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Published: September 9th 2008
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Jackson Hole
Town Square in Jackson, Wyoming. For being such a cold place there is a suprising lack of coffee/chai shops. It snowed! That's right, September 1st and it was snowing. We knew it was gonna be cold just by watching the temperature gauge in the car drop as we climbed in elevation, but never planned for snow.
After the few hours sleep at the rest stop, we took Hwy 26/191 through Jackson, Wyoming and the Grand Tetons. I could move to Jackson in a second, if it weren't so dang cold! It is an adorable town, with a very clean and friendly downtown. We stopped for breakfast and walked around the very "western" town square. In every store I found ways that I could spend large sums of money 😊. That's probably why Cody was sweating despite the freezing temperatures. Miraculously, we got out of Jackson without a single purchase! For anyone that is curious about the difference between Jackson and Jackson Hole (like I was) they are basically the same place. Jackson Hole is the fancy-schmancy area where all the rich people have built their homes, while Jackson is the more down-to-earth cowboy town. "Hole" is what settlers called a high, enclosed mountain valley; definition is compliments of "1,000 Places to See in the USA and Canada Before You
Jackson Hole
There are four of these antler entry arches to the center park. Overall, there are thousands of antlers that make up these arches. They were amazing! Die" by Patricia Schultz (one of the books influencing our choice in destinations.) No snow yet, though. That comes later.
Prior to entering Yellowstone from the South Entrance, you get to drive through Grand Tetons National Park. Kinda like a 2-for-1. We got a stamp in the passport book and we didn’t even have to go out of our way! Like everything else, the Grand Tetons were cloudy, but still pretty amazing. There are no foothills to these mountains, so they basically jut out of the valley into huge cliffs. They are great for climbing, so much so that there is a climbing school that takes trips to the tops of the mountains. This was very enticing to Cody, but the temperatures outside nixed any climbing plans he may have had. Since the Tetons were not our final destination for the day, we stopped for an hour at the Visitor's Center, saw the video and bought a postcard! Then we were on our way to Yellowstone. Still no snow!
Honestly, before visiting Yellowstone, the only thing I knew about the park was that Old Faithful Geyser was here. I had no clue the massive area the park covered.
Jackson Hole
I'm a little cold! Another of the 4 arches. It's Wyoming's own Arches Park. They've also got Christmas lights wrapped all around them! It is so massive that we will be dividing it up into 2 blogs. There are 5 entrances to the park. At 3,472 square miles, it is larger than Rhode Island and Delaware combined! We were definitely going to need more than a couple of days to cover it. We stayed for 3, and still only saw a portion of the park. To give you an idea of the size, it was 22 miles from the Southern Entrance until we got to the 1st campground. There are actually 12 campgrounds, 9 hotels, and 9 visitor centers. The first night we stayed at the Grant Village campground. Since it was Labor Day, most everyone had left that morning, so getting a camping spot was no problem (especially given the evening's forecast!), while all the hotels were full. Once we got our campsite assignment, we visited the first of many visitor centers. As has become the habit, we watched the first of two videos, stamped the passport, and bought a postcard! It was late afternoon, so we decided to visit the general store and purchase some dinner items, like cookies, hot chocolate, and a Snickers. Just kidding, we had soup and corn.
Jackson Hole
It's a coffee shop! We had a breakfast crepe with coffee and chai. It was a nice break to let our ears thaw! It was here, while purchasing our dinner and browsing the Yellowstone swag that it happened. THE SNOW! Not just a little snow, either. It came down hard, in huge wet flakes for a good hour. Many of the general store employees were from Taiwan, and had never seen snow, so they were running outside to get there first experience. We, thus, decided to sleep in the car. Sitting in the car, getting ready to drive back to the campsite, the snow started to get thicker and faster. Oh, bother. When we finally did get to the campsite, the thermometer read a blistering 35 degrees. So we set up the bed in the back as fast as we could. I climbed in to warm things up, while Cody started dinner on the grill. As soon as we were finished with dinner, we pretty much went straight to bed, as we had a long night driving, and very little sleep.
Cody here. The next morning we woke up bright and early (we had to check out of our campsite by 10:00!!). Our first stop was Old Faithful, the most famous spot in the park. We got some breakfast and hot drinks
Grand Tetons
Yes, there is snow! Those are the Tetons. Fortunately, the snow was only on top of the mountains at this point. It looked so pretty from far away :). and went over to the geyser. Luckily, there were less than ten minutes until it was supposed to erupt, perfect timing! So we sat and waited for it: it was amazing! There is a webcam that, had any of you been so informed, you could have watched the eruption along with us (http://www.nps.gov/yell/photosmultimedia/yellowstonelive.htm). After Old Faithful went off, we went into the visitor center to learn about the park some more. While in there, we found an incredible book published by TravelBrain that has beautiful color photos and step-by-step guides to Yellowstone. So we had to buy it, because it also comes with an audio tour CD. We also walked around the Upper Geyser Basin, which is where Old Faithful sits, and saw some of the other geysers and hot springs (collectively known as "thermal features") in the area. From here we drove up the road to the Black Sand Basin, wherein lie a couple of beautiful hot springs. We continued up the road, where we went to Midway Geyser Basin. It is here that the largest hot spring in the park (3rd largest in the world) is found: Grand Prismatic Spring. It's gorgeous reds, oranges, yellows, blues and greens
Grand Tetons
The Grand Tetons Visitor Center is one of the nicer ones we have visited. There is a large museum area, in addition to the gift shop, theater, and a huge wall of windows across the back that look out upon the mountains. are the result of microorganisms (mainly bacteria) that love the heat of the springs, known as thermophiles. The different colors are caused by different bacteria that like different temperatures of water, so as the water cools down further from the center of the spring, yellow and orange bacteria begin to proliferate. The blue in the center is caused by the sunlight being reflected through the clear water. Towards the cooler edges of the spring, yellow bacteria begin to grow, combined with sulfur deposits, causing the resulting color to be green. As the water cools more, the yellow becomes more prevalent, then shifts to red bacteria, with an orange transition where they meet. Sometimes deposited minerals contribute to the color, such as sulfur (yellow), manganese (pink), and iron oxide (red). All of these colors are purely natural, no alterations have been done to the photos.
From here we move up to the Fountain Paint Pot. The first of many bubbling and gurgling mud pits. They are called paint pots because the Indians used to use the mud as paint on their teepees. This particular mud pit changes with the seasons. In the spring, when melt water fills up the pit,
Grand Tetons
Here is the model of the area. The top of the screen is Yellowstone (beyond the lake), while the mountains to the left are the Grand Tetons. The 2 parks literally share borders with each other. Jackson is right next to the Y in the highway at the bottom. it is a thin, gurgling soup. As the summer comes on, it starts to dry out, thickening as it goes. Towards the fall, when we were there, it is a small, thick goop that bubbles and gurgles and spits. You can see little towers where, as the pit dried up, the steam would form the mud into a cone. If it weren't so hot (almost 200 degrees) Yellowstone could make a killing off of the spa treatments (mud bath, get it?). There are a few other geysers and hot springs here, which we won't talk about, as it gets kind of repetitive. Next stop along the way was Lower Geyser Basin, with Steamboat Geyser, the park's largest geyser. We also saw an awesome fumarole (which just shoots out steam) called Black Howler. We'll end here for the time being, at the end of September 2. Yellowstone Part 2, coming up.
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