Bougie travel perks

Finally! Here we go! Also, I’m very selfie challenged.

It’s a long way up there!

Once we landed our “gate” wasn’t ready. By gate I basically mean \240our parking spot. There are no jetways in Jackson Hole but man oh man…the beauty that you experience the second you walk off the plane is amazing!

The airport is actually inside Grand Teton National Park

Next stop, a late lunch! We enjoyed Rossevelt’s in downtown Jackson Hole. We sat on the patio and had a great view. I failed to photograph our food…I’ll do better! It was good!

After roaming around for a bit we headed off to locate our lodging. We will be here at the Hatchett Resort until Saturday morning. It was built in the 1950s from local timber. It’s not fancy, but it works and it’s cozy.

Love the retro vibe

There’s a little store and two restaurants.

Cozy=small

The highlight of the day was certainly seeing a very large herd of bison, aka buffalo. We even had several cross the street and we saw a number of babies!

They are huge!

Later we saw them again and stopped to take some pics of the scenery…it’s picture worthy!

Those aren’t all clouds behind us, that’s The Tetons!

From a different area of the park, it’s just breathtaking. My photography doesn’t do it justice.

A few more tidbits…

Animals and birds we saw but weren’t able to get pictures of include a pronghorn, a small moose, chipmunk, a hawk of some sort, magpies, ravens, and a heron. We can’t wait to see lots more!

When we went into Grand Teton this evening the park ranger who was working \240the gate asked us where we were from. Dan said Dallas/Ft.Worth. Get this, she then asked do you know where Burleson is? I’m from there. We were stunned and said well that’s actually exactly where we live! We had fun chatting for a few minutes. She’s a professor in Colorado and works as a ranger here in the summer. Crazy huh???

Ok, that’s about all I have to share for today. Need to rest up, we go white water rafting in the morning and I have one goal; stay in the raft. 😂

Waiting to load the bus

Spoiler Alert: No one fell out of the boat! I did have a little fall getting in the raft but nothing major. 😂Mission Acoomplished!

The scenery was beautiful

Click this one, it’s a video!

These rapids were a little more intense than the ones we did in Colorado a few years ago and it was even colder. When I say cold, it just takes your breath away! You don’t see it in the pictures captured but Jack and Caleb both rode the “bull”. This means they sat on the very front of the raft through rapids! We all had a blast.

Of course one of the highlights for me was seeing a BALD EAGLE perched in a tree as we floated an easy section!!! We also saw an osprey and a beaver.

After all this fun we made a Target run. Snacks and water were needed. Even the Target in Jackson Hole has to fit the aesthetic of a \240mountain town.

After this we grabbed we some Subway for a simple lunch and headed back to our room. Of course we ran into some traffic…

Hundreds of bison roaming around

Click on this, it’s a video

After some regrouping in the afternoon(code for vacation napping) we headed back out to the park. We went to the Jenny Lake area.

Such a cute part of the park- nice facilities here

Aspen tree

I love these little trees

Dandelions

Something we noticed a lot of are these giant dandelions. They are so much bigger than ones we see at home.

To conclude our day we had dinner at the Signal Mountain Lodge in the park. A beautiful sunset view to enjoy with our yummy dinner.

Moran Melt - goat cheese, jack cheese, jalapeños, and huckleberry compote on sourdough

Caleb’s burger with a fried egg

Jack’s cheeseburger

These mashed potatoes were amazing!

All of our food was really good. I chose something with huckleberry because that’s a specialty in this area. We’ve seen all sorts of huckleberry flavored items in the shops.

Animals we saw today but not pictured: Bald eagle(already said that but it deserved another mention), deer, marmot, elk, ducks and geese.

Tomorrow is a laid back park day…stay tuned!

Our first goal for the day was to get Dan his passport stamps from the visitor centers. This is a must-do for NP nerds!

Colter Bay Visitor Center

Main Visitor Center- a beautiful building

We got to see a lot of the park today. One stop we made was at the Chapel of the Sacred Hesrt.

More giant dandelions

Just one of the many beautiful spots

View from Signal Mountain

Fake smiles!

Ok, so these pictures above were from Signal Mountain. We were smiling but it was not the true sentiment of this stop. Just moments before this we were covered in bugs! Several kinds and it was just crazy. This stop really had way too much nature. LOL

We quickly got back to our vehicle!

