Day 6: Yellowstone and Tetons

Saddle up kids, this is gonna be a long one. After changing our route and making our commute today only 4 hours (perhaps the most exciting news of our lives), we were ready for a relaxing day through Yellowstone/Tetons and an early arrival at our hotel for rest and catch up. We left at 9am. We arrived at our destination in Montana at 8pm. So much for that. The fact of the matter is that we were so taken by the whole experience that we couldn't help but stop at every possible opportunity. Pictures seemed to take themselves as every turn revealed some new jaw-dropping scenery that made us either gasp or drive off the road (often both).

One great thing about driving through National Parks is that there are hundreds of little side trails and loops, picnic areas nestled with historic markers and structures, hiking trails, etc, etc. It's quite overwhelming as the main roads are enough to make your head spin, but I adore finding little treasures off the beaten path. While driving through the Tetons we did a side trip for Jenny Lake, which took us down a narrow, tree-encased one-way street that led to this:

Simply amazing. Also in the Tetons we came across a picnic area with a chapel called the Chapel of the Sacred Heart. It was just a little log cabin style house nestled in the woods, left open for the public to visit with a beautiful carved wooden interior.

I was so taken by this little structure, sitting here at a random point in the park for who knows how long, how many visitors, services, and prayerful passerbys. Neat. Now rest assured there are many many pictures from the Tetons National Park, too many for me to share here. Once I'm settled into Los Angeles, I will post all of my pictures in a public forum. For now, here is one more.

Once we were able to deal with ourselves and move on from the Tetons, we entered into Yellowstone. Truth be told, Michaela and I were both more taken with the beauty of the Tetons, but one cannot scoff at all the geothermic activity. This was the first (and probably the only) place we encountered actual car traffic, first entering into the park, and then again at Old Faithful. It's so funny to me how you can drive around the park for hours in solitude, but then once you get into Old Faithful you are bombarded by seemingly 1000s of swarming people. But I have to say it was worth navigating the NYC-style hordes:

Yes, that would be Old Faithful erupting. Holy crap. And it's not just Old Faithful and you leave, it's surrounded by a huge field of smaller geysers and crystal clear pools of boiling water.

Crazy. As amazing as all of this was, our hands-down favorite thing was the "Yellowstone Traffic Jam". So when a wildlife creature gets close enough to the road, someone pulls over and takes pictures. Of course everyone knows that's the only reason anyone pulls over, so it becomes a domino effect. One car leads to three, leads to an all out traffic jam in the wilderness. And the wildlife could care less.

Now, Michaela and I were totally in awe of both of these parks. We didn't think it could get any better... until we exited from the north of Yellowstone into Montata. We both decided we will be moving to Montana. Tomorrow the bulk of our travel is through the state, so there will be wonderful pictures to come.

Quotes of the day

"Be Bear Aware"

Me: Look at this traffic. This is effin ridiculous. (there were no cars anywhere)