Day 2:
After a decent first night in the RV in Lander, we headed out early and stopped at the Lander Bake Shop for breakfast - mom and I split an excellent peanut butter chocolate chip scone and then each had a breakfast burrito. Margo had something called "exploding bread" which was like a cinnamon roll but with pesto, parmesan, and mozzarella. Everything was yummy! From there we drove towards Dubois, through the Wind River reservation, which is the setting of a series of mysteries that mom reads, so we stopped at the Wind River Trading Company to shop. Lots of fascinating scenery in Wyoming - such a variety of rock formations, uplifted rock layers, and other geologic features. There's way more of that than there are people around - Wyoming only has a population of about 578,000, which is less than the city of Washington DC, and it's the least densely populated state in the lower 48. Then it was straight through to the Moran Junction entrance to Grand Tetons National Park. After entering the park (thank goodness for mom's lifetime senior pass on this trip - free admission to parks and discounted camping) we decided to head for Jenny Lake and the visitor center there, driving over the Jackson Lake dam on the way. Unfortunately, Jenny Lake was so jam-packed that cars were parked all the way out the entrance road and onto the main road. So we skipped it for the time-being and went to Jackson instead. We parked at the visitor center and walked to the town square - lots of people everywhere, but manageable. Mom got her picture taken under the arches made of naturally-shed elk antlers and we checked out a few shops, but Margo and I remembered that Moo's Gourmet Ice Cream had made an impression on us last time we were here, so that was a mandatory destination! Wild huckleberry ice cream - highly recommend it! After Jackson, we went back north through Grand Tetons, stopping at the Colter bay visitor center, which was far less crowded by late afternoon. Margo stuck her feet in Jackson Lake and proclaimed it "Cold!". From there it was further north to the south entrance of Yellowstone National Park. Margo and I had not been around the southeast section last time, so we drove around West Thumb and Yellowstone lake, the largest high elevation lake (over 7000 ft) in North America (132 square miles, 141 miles of shoreline, average temperature 41 degrees F!). At Lake Village, we veered north toward Hayden Valley, hoping to see some bison, and we were not disappointed. We stopped at Mud Volcano and Devil's Breath Spring to see the geothermal activity, and right there, resting by Mud Volcano, not 15 feet away from the fence where we were standing, was a huge bison. The ranger there said they sometimes like the geothermal features because there are fewer biting insects. He was not the least bit concerned with everyone watching him! While we were admiring the steam bellowing from Devil's Breath, it started to rain from the dark cloud overhead, and then it began dropping small hailstones too! They were only pea-sized, but it was still exciting. On to Hayden Valley, where we saw two large herds of bison, most of them resting in the meadow. I was trying to point out to mom where she could see bison calves through the binoculars when other tourists next to us directed us to ones much closer - the moms got us and started moving closer to the herd and their calves popped up out of the grass and frolicked along behind them! From there we drove straight to our campsite at Mammoth Hot Springs. Two elk cows strolled through town like they owned the place and once past them we were able to find our site and crash for the night. We need to be up early to beat the crowds to the Grand Prismatic Spring in the morning.
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