Saddle Up!

Yellowstone to Grand Teton:

After a brisk night of sleeping, we woke up to a tent covered in condensation. We had an appointment so we had to pack up the wet tent, finish our smoked salmon for breakfast and head towards Canyon Village. The previous day we reserved a horseback tour of the back-country just south of there. Neither of us had ever been on a horse before but I think we looked pretty natural:



Lisa didn't even look nervous:



The tour followed a path through fields, woods and even next to a cliff (Lisa got sweaty palms). The exciting part of the trip was when the guides went to scare a bull bison away from the trail and one of their horses got spooked. It kept backing up and finally moved back enough that the rider fell off. (She was fine, but it certainly looked dramatic!) Our horses were both old and fat though, their names were Casper (the friendly horse) and Biscuit.

After our epic tour (which lasted WAY longer than the hour advertised) I had my oil changed in Yellowstone! A boring thing to do, but I was impressed that I could actually have that done there.

After figuring out how to reset the oil service display on the car, we drove south and had a picnic at Lewis Lake picnic area. Spaghetti-O’s with meatballs! There was a group there from Australia eating sandwiches that were jealous of our lunch - I would have traded them even...

We headed south into Grand Teton National Park where we were in awe of the jagged snow-capped peaks and bright blue water below them. We stopped at a picnic area to admire the view:



When we got into Colter Bay we grabbed a campsite for the night and decided to drive to the top of Signal Mountain. The panoramic view was clear with the bright blue sky and we snapped many more pictures.

Here is Jackson Hole (the eastward view from Signal Mountain):




Here is the view of the Tetons (the westward view from Signal Mountain):



On our trip back to Colter Bay we stopped and showered in the “village” - it was well needed after four days without. We then went to John Colter’s Ranch House for bacon wrapped meat-loaf, a real meal!