Saturday morning came early but we were ready to take off on a beautiful drive with the blue sky and the sun shining!
The first order of business was to drive over the Trail Ridge Road. This is an amazing road, finished in the 1930s, having taken six years to build. It is the oldest, highest continually paved road in the country. It goes about 40 miles over the top of the Rocky Mountains in Rocky Mountain National Park. And what a drive it is. We go through all different kind of climate zones including a big chunk of it is tundra. The road to twists and turns and take shoe higher and higher and higher and tell it is finally over 12,000 feet. The views were breathtaking and nearly every mile.
The alpine tundra was covered with a carpet of wildflowers. Because of the severe winters, short growing season (six weeks), and nearly constant winds, the plants are all very short. The flowers are often less than 2 inches tall. The communities of plants are often able to keep the temperature around them 10 or more degrees warmer than the air above them. We are always amazed at these hardy plants and their pretty flowers.
But the biggest story of the day was animals. Lions, tigers, and bears, oh my! We're actually not any Lions and tigers but we did see the most amazing amount of animals. First, we saw a ton of marmots. Yellow-bellied marmot's to be exact. These are very close relatives to what we might consider groundhogs or woodchucks. They are funny fat little creatures and we get a lot of joy out of watching them chase each other in and out of holes and pose for photos amazing!
The next animals that we saw were else we saw some most amazing elk very near the highway on the Trail Ridge Road. Including some really little babies. They did not appear to be afraid of cars and at one point we were part of a group that was stopped in the elk were just going back-and-forth in front of the cars picture heaven!
Then we got to a spot where we usually would think of saying marmots and a little rodent called up Pika. We saw people gathered and went over to take a turn taking pictures of these small animals. But to our surprise in addition to more minutes, there were three stunning big horn sheep. Up close enough that we couldn't really watch them in action. One of them stood guard while the other to keep right about they were stunning this was so exciting.
We also have the chance to have just a quick glimpse of a couple of probably yearling moves along the side of the road. We stopped because there were people stopping in pointing and we did see them but not close enough to get any photos. But to see moose, very cool!
We were sad to finish the Trail Ridge Road but needed to head down the road the road because tonight's destination was to be at Grand Teton National Park. We drove for a bit and then we were at last in Wyoming. The states are just continuing to pile up on this trip.
We drove about 300+ miles across Wyoming or watching the scenery change. Wyoming experiences serious winter weather, often blizzard conditions. As an effort to keep the drifting snow from closing the roads, the state has erected an extensive snow fence system. These disrupt the blowing snow, causing the wind to pause and drop the snow before the road. There was a series of amazing and different and interesting mountain ranges and Meadows sometimes with cows grazing. We saw some stunning huge in enormous rock formations, and we saw huge expanses of sagebrush. It just kept on changing!
A quick stop we made was at a monument dedicated to railroad tie hackers. These were the people who carved wooden tiles out of trees especially from about 1880 until 1920. The monument honored them and all the hard work that it took to make, by hand, these railroad ties needed for the railroads to cross the country.
It last week got the first glimpses of the Grand Teton mountains. These are Dick’s most favorite mountains in the world. And we were so glad to make the first stop to take the first of many hundreds of pictures of these mountains that we will take during this next week.
But before we even got to the Grand Teton National Park, We saw people gathered over on the side of the highway so we have course pulled over what we saw were was a grizzly bear! Now fairly far away so we were safe in case you're worried about us but we did we saw a grizzly bear and it was super cool. It was digging up roots in the meadow very busy ignoring all of the spectators were up on the road.
As we get closer to the Grand Tetons we saw a couple of bison herds. One of the highlights always in the Grand Teton area. They are massive beasts and very power Full and fun to watch. We also saw several small pronghorn antelope. One of Dick's favorite animals to look for in this area. Next to the bison, they are tiny.
So all in all, and amazing wildlife finding viewing kind of day.
We enjoyed soaking in a closer view of the Teton mountains. Before finding our way to Teton Village and our hotel that is a fairly rustic hostile filled with young travelers and families and people trying to avoid the outrageously expensive hotel prices here in Jackson hole. They have a fairly well set up communal kitchen here at the hostel. So Petty was able to whip us together a decent meal of baked yams and salad and we chatted with other people staying here using the borrow dishes from the hotel. Go communal living .We were both very satisfied and ready to settle in for a good nights sleep.
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