The Grand Tetons and Jackson, Wyoming - The Final Park

The Grand Tetons and Jackson Hole

     The Grand Teton Mountains abut the southern part of Yellowstone, have sharp, pointed, jagged, peaks of up to 13,800 feet, and are pointed because they are granite and recently formed (12 million years ago while the granite itself is 3 billion years old).  The snaking rivers and abundant wildlife gave us the fun experiences to kayak on the Snake River, bicycle to the ski resort, and go up the mountains on an ATV (a precipitous trail formed by the U.S. Forest Service just this year for the first time).  We saw many, many fly fishermen on the rivers.

String Lake where we hiked along the shore and had a picnic lunch

     The town where our motor coach was parked was Jackson Hole, a very upscale town (10,000) with many, many art galleries offering outstanding (and very expensive) art.   Barbara was in her element.   In addition to the galleries, the shops and restaurants were like those of Utah's Park City, offering elegant leathers, unique menus of elk and buffalo, and lots of Western clothing.  We celebrated Harold's birthday at the Snake River Grill and enjoyed a wonderful evening of exotic food. 

Harold during his somewhat harrowing but exciting ATV tour near the Tetons.

Jackson City square has a portal made of elk antlers, the sidewalks are old boards, and the farmer's market our first day in town was outstanding.  Buffalo Bill's Cowboy Bar has saddles instead of stools.  Sorry to say we left before having the chance to fall off.

     We rode our bicycles the 28-mile round trip up to the famous Jackson Hole ski resort lodge for lunch; the resort is known for very steep runs and narrow canyons.

The below photo from Google shows the resort in Winter

     We revisited the famous National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson, where we were several years ago with Barbara's sister Jean and her husband Jim Lemmon.  The museum is world famous and holds annual contests and auctions of work from artists all over the world.

This painting "Days of Bison Millions" by Carl Rungius is one of many of this famous artist's western work we saw.

We also saw "Buffalo Hunt under White Wolf Skin" by George Catlin.  Birds, elk, wolves, buffalo and all other wildlife of Wyoming are here in this great museum. 

     After our final week in Wyoming, we returned to Salt Lake City via Idaho.  Final thoughts and conclusions about our 8,000-mile odyssey through 18 states and one in Canada will be offered in a final post soon.  We had a great time, met a lot of very interesting people, experimented with full-time RVing, and saw a lot of our beautiful and rich country.