Getting Acquainted

Thursday August 4, 2011
Gros Ventre Campground Site 104
Grand Teton National Park

We arrived yesterday afternoon in
Grand Teton National Park

and set up in site 104 in the
Gros Ventre Campground
which is the southernmost campground
in the park that will take RVs over 30’.
It’s a nice campground along the river
with good spaces between sites.
We have the bikes and kayaks off the car
but aren’t completely set up at this point.

 

But no time for set up just now.
Went out for a difficult run this morning.
I think it has to do with the altitude
since I had trouble before at Cedar Breaks.
We ran the campground loops.
And checked out all the different license plates
Amazing.  Folks from everywhere.
How about these views for a running trail?

After breakfast we decided to take a drive to get
the lay of the land and stop by the visitors center.
Of course we didn’t get very far before we had
a fun road stop and what a look we got.

There were just too many gorgeous views
and too many pictures.

Fields of wildflowers.
But pretty hard to photograph.

We turned onto a dirt road called Mormon Row
named after the small Mormon community begun
there at the turn of the 20th century.

We stopped to check  out their homes
and barns.
 

Notice the outhouse at the far back.

Magpies

Swallows

Mountain blue birds

and obviously well fed Uinta ground squirrels
were the only residents we saw today.

One of the farms belonged to
the Andy Chambers family.
Chambers is my maternal grandparents’ name but
I haven’t done the genealogy to know if
I might be related to them.
This is their place at the end of the road.

Theirs was my favorite barn even though it’s not
the “famous” one.

“Sometimes” contemplates the sign at the end of the road.

We went on to the Moose Visitor Center
(although there were no moose visiting at the time we were there)
They do have some excellent displays
and information on the area including
pelts of all the animals in the park
for you to feel.  Really interesting
the difference between the fur of
a black and grisly bear,
an antelope and big horn sheep,
a red fox and a coyote,
a lynx and a bobcat just to name a few.

They have some lovely bronze wildlife figures

We got hiking and kayaking information
and on the way out saw these touring bikes all lined up.

While we were taking a look at all their gear,
one of the riders came over and asked
David to take a picture of them
by the life sized bronze moose statue
outside the visitors center.
They had a 78 mile day planned so they
didn’t stay long.

Then it was back to Jackson for groceries
and where I’ll leave you with this great
photo of a man and his best friend in
the Jackson Whole Grocer parking lot.