Advertisement
Published: July 25th 2019
Edit Blog Post
I wasn’t expecting much today, at least not in the beginning. We were still in WY for much of the day and yesterday gave us a lot of …well, let’s say it was not inspiring. We left the hotel at 7:30 and 65 degrees and headed west. Again, the topography was mostly prairie with yellow grass and sage. But today we did see more signs of life. There were ranches and small towns along the way. And as we moved on, the blandness of the prairies gave way to the emergence of rock formations. One actually looked to me like the birth of new mountains…jagged shafts of rock sticking out of the ground, not very tall, but pushing toward the sky. And I thought, perhaps in 1000 years, these would be 10K ft. mountains. Who knows.
Several times we spotted antelope. One time they were in a field with cows and in another instance, there were a number of them herding together in an open field, feeding on the grass. I had to look at the photos closely to be sure they weren’t deer, and they weren’t. Their horns were straight and not branching.
One relief from the dry
terrain was a beautiful lake which we noted was the Boysen Reservoir. And as we moved on, we could see that the presence of the water provided for the land to became farm land, with expansive fields of potatoes, soy beans, corn, mustard, and even onions. These fields were being irrigated by huge sprinklers on wheels that rotate around the fields and stretch as long as the fields are wide.
Okay, so this was a lot of repetition from days past. But suddenly, we found ourselves on a road that was more than scenic. It was spectacular. Check out the photos. The rock formations growing ourt of the earth were bright brick red with horizontal striations that give them an extra dimension. I just can’t describe what I saw. But I would invite anyone who loves great photo ops and beautiful vistas to drive this road from east to west on WY route 26, 80 miles east of Grand Teton National Park. You will not be disappointed. We have driven A LOT of scenic highways and this one ranks up there with the best.
As we moved on west, a huge plateau emerged on the horizon. It was
so high, it had snow on it, but it was not a mountain. It had a flat top. Well, one reason there was snow on it, was because as we viewed it, we were already up around 10K. So it was not as tall as a mountain in altitude, but it was very tall in elevation. (Altitude measures from the ground, elevation measures from sea level.)
We entered Grand Teton National Park around noon and looked for a place to have lunch. And did we ever find a spot. We parked just below the dam on the Snake River. There, we made sandwiches and looked out at the river and the water flowing out of the dam. People were fishing and we saw a man catch a nice fish and gently put it back into the water. And the signs nearby told us that the bears were in the area today, so to be careful.
I took a lot of photos of the Teton Range, which is part of the Rocky Mountains. Then we drove down to Jackson Hole, a ski town that is as bustling in the summer as it must be in the winter time. The
traffic was heavy and there were a lot of people strolling the streets.
We made it to our hotel in Pocatello, Idaho around 5 PM. It was a long day. Tomorrow promises to be easier going.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.114s; Tpl: 0.017s; cc: 13; qc: 31; dbt: 0.0768s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Joanne Burns
non-member comment
Will be my life traveling to Grand Tetons and most of the other parks in 2020 so I am enjoying your travels thru your blog. Safe travels and keep on truck’n ?