Yellowstone or bust!

We headed out to Yellowstone from Idaho Falls on 7/19.  We did a lot of research on the best route for a motorhome to take.  I found a website where a guy described in great detail the routes to all 5 of Yellowstone's entrances.  If you've never been to Yellowstone, you may not know the park is huge! Our campground was 2 miles south of the South entrance, so that was the way to go.  There was one road this guy and numerous people on RV forums said to stay away from (over Teton Pass), and of course our RV-specific GPS wanted us to go that way.  Well, we outsmarted it this time!  We had a beautiful drive through, Jackson, WY, and then Grand Teton NP before getting to our campground. Saw some bison near Jackson, I think, and had a deer run beside us for a few scary minutes.  It had a nice little rack started in case you like to know those things.

Oh, let me add here that everywhere you look they are talking about bears, so I was very nervous the entire time we were there about running into a bear.  The campground has rules about NOTHING being left outside, they sell and recommend bear spray everywhere, and the newsletters for both parks have all this info on what to do in different bear situations.  And by nervous, I mean I had so much anxiety I really couldn't enjoy the beautiful hikes we did.  More on those later.

We set up camp and then took the Jeep on a dirt road right outside our campground that went through National Forest.  We actually saw quite a bit more people and vehicles than I was expecting.  We saw a nice lake and then tried to find another, but ended up on a true 4-wheeler road.  We turned around before reaching the lake - not that the Jeep couldn't make it, but Chuck had just gotten an alignment in Bend and it smelled like something was burning, so I didn't relish the thought of being stuck out there. We saw a sign for some cascades, so we went to check that out.

After that adventure, I convinced them to take a ride down to Jenny Lake in Grand Teton.  We have a picture of that in our house, so I knew it would be awesome, but wow, is it even better in person!  We were always there at the wrong time of day for pics, though, so I don't have great ones.  We drove back and saw some animals from afar.  Did not get a good pic of those.  There was great debate on whether they were elk or moose.  I think we decided on elk.

Some wildflowers

Jenny Lake

String Lake - between Jenny &  Leigh Lakes