Day 20 Grand Tetons National Park

Today we checked out of our hotel in West Yellowstone and headed to the Grand Tetons National Park. We drove back into Yellowstone, around the Southern loop and out the South Entrance. Grand Tetons is directly South of Yellowstone. On the way, we saw and photographed one more water fall (Lewis Falls) in Yellowstone. As usual we were sorry to leave the park. We all agreed that you could easily spend a week in Yellowstone and full days every day.

As we headed south, we began to see the Grand Tetons range ever more clearly. What a sight it is. The peaks are very rugged. We stopped at the visitor's center to purchase some items and for Mary to get her stamp in her National Parks Passport book. We also went to the general store for the usual assortment of souvenir stuff and to stock up on snacks and water.

When we left there, Mary spotted a chapel (the Chapel of the Sacred Heart) marked on the guide map, so we stopped there. She and Sheila went and I took more pictures. The chapel was completely of log construction and was donated by New York and Wyoming families as a memorial to the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

As we continued South we stopped at several turn outs to get more pictures and read more about the mountains. There are about a dozen glaciers on the Grand Tetons, and we saw about 6 of them. I think we all agreed that the most spectacular view was from the turn out where we saw the Cathedral Group. This group of peaks really does soar to the sky. We spent quite a bit of time there taking pictures and looking at the peaks and glaciers through the binoculars and spotting scope.

We had always planned to drive through the GTNP, but had not had any real plans for where we would go next. The Grand Tetons NP is fairly small (especially compared to Yellowstone) and did not take long to drive through. We discussed the next destination a couple days ago and decided on Denver, CO. It won out over Salt Lake City primarily due to time constraints. Sheila has never been to Denver, and Mary and I were last there in 1975 (we were stationed there in 1968 for 5 months). So, after leaving GTNP, we headed down to Rock Springs, WY. We arrived here about 4:30 and immediately made use of the laundry room. We were all down to our last items of clean clothes. We had a quick dinner and now we are going to get a (hopefully) long nights sleep. We plan to spend two days in Denver then get on I-80 and head East.

We have had a lot of very full days. Each day finds us pretty well exhausted at the end. But no one yet has said that it has been too much. After a night's sleep, we are ready to go to the next adventure. We may be tired at the end of each day, but we are not tired of the adventure.

I forgot to mention that we completed our animal viewing list during our visit to GTNP. The only large mammal we did not see by the time we left Yellowstone was a moose. There are not many in Yellowstone and there was no mention of them in Glacier. However, Grand Tetons is known for their moose and it did not disappoint us. At one of the turnouts, a number of people had stopped and walked out into a meadow. Of course we stopped to investigate. Off to the side from where people were standing was a female moose down in the brush. At this time of the year, where an adult female of any of these large animals is located, there is likely a youngster near by. We walked on around the area where she was browsing, and sure enough, there was her calf almost completely hidden by the brush. After a bit, they both started moving a bit and then we could see them really well. In case you are interested or concerned, the regulations require you to stay at 25 yards away from moose, buffalo, and deer. All the people at that location were complying with that requirement easily. In fact, we were all probably about 50 yards from them. Anyway, we now have completed our "want to see" list of large mammals. We also have several small animals on the list of "we saw that": Marmot, pika (sort of like a large chipmunk), various types of ground squirrels (Uinta at Yellowstone), gopher, prairie dogs, eagles, ospreys, magpies, ravens and others that I'm sure I've forgotten to list.