Hello everyone! You’ve got Brian again for this update.

As an overview I’ll be covering our visits to Grand Teton and our stop in Salt Lake City, up to today – where we woke up in the Little America parking lot.

Grand Teton may be smaller than Yellowstone but it is just as lovely and packed with wildlife. We woke up at the Granite Creek campsite and packed up the car before heading into the park. Our first destination was the Visitor Center as we needed a map (we’ve been collecting them!) and we wanted info on which trails may be appealing to us.

We settled on a nearby area called Jenny Lake, named after a Shoshone Indian woman who was wife to good ol’ Beaver Dick Leigh and a guide herself. The trail we followed went along the south side of the lake toward an area called Moose Pond and split off to loop around an adjacent meadow.

Not but half an hour into our hike we had to stop dead in our tracks as there was a black bear about 20 yards ahead, crossing the trail. We heard other hikers nearby clapping and announcing loudly that there was a bear present and we stopped right where a small family was stopped, pointing toward the brush ahead and sure enough on our left hand side there was a baby black bear trying to climb a tree. The wee baby hopped up, climbed a foot or so and then stopped to look back at all the humans now staring and pointing at it. Moments later, Momma Bear crossed the trail and walked off to our right hand side into the woods ahead. The baby lingered for a moment or two before deciding that it didn’t want to be too far from mom. It chased after her and the collective group of humans waited another few minutes to see if the pair would come back or if another baby was following behind.

After waiting a couple of minutes we all decided the coast seemed clear so we progressed onward with our trek, but with a renewed sense of caution for sure! We got around a bend and there was another small group stopped pointing into the woods where the bears had gone. This cemented for Kate and I that perhaps we shouldn’t continue along this route for much longer. We doubled back and started making our way to the meadow. The path there took us right next to Moose Pond. …Y’know how sometimes you’ll see a place and wonder to yourself “How did this place get its name?” Well – wonder not my friends, Moose Pond is appropriately named. We saw a female moose across the pond, nose sunken down into the murky water, slurping up delicious slime! Awestruck we paused and observed for a few moments as seeing moose was on our list of ‘man-it-would-be-cool-to-see’ stuff. Only after a short while did we notice that there was another group of people down to our right farther along the trail pointing and talking quietly about something much closer to the shore on our side. We walked down and saw a male moose! We snapped plenty of pics and agreed that we were thoroughly satisfied with the amount of nature we had just taken in. As the rest of the path around Moose Pond toward the meadow wasn’t as shaded by trees and we’d had enough sunburns for the week and opted instead to head back toward the car, and on to another location. On the walk back we had assumed the male moose was young because his antlers were so small; it wasn’t until we got back to the visitor center at Jenny Lake that we were informed that they shed their antlers and his were likely just growing back in.

We ate lunch (PB+J & some fruit) and drove off toward a different nearby meadow and Glacier Overlook. We were able to appreciate the size and beauty of the Teton Range from further back, plus – we got to smell some lovely wildflowers!

We wrapped up that day by again camping near Granite Creek (did you know that the waterfall scene from A River Runs Through It was filmed just up the road at Granite Falls?). That night was supposed to be fantastic for observing the stars as it was a “Super Black Moon”, despite sounding like the name of a progressive rock album, is actually when two new moons fall within one month and the latter of the two happens to be closer to earth than usual. Why do I mention any of this? Because I wanted to try to set up my tripod to take a couple photos of the stars! It would have been the perfect night, no moonlight and tucked away in a canyon in remote Wyoming – – – except it was completely cloudy. Oh well, some other time.

The next day we prepped breakfast, packed up the car, and made the drive down to Salt Lake City. I’ve only been to SLC a few times in my life but all of them were when I was a child. Man… things were different. That city has exploded in growth. It completely blends into all nearby suburbs and there was construction happening everywhere. It took my childhood memories for a ride. The drive into town from Jackson takes a while so we didn’t have much time the first day to explore, and our car (whom we’ve named Lloyd) needed an oil change. After giving the car some love and attention we did some light grocery shopping and then we headed to a city park to cook ourselves some dinner…

I’m going to take a moment here to talk about something other than just our activities on this trip. There were some very distinct feelings of judgement and discomfort when we were cooking in the park. There wasn’t anything illegal about what we were doing, we looked all over for signs and park rules. Yet Kate and I could not escape people staring, casting sideways glances, and looks of discomfort from our activity. We made the comment to each other that it was likely because we weren’t at a picnic table / and were using our own propane stove. We also noted that we expected to be hassled at any moment by police or security or something. If a person who looked more homeless than ourselves were doing this – they probably would have been hassled. The whole thing just made us feel weird. After this we felt the best option would be to head right to where we were going to be camping for the night.

5 Mile Recreation area is a haven for off-road enthusiasts. Our first night was a weeknight so it wasn’t too bad but the subsequent night was filled with engines revving and people whooping and hollering past midnight and promptly again first thing in the morning. But let me not skip over a whole day! – During our next day there we went to a laundromat and then to a Starbucks to gobble down some wifi, had some tuna sandwiches in the nearby park, and then went to the movies where we watched the new version of The Lion King; it was decent. Exiting the theater at night, we headed back to the campsite where we were greeted with the sounds of motors mentioned above.

I did however persist in my attempts to take a picture of the stars this night as it was only a day or two after the super dark skies and we were still camping somewhere fairly remote. It didn’t turn out exactly how I wanted but I’ll include my attempt in the gallery below.

The next day ended up being our last day in SLC. We checked out the downtown area, stopping by the Mormon Temple area and then heading over to the Sugar House neighborhood which is super adorable. We also scoped out some thrift stores, Kate ended up getting a cute hat. As the rain started to pour in, we agreed we didn’t want to head back to the area with off-roaders roaring around all night.

So we drove for a couple of hours to a truck stop area in WY called Little America, where we parked overnight. We’re off to Fort Collins, CO after I upload this post and this rest area was along the way.

Anywho – hope you all are doing well! We will keep the posts coming and love and miss you all!

— Brian