Grand Teton

“Man’s Heart away from nature becomes hard.” Standing Bear We arrived at the Grand Teton RV Park in Moran, WY in a light snow with the wondrous Teton Range surrounding us….it was more than I had imagined. I had always wanted to come here after seeing them through my Christmas present of long ago-a View Master(wonder how many of you remember those)! Across the way was a large herd of horses, still with their winter coats who watched us as carefully as we watched them through the falling snow. I was immediately filled with contentment and a swelling heart. I knew right away it would be very difficult to capture the beauty of this place on film. The RV Park was not quite ready for the arrival of us early spring travelers and although closer to one of the entrances to the Grand Teton National Park; we decided we would prefer to be a little closer to Jackson and drive to the park for each of our sightseeing adventures. We ended up at the Virginian (remember that TV show?!) It was a nice quiet park and was so easy to get to wherever we needed to go. Jackson has a wonderful free shuttle to the town square and Teton Village. Jackson Hole is known for its skiing and all kinds of winter sports as well as trout fishing. The town square is full of art galleries, restaurants, specialty shops and goodies for the tourists. There are striking large bronze sculptures all around the town square as well as the focal point of the square which is the four corners of arches made from antlers. Antlers are shed each spring and are gathered for decorations, hunting and carvings. We learned that Jackson is the town and Jackson Hole is the entire valley…but to Olympic and novice skiers from all over the world; the town is also known as” Jackson Hole”. It is home to the wealthy and most homes near the mountains are well into the high millions. There is even an airport here to support the private jets and several commercial air carriers for the rich and famous to come in for the snow sport season and après night life. Harrison Ford has a home/ranch here, as well as his jet. The relative scarcity of private land drives the Jackson Hole real estate market so high as 97 % of Teton County, WY is publically owned national park, national forest, or wildlife refuge. We found a nice log home and some acres with views of the Tetons for only $22,000,000!!! Lacked about $21,999,990 or we would have scoffed it up!!  There is also an abundance of restaurants here to suit everyone’s pocket. We especially loved “Bubba’s Barbecue” as they had the best salad bar we had ever seen…you could make a whole meal on it from appetizer to dessert! The barbecue was great also. We were thrilled to find a Diary Queen to satisfy our dessert cravens for Debra’s favorite…an Oreo Blizzard and I was thrilled to see the new flavor was a Buster Bar Blizzard!! This was our first major stopover where there was no Indian restaurant for us to savor. The peaks of the Teton Range are regal and imposing and stand 7,000 ft above the valley floor making one of the boldest statements of the Rockies. These young mountains are still growing; as the mountains rose the valley sank creating