Idaho, more than just potatoes

Apparently they also have a great sense of humor – check out this sign, courtesy of some joker in Idaho Falls.

Today we left Wyoming and headed into Idaho. With all the time in Yellowstone, Tetons and our week at the beach, we had been in WY way too long and needed to move on. Ketchum, Sun Valley, Boise, Sawtooth Range are up next… then on to Montana and Glacier National Park.

Grand Tetons, post beach

The Grand Tetons are amazing. When you think of “Wild West” scenery, alpine valleys, sharp granite peaks and wildlife at each turn, The Tetons deliver. Every day you drive by the range it looks like a painting, it hardly seems real.

We were planning to do a few days in the backcountry on the Teton Crest Trail, a classic trail for any serious hiker, but after our travel troubles neither Sara or I was in the mode for that level of roughing it quite yet. We decided to do some day hiking and ease back into the lifestyle. We did the Jenny Lake Trail (a great alpine lake with crystal clear water and berry patches along the way) and the Cascade Canyon Trail (follows a nice stream back up into the canyons and alpine meadows). Cascade Canyon area offers what I would consider absolutely perfect scenery. Although this is prime bear country (we were under full bear lookout mode – see YellowStone posts), we didn’t see a single brown or black bear or even any tracks for that matter. We did see a large male moose right off the trail about 8 feet from us. He was munching some grass and enjoying the shade, they are quite large up close.

Camping was good in the park (Gros Ventre Campground), nice and cool sleeping weather. The only interesting part, and depending on your point of view this could be a positive or negative in the wilderness experience, was the large pack of wolves that found its way near the campground to howl at the moon each morning from 4:30 – 5:30. I am not sure how far away they were, but there had to have been about 15 or 20 of them, barking howling in these long solo performances. I found it relaxing, kind of like we had finally reached the wilderness, it was a good thing Sara was asleep... and yes, the moon was pretty full this week so the cliché seems to be valid.

Back to business, part deux

The travel saga continued on Monday night. After our canceled flight on Sunday, we picked up another flight to Jackson via Salt Lake City. We made it to Salt Lake fine, but then the connection to Jackson Hole was cancelled because of maintenance or no plane, or no crew, or no fuel, or who knows… take your pick. Delta has emerged from bankruptcy, but unfortunately they did it at the cost of customer service and now our future business, the entire flight roundtrip was a disaster starting with our flight home Jackson a week earlier. All the hotels with 30 miles of the airport were booked so we got some miniscule vouchers, no cab money and were on our own to find a place to stay. We stayed at the Hampton Inn about 30 miles from the airport, nice actually. We got on a flight to Jackson the morning and were back on track. Surprisingly, our car and its contents were still there. We spent Tuesday afternoon getting resituated, stocking up on food, cooking fuel, and finding a campground for the next few days in Teton National Park.

Back to business

After a week hiatus, we are hopefully heading back to life out of our car today. We spent a week at the beach in Fenwick Island, DE with my mom & dad, and my sister's family. We lucked out with beautiful weather, which allowed for plenty of time on the beach, miniature golfing, people-watching at the Ocean City boardwalk, grilling and watching sunsets on the back porch, bonfires on the beach, and eating crabs & ice cream (not at the same time). We had an awesome time.

We got back to our house Saturday afternoon, and had hoped to fly out to Jackson, via Atlanta, Sunday afternoon. As is the case of DC Summer afternoons, and our luck with flights so far this trip, thunderstorms kept us from our destination. After a five hour search for our bags by the fine folks at Delta (we went home, had dinner, a bottle of wine & came back for them), we finally got them back around 10:30 pm, and headed back for another night at the house.

The plan is to fly out of DCA again today at 5:30, through Salt Lake City this time, and into Jackson this evening. Catch is, there is a 20 minute timeframe in which we have to get off the plane in Salt Lake, and onto the next one headed to Jackson, so even if we make it, our bags likely will not, and thunderstorms are once again predcited for this afternoon in DC. Perhaps it will be one more night at the house!