Jackson 2010

This is going to be picture overload and you’ll feel like you’re on the trip but maybe you’ll see how much fun we had and next year someone will go with us on this trip.

I absolutely love Jackson and Yellowstone and try to make it an annual trip. It didn’t happen last year for me so I was determined to get up there this year. We left early so we could stop at Maddox and also stop at lunch counter to watch the rafters. Did you know there are 6 ways to get to Jackson from Bountiful and only 15 minutes between them all? I found that rather odd that they all are the same time frame. I just wish there was interstate the whole way to Jackson. We went through Soda Springs and saw the sweetest mullet ever and it was on a woman.

We got to our campsite set up in record time and then ran off to the Bar J Wranglers for dinner. I'd heard about this and wanted to see it at least once. It was good but unlike a lot of people there it won't be an annual thing but once was great. My parents would absolutely love it though. We ended up getting great seats at the very front row. Oh and in case you are staying north of Jackson the 'shortcut' through Moose to Wilson is not in fact a shortcut, no matter how cute the old camp hostess looks, she's full of crap.

The next day we ate at the Bunnery. It's my one requirement when going to Jackson. It was good as usual and Logan got a balloon dog from some clown there. That made him happy. We headed into Yellowstone for the day. Logan was asleep and it was still cloudy so we took the long loop towards our destination. Wouldn't you know as soon as we went that way, Logan woke up.

The photos below are at Upper Falls in the Canyon area. This was the last picture I took because I walked down to where Tad and Logan are, looked over the edge and then said it was time to go. I'm not so much scared of heights it's more a fear of the structural integrity of the device I'm standing on and fear that it will crumble and I'll fly down the waterfall and die.

Don't worry this is no where near the waterfall. I wouldn't sacrifice my son for a photo op.
Here we are at our destination for Yellowstone. The goal of the trip was to hike to Fairy Falls. It's a very easy hike.

I have a goal to master the self family portrait. This would be one of them and I think the boys find entertainment just watching me run into position.

The beginning of the hike you walk around the backside of Midway Geyser Basin so here is a photo of it's backside. I know this is riveting stuff.

Here is a photo to kind of show the size of Fairy Falls. It's not the best photo but it had some sun flare and I adore flare. Logan's favorite part was throwing rocks into the pool.

Another self portrait shot. We'd asked this kid to take our picture and he pretty much got all the gravel in front of us so I had to do a self portrait once he left.

Just beyond Fairy Falls is Imperial Geyser. We had a very whiney, tired kid so we decided to skip that and head back. In the left of the photo you can see the steam in the background so it's only .6 miles beyond Fairy Falls to get there.

Logan walked probably 1/3 of the 5.2 mile hike so he totally needed his rest on the last little bit.

After the hike we went to the Old Faithful Cafeteria and I had the best chicken parmigiana. It probably wasn’t really that good but I couldn’t tell because I was so tired and hungry. Then it was a ½ hour till Old Faithful was to erupt so we got ice cream and waited.

And waited. There was a ranger giving a presentation on bears. I was very glad I heard this after our hike. She was saying how rare grizzly bears are. So I'm thinking there is maybe about a 100 or so. Nope, there are about 600 in the Yellowstone/Teton area. Those are the rare ones so just imagine how many black bears there are. I was leaning strongly about going back to Jackson and staying in a hotel after that. It was a really good presentation though.

I love the view of all the people gathering just to watch a steaming hole in a field. Well Logan erupted in his shorts and temper long before Old Faithful. About 20 minutes later Old Faithful went off. We left half way through because Old Faithful had nothing on Logan.

Then the long drive back to Gros Ventre campground.

We were going to head back into Teton the next day to do another hike but I hate the drive so bad to/from Jackson that we decided to break up the drive by a stop at Bear Lake.

We got lunch and shakes and went to the Garden City park. It was there we found the best beach at Bear Lake. The water is so high right now that this might be the only place with nice sand beaches. The only bad part was some idiot blasting Eminem. Why is it that people blasting music always have the worst taste? The water was still freezing cold but Logan didn't know that and had a blast.