Anyway, on to day 16 - from Teton to Yellowstone today! Big day. Followed a short path from our campground over to the river to check out the view and look for animals (no luck), then packed up camp. We drove south to Jackson first to stock up on groceries and call my dad. Bummed that we didn’t have time to walk around Jackson – cute town! We looped back the way we came, and after a long delay due to a car accident on the two-lane road, saw our final views of the Tetons as we drove north to Yellowstone. Quick stop at Colter Bay for a picnic lunch, then on to Yellowstone.
I was excited for everyone to see Yellowstone. All through the trip, we had been amazed at how different each area was from the last, but with all the geothermal activity, Yellowstone was quite the outlier. We purposely hadn't watched many videos or researched together as a whole family so we could preserve some surprise. Our first stop was the Grant Village Visitor Center, where we watched another park intro movie and grabbed a map. Heading up the east side of the figure-8 loop from the south, we then stopped at West Thumb Geyser Basin, our first view of Yellowstone’s hot springs and geysers. The short loop next to Yellowstone Lake was packed with mud pits and multi-colored springs. Great start to our visit!
Continuing our drive up the loop to our campground at Canyon Village (the east side in the middle of that figure-8), we lucked out with animal sightings. We stopped everywhere others were stopped, and saw our first (and last) grizzly bear. It was walking up on a hill, pretty far away from us, but easily identifiable as a grizzly. Glad we got to see one, and extra glad for that distance! We also saw elk right next to the road (huge antlers!), plus a slew of other animals: bison, mule deer, trumpeter swans, bluebirds, huge ravens, and geese.
Everyone was on a high from all the animal sightings, but then our luck turned. The rain started as we reached Canyon Village, so we headed to the huge camp store to wait it out. When the rain didn't let up, we ditched our campground dinner plan and decided to eat at the restaurants here. Finally, there was a lull, so we hurried to check into our campsite. We arrived to find a pool of water around 2” deep over the entire tent pad area. We had started moving stuff into the bear box, but almost immediately moved everything back to the car when we realized the site had no reasonable place for our tents.
We got switched to a new, much less swampy campsite, but right as we reached it, the skies opened up again – huge thunderstorm. It was getting late. Bill set up our tent in the rain under the fly (I'm glad he knew how to do this!) while I helped the girls fold down the back seat in the car so they could make a bed there instead of trying to set up their tent. They were kind of excited about it and looked at it as a fun adventure, in a true "embrace the suck" moment. That excitement wore off – it continued to thunderstorm all night, so between the sound of the rain and thunder, the lightning flashes, and the humidity (we couldn’t crack the windows), they had a long night. On balance though, we had a great day and everyone was dry all night, so it could've been much worse!
