We spent two nights in Jackson. On our first full day, we got up early and headed to Bubba's for a delicious breakfast. The avocado toast is the best.
After breakfast, we drove to the Grand Tetons and spent the day hiking and enjoying the beauty of the majestic mountains. One can enjoy every angle of the Tetons by driving through the park.
It is because of John D. Rockefeller, Jr that the Tetons is a National Park. He visited Jackson Hole in 1920. He was so upset with the way the landscape was being developed that he began buying the land. Years later, he donated 32,000 acres of the valley to the federal government. He wanted to make sure that the area would be preserved for future generations.
There are so many different areas throughout the Tetons to visit. You could actually spend days. One of the prettiest areas is Jenny Lake. This lake was formed 12,000 years ago by glaciers. The lake is 78 miles deep and about 1,192 acres. Jenny Lake was named after a Shoshone Indian who married an Englishman. Jenny and their six children died of smallpox in 1876.
After hiking around Jenny Lake, we drove to Jackson Lake Dam to enjoy the sandwiches that we had purchased. The Snake River emerges from the dam and flows about 800 miles through Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon and Washington to its mouth on the Columbia River in eastern Washington.
Our last stop for the day was Colter Bay Village. Due to the pandemic everything was closed in the village. We enjoyed walking around the water and observing the Grand Tetons. This village was built in the 1950s to expand park visitors and to introduce automobile tourism.
We drove back to Jackson to enjoy dinner and then listened to music at the "Million Dollar Cowboy Bar".
The next morning it was raining and the temperature had dropped into the 40s. We were driving through Yellowstone Park to arrive in Bozeman, Montana that evening.
You can spend days in Yellowstone Park. We were only spending a few hours. I have been to Yellowstone many times, but each time it is always a new experience as if I am seeing it for the first time. Katie had never been there, so I was excited in sharing the park with her. I knew we only had several hours there and I wanted to make sure she saw Old Faithful.
Let me give you a little history about Yellowstone. It was signed into law on March 1, 1872 by President Grant. It was one of the first national parks in the U.S. and some say that it was the first national park in the world.
96% of Yellowstone is in Wyoming; 3% in Montana and 1% in Idaho. Yellowstone makes up 2,219,789 acres. It is 63 miles(north to south) and 54 miles(west to east).
The park contains many features, such as Old Faithful; 290 waterfalls; has one of the world's largest petrified forests and there are so many more features.
We arrived at Old Faithful and the parking lot was packed. We had just missed the eruption of the geyser. We enjoyed walking around and seeing the hot springs, as well as running into buffaloes, as we waited for the next eruption of Old Faithful.
The Yellowstone Lodge is a spectacular hotel. It was closed, so we weren't able to enjoy the beauty inside the inn. This lodge was completed in 1904 at a cost of $140,000. The wood structure and the seventy-six foot tall lobby is a masterpiece. The hotel is one of the largest log-style structure in the world and is a National Historic Landmark.
Old Faithful is a geyser and it was the first to be named back in 1870. It is very predictable of erupting every 44 minutes to 2 hours. Eruption height is 106 to 185 feet. About 1 1/2 hours later, Old Faithful began to make its grand entrance with lots of hissing and gurgling. The eruption was as tall as the Tower of Pisa. The people that were standing on the boardwalk watching the geyser were oohing and aahing. It is a site to be seen.
After taking many photos and fighting the crowds, we drove up the road to "Midway Geyser Basin". It is breathtaking! You cross over the river and then walk almost a mile on the boardwalk to these spectacular hot springs and other hydrothermal wonders. One is in awe of the spectacular colors. This is Yellowstone's largest hot springs.
It is amazing what one can see in several hours. If we hadn't other states to visit, we would have stayed longer. Next stop Bozeman, Montana. .......end of Road Trip-Colorado, Wyoming & Idaho(Part 2).
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