Sunday - 11 miles of WOW

Sunday morning was a good morning to sleep in a bit, and then we needed a trip to K-Mart to replace the insoles in my poor old boots. I had worn holes in them from the walking we'd done, and my feet were hurting after the 5 mile hike we did the day before.

After our K-Mart visit we drove to the Jenny Lake Visitor Center in the Tetons (which was PACKED - it was like a repeat of the Old Faithful parking lot, except not quite as big). We snagged a hiking map from the visitor center and decided we'd pay $5 each to ride a boat across the lake, and then we'd hike back the 2 miles around the lake on the way home, as we'd read that the line for the boat in the afternoon was really long. Our plan was to hike the one mile to Hidden Falls and Inspiration Point, then continue for a little ways up Cascade Canyon to see what we could see.

Can't seem to take enough photos of the Tetons. This was on the drive up to Jenny Lake.

John on the boat ride across the lake

Not a shabby view during our boat ride
Wish it wasn't so hazy, though. We were told that some of the extra haze might be from the smoke from the California fires. So - we'll just have to come back some time in the fall, when it's more clear! :-)
Hidden Falls (which was mobbed, but still pretty)
Still with my flower obsession...
Here's where I get to look cute for a photo for my mom
And John looking cute, although not really smiling (and of course, not as cute as me...) for a photo for his mom. GO HOKIES! One lady stopped to take a picture of John's shirt while we were hiking this day.
The view was Inspiration Point was fairly inspirational. Inspired us to hike up the canyon some more to see if the views got better.

Jenny Lake
Let's go that way to see what we find! It's sure to be a pretty hike.
And this trail did not disappoint. It was gorgeous every step of the way
So gorgeous that it took us FOREVER to hike up the canyon - had to stop for photos a lot
Cute boy, pretty view
The nice folks who took this picture for us had just run in to a moose on the trail, about 20 minutes up the canyon. More incentive to keep going up the trail!
Amazing, amazing
Here's where we turned around. SO - 4.5 miles back to the lake, plus 2 miles more around the lake (unless we wimp out and decide to take the boat back across the lake)
We ran in to a group of people who were checking out these two moose on the other side of the river. We'd have never ever seen them if this group of people hadn't seen them first.
They were two HUGE bull moose. They never got up - they were just hanging out in the shade.
So the line for the boat back across the lake was HUGE, so despite being tired and being out of water (but some nice French man gave us a refill before we continued), we hiked two miles back around the lake. THAT was a long two miles. But pretty.
John's still pretty peppy with about a quarter mile to go. I was dragging. Never was I so happy to see our rental car!!

We limped home, showered, and went out to dinner at a yummy Mexican grill. I think I fell in to bed and didn't move all night. We needed to get up early on Monday morning - in time for our sunrise float down the Snake River.