Once we finished up in the park we went to check out Teton Village. This is an area outside of Jackson but near the park. Plenty of people stay in this area during summer but it’s even more of a winter ski destination. We briefly walked around a couple of places here and an outdoor art and antiques show. It was small and mostly consisted of very expensive local art. There are some really nice houses in this area too.

Next up, we wondered around and saw a sign for Teton Pass. So, we said let’s go! This was fun, with a great deal of it being at a 10% grade. Dan wanted me to be sure and note his superior driving skills.i will say, I’m glad I wasn’t driving.

It’s hard to see the steepness, \240but here’s a couple of pics.

Once we made it through the pass we saw a sign for Idaho, and it was very close so of course we had to go. We all got to add a state visited to our list today. We ended up in Driggs, Idaho for an early dinner.

Dinner was at a local place called Royal Wolf

Dan and I shared this Philly Cheesesteak. It was really good! Also, we had to have some Idaho spuds! They were actually really good.

Caleb’s salad

Jack had another cheeseburger

Dan had some cauliflower bites too

On the way back through the pass we stopped at a lookout point.

I love the tree here next to the sign

We made it back to our room in the early evening to hang out and watch Friends together. Lots of togetherness. 😂

Todays new animals include this cute little fox who was carrying his lunch.

On our way back this evening we also saw a wolf but we weren’t able to get a picture.

Jack wanted me to add in his great photos from yesterday.

We’re excited to be heading to Yellowstone in the morning. More to come!

And if you know Jack at all you know why we had to get this pic!

Bye Tetons

The parks really aren’t that far apart. There is just the Rockefeller Preserve between the Grand Tetons and the southern entrance to Yellowstone.

Shortly after we entered the park we randomly chose this very understated \240little pull-off/stop…and we were so happy we did!

Looks like the bridge is WPA era work

I love all these trees, this would be a gorgeous Christmas tree

Oh, and the part you can’t see, it was only in the 60’s, maybe 70 when we made this stop 🙂

Click for video

After our quick hike back up we headed on towards Old Faithful. Our goal was to eat at The Old Faithful Inn and of course see Old Faithful erupt. \240From what I had read getting into there for lunch could be hard to do with summer crowds.

While we had a goal end destination in mind there was so much to see along the way. We had to stop for some passport stamps and some of the sites. Yellowstone is so big you can’t just count of being able to \240go \240back to an area like you can in so many other parks.

Check out these crazy thermal features.

This was just in the parking lot, there’s a lot of these in the park

While on the walkway we saw this super cute squirrel eating his acorn. He didn’t even care we were so close to him.

Next up, Old Faithful Inn. This is one of the most historic and iconic places in the park. It’s very pretty!

Not sure how it happened but we walked right in and were seated for lunch.

Click for video

Our lunch here was probably our favorite meal so far.

Dan had the buffet, here is his chili

Jack’s cheeseburger with bison pastrami

Caleb’s Prime Rib Sandwich and fries

Candie’s prime rib sandwich and salad

Caleb \240and I agreed we’ve never had a shaved meat sandwich that was any better! Shaved prime rib, cheese, horseradish…so good!

From here our timing was fabulous because we finished up lunch and walked outside with a few minutes to spare before an eruption.

Click for video

Old Faithful Visitor Center

This was really cool to see in person. One of those things you hear about all your life and then all of a sudden you are right there watching it. This whole trip has been so nostalgic for me. I keep thinking back to 4th and 5th grade at Indian Springs with Mr. knight for social studies and Mrs.Harper for music. 🎵Oh give me a home, where the buffalo roam
Where the deer and the antelope play,
Where seldom is heard, a discouraging word
And the skies are not cloudy all day.🎵

I think maybe this is where my love for national parks really began and I just didn’t realize it then.

Anyways… sorry about that little detour.

Next we started to head for our hotel area but we saw so much in the process.

The water is actually boiling in some spots

It’s like looking at boiling Caribbean water…so weird

Click for video

Grand Prismatic \240Spring - another major iconic natural feature of Yellowstone

You walk on raised wooden paths and don’t leave it for your own safety! People do die at Yellowstone from these features.

As we moved on in our journey we saw so much beauty. We made one stop in this expansive meadow, prairie area and thought maybe we saw a bear way off. It was really far and we weren’t 100% sure from our binoculars. We did see several buffalo/bison today but no full herds. These were just single bison here and there.

Finally we made it to our lodging for the night. It’s a little yellow cabin that is part of the historic Lake Yellowstone Hotel and Cabins.

Simple room, no TV, no AC and NO Internet 😮

This is the view just down from our cabin

After getting settled in we headed out to dinner at the hotel. I made reservations for us when I booked our room. It’s really hard to know what all to do when you’ve never been. While we may have had our best meal for lunch, dinner was probably our least favorite. It was a little fancy for us.

Dan got veggie crepes

Both boys got trout

Candie’s charcuterie board

I shared my charcuterie board and tasted the other food. Surprisingly, Jack really loved the trout! Who knows???

After dinner, the boys went back to the cabin and Dan and I drove around looking for the marina. We didn’t find that but did find some areas to explore tomorrow AND we saw a mama and baby elk. We thought it was moose but after further review believe it was elk. They were hard to see so it’s hard to tell.

The picture is really hard to see, it wasn’t a wide open siting, maybe we’ll see one better tomorrow.

Our evening concluded with much needed showers, \240rest and relaxation. No one melted down without the Internet or TV because mama gave instructions to download some content before we even left home😂

Yellowstone is HUGE and we will see more of it tomorrow!

P.S. - we saw a super cute chipmunk today too! No picture.

And a number of these very large Ravens. Cake was worried for the small children nearby. 😂

Before we even made it to breakfast we saw our first of many elk for the day.

Breakfast was simple, they served one item. A breakfast sandwich on and English muffin with hashbriwns. The only choice was bacon or sausage? The seating was very unique. They had about four u-shaped counters. The food was actually really good!

After we had our bellies full we headed out to see more! The Buffalo/bison were out today! We saw groups together and lot of individual ones roaming about. They are typically seen out in these expansive, rolling plains. It just seems to go on and on.

One of our first stops was in the canyon area and we saw this magnificent waterfall.

Enjoyed seeing this cute little guy too.

Oh, another waterfall

We saw a multitude of wildflowers today as well, these being some of my favorites.

Then!!! One of our biggest highlights, we saw a Black Bear!

Click for video

We finally made it to the Mammoth Sorings area a little after mid-day. We went to the \240visitors center to check it out and get the passport stamp of course.

More to come on Mammoth Springs…

At this point we were only about 4 miles from the North entrance/exit so we decided to go check out Gardiner, Montana. It was meh and we had a meh lunch.

Cheee fries with game chili

Dan and I shared a Bison burger

Jack had a Bison burger too

After lunch we headed back into the park to Mammoth Springs. Here’s the official North Entrance, it’s pretty grand.

Mammoth Springs is such an interesting place! It’s a historical village that was established essentially by the U.S. Army \240shortly after Yellowstone was established. The army had to come in to protect the park from would be settlers, hunters, etc.

So, there’s an entire village here and also the hot springs.

The hot springs deposit minerals that create these amazing structures

The Mammoth Springs Hotel is where we are staying this evening. It’s so pretty.

And…we got an awesome surprise. I thought we would have a very basic room, not much different than any of the places we’ve stayed so far…but man was I wrong! In a great way!

Click for video

The bathroom here is about the size of our entire room at the other places! Needless to say, we were all pretty excited.

We also have TV and Internet again, but no A/C. It’s not a problem here, hard to believe for us Texans.

A lot of the afternoon and evening we spent relaxing, we can see animals from our big windows in the room. We also walked around a bit. Saw some birds! Of course I was thrilled.

Mountain \240Bluebird- I think

Not sure, still investigating

We went to dinner right here at the dining room. It was pretty good. The elk were just showing out this evening, just walking right up to the hotel. They are very common to see here all around.

Well, that’s about it for today. Tomorrow we are road tripping to the Glacier area. Excited to see Montana!

This was like an oasis in the desert to the boys! 😂

We went through Butte, it was interesting. This used to be the largest city west of the a Mississippi, a mining town. It has a ton of landmark buildings and they still use them. Hard to explain, but this town kind of seemed sad.

It was interesting how they used this old building to put in a Taco Bell Cantina.

W

We saw a LOT of Montana. One stop along the way was a national landmark that once was the largest ranch in the world, at essentially 10 million acres. Dan got a stamp.

Finally we made it to our AirBnB. The cabin istself is nice, the surroundings are so so.

Since we have a kitchen for a few days we decided to get a few groceries.

Mama’s spaghetti dinner

We did drive over to Glacier to scope out where we needed to go today.

One sneak peek picture…

We are really far north this was taken a few minutes before 10pm!

New day! Tuesday

Caleb wasn’t feeling well and didn’t go with us for our boat ride. Jack is still coughing a little from his sickness he had before we left and Dan and I have fought off some sickness along the way too. I’ve been the least sick. Praying Caleb feels well enough to go with us tomorrow.

But, we did go to the park for our Lake McDonald boat tour.

The water in this lake is insanely clear!

Click for video - you can see how clear it is!

The lodge is historical and really pretty.

We had lunch at Apgar Village. We tried the huckleberry cobbler. It was good but Dan says it is chicken of the berry world, doesn’t really taste like anything else specific. 😂

We will see lots more of Glacier tomorrow in our red bus tour. Hoping the haze clears so we can take better pictures. There are wildfires in other parts of Montana and it’s making it hazy here some.

The remainder of our day has been spent resting and just chilling, hoping to get Caleb better ASAP.

More to come tomorrow!

This is what we were supposed to ride on today

Since we didn’t have a tour or a vehicle reservation we had to drive to the other side of the park to enter and access The Going to The Sun Road. This is the main attraction of this park, otherwise it’s almost all backcountry. If you want to hike or camp like that you have to register your trip and be super prepared! We’re not backcountry people. 😂

I can’t really explain the beauty here and I wish my pictures could do it justice. I don’t think the photography can convey the vastness of it all but here’s me trying!

There were so many waterfalls - seriously, almost everywhere we looked there was a waterfall of some sort. Some huge, some small and everything in between.

This is a picture of an actual glacier.

We stopped to get this picture

And this was Dan having serious nerves about Jack and I being out of the car here…you really do have to be careful!

Some snow pack, which is weird, it was like 80 degrees here.

This tunnel was pretty

Click for video

A big section of the road was up against this rock. Sometimes on the drivers side, sometimes on passenger side.

Click for video

This stop was probably the most eventful! Caleb felt well enough to get out!

And just before taking this family pic I fell…again. Not on the slippery rocks, just the loose rock. They said they turned around and I looked like a turtle who had been tipped over. 😂

I scraped my leg up a little bit and messed my phone up a little too. I bet I will feel it more tomorrow. 😜

Oh well, it was a fun stop despite the fall!

The beauty just continues…

Click for video

When we finished in the park we stopped in West Glacier Village and had an early dinner. This little area is cute.

The rest of the evening we’ll be resting, packing, and \240getting Caleb as well as we can before flying home. His ears are really hurting so truly praying it gets better fast!

I’ll have one more short update tomorrow. Hope you all enjoy these pictures.

We were just a few miles from Bigfork and hadn’t explored that yet so we went to check that out.

There was a cute little downtown area with some shops and galleries. We walked around a little bit.

Then we had a whirlwind tour of grabbing some lunch, some more medicine/cough drops, etc. and getting to the airport.

The airport here is pretty small, maybe a little bit bigger than Jackson Hole. They do have jetways.

This guy, who hates to run late at the airport had the most thorough search of his bag ever done in the history of TSA. (Not really but it was pretty detailed)

Finally they let him go!

Oh, and by the way, when you fly out of Montana they don’t let you bring your bear spray.😂

This is about half of the airport gates…so small!

I’ll add in a little more this evening when we get back. Praying for a smooth flight and everyone’s ears to be ok. Between my normal ear issues, sickness, and being up and down in elevation over the last week it could be tricky!

Bye Montana!

We made it home! I LOVE my bed. I don’t think I’ve ever missed it so much!

Our flight went pretty smooth, there was some ear pain for Caleb and Dan but nothing catastrophic. I was really worried about Caleb’s eardrums rupturing.

This has been a great adventure. I can’t believe I’m blessed enough to go on these trips with my boys. Two things about this trip and some of the others we’ve been on in the last few years. \240It’s a lot of “togetherness” and by the end of it we’re ready for some space. 😂

However, I wouldn’t trade these experiences, I know we will look back on these trips with our boys and cherish this time so very much. I read once that as a parent you have to be there day in and day out and that’s really what counts but it’s trips/vacations, things outdide of the daily grind, that makes memories. I know that’s not all that forms our memories but I do know it is a lot of what we remember.

Nothing makes this mama happier than a trip with her people!

Second, I stand in awe of God’s creation. There is no doubt that our Creator God designed the earth with such care and detail and all for our enjoyment and benefit.. There is no accident in His creation. When I see the majesty of His creation like I have the past week I feel even more in awe of how much He cares about the details and if He puts this much care into the earth how much more for us, who He made in His image!

We are so blessed! I hope you’ve enjoyed following along on this trip. I love doing these travel blogs, even just for us to have later.

Until next time…