared - socks, long pants, jackets with a few layers underneath. We were more prepared than some, but definitely not as prepared as the lady who just flew in from Arizona. She was wearing ski pants and a parka! Our float guide was Colby, and he was fun and nice and full of entertaining stories. And cute... :-) The float was awesome. 2 hours on the river, incredible scenery, and we saw a moose, an osprey, three elk, and three bald eagles. Very very cool!

John looks none the worse for the 4:30 AM wake-up call.

Amazing amazing mountains. Wish it weren't so hazy.

I'm bundled up and looking sexy in my life preserver.

Our guide, Colby. He does river guides all summer, then does construction work in the winter. And he said the average house price for a single family home in Jackson - $1.3 million. Want to move to Jackson, anyone??
Getting further in to the park, closer to the mountains.
Our first bald eagle encounter
We gaze at the mountains between eagle sightings.
Not too shabby...
A second bald eagle poses nicely for us
Takes a second to preen his feathers
Then maybe sees a good food source in the distance. Eagles are EXCELLENT scavengers, and stealers of food from osprey. Nice bird to have for a national symbol, eh?
A little more mountain gazing before...
One last eagle. This guys was RIGHT above our head.

And that was it! We hopped out of the river just a few yards away from our car, hopped in, and drove down the Moose-Wilson Road, and then down a tiny one lane gravel road with a sign saying "four wheel drive recommended" to get to a trail head for a quick hike. Four wheel drive? Who needs it! It's not our car.

It was a .9 mile hike to the Phelps Lake overlook. Pretty little hike, up hill the whole way there. We didn't go any further - my feet were dying after our little hike the day before. Darn blisters.
Phelps Lake
John's daily "look cute for your mom" photo. He does a pretty good job with them - somehow he always manages to look cute.

Checking out the pretty wild flowers on the hike back.
As well as the awesome aspen trees

We finished up our hike and hopped in the car for a bit of driving. Continued down Moose-Wilson Road (which we had heard had a good possibility of a moose sighting, but we had no luck) to the fancy Teton Village. Definitely a resort we could not afford to stay at. We wandered back in to Jackson, stopped to get some yummy elk and buffalo jerky, and drove back north in to the park for some more photo opportunities.

Our obligatory photo with the sign.
Thought this was a cool shot. This is on a gravel road, called "Mormon Row." I can't remember why - old settler's houses.
Another cool shot on Mormon Row
Huge buffalo herd (those little black specs at the bottom) in front of the Tetons
A little sage in the foreground, hazy mountains behind
Snake River in the foreground, with a little reflection of the mountains

We drove a bit further north to the Snake River Overlook pull-off, just above where we put our raft in the river earlier in the morning. This is about the spot where Ansel Adams took his super famous photo of the Tetons - it's hanging in my parent's dining room, I think. The trees have grown since then, so you don't get quite the same view. And Ansel Adams didn't have the damn haze to deal with. But if you use your imagination you can kind of see his shot...

My best re-creation of Ansel Adams
Me at the Snake River Overlook. John really liked my socks and sandals look...
John and I stand in front of the Ansel Adams view
Even further north in the park, a nice view of the Tetons with the Snake River in front
We stop at Signal Mountain Lodge to eat lunch at a picnic table by Jackson Lake
I am pretty sure I am laughing at John because he tried to take a picture with the camera off and the lens cap still on.
Nice little place to have lunch. And then we wandered up to the store to get some ice cream for dessert. Who says you have to have a 6 and an 8 year old around to have ice cream? :-)

We wanted to drive up Signal Mountain Road, but the road was closed. So we opted for a more vigorous work-out. A two mile round trip hike up to the Grand View Point. Definitely a grand view. Although I think John was a bit freaked out for the hike - there was a nice little pile of poop right at the head of the trail that may well have been bear poop. We needed Dave Telesco with us!

Where we were headed...
From the Grand View Point - this is Two Ocean Lake
My blisters survived this hike - I switched to sneakers.

A nice snack of Swedish Fish (definitely the best candy ever invented) and we were off to our last little drive of the day - a trip down the Jenny Lake Scenic Drive. It was very pretty and a nice way to end our quick trip to the Tetons. We'll definitely come back some time in the future! The little one needs to see this place, too.

View along the scenic drive
Jenny Lake and the Tetons
Not a bad way to end a visit to the Tetons
Our poor, dirty, abused rental car. It was good to us!

We got back to Jackson in time to go to the town square to see what the nightly "Cowboy Shootout" was all about. Turns out it was pretty terrible, so we skipped out of there, popped in to the Million Dollar Cowboy bar to take a quick photo of us sitting on a saddle, instead of a bar stool. And then headed back to our favorite restaurant for dinner - Snake River Brewing Company.

We slept in a bit on Tuesday, packed up and wandered around down town a little bit, and then drove back to our favorite place to eat for some lunch before we headed to the airport. Check-in was a breeze, security was a piece of cake. And then? We found out that our flight was delayed. By a lot. Like 5 hours. So we had to change our plans a bit. After waiting in line forever, John used his newly learned "How to Win Friends and Influence People" skills and got us on to a later flight to Denver, and the red eye flight to Dulles. His smiling skills, I am sure, were instrumental in getting us nice roomy exit row seats on each flight. Good work, John!

So after way too long in airports and on airplanes, we finally made it back to Rich and Vanessa's house at 6AM on Wednesday to pick up our car. John decided to risk the potential traffic and just drive home right then. Traffic was amazingly fine (I think - I was sleeping) and we got home around 8:30.

We completely enjoyed our trip to Yellowstone and the Tetons. Definitely a trip to repeat in the future. We'd recommend this little vacation to anyone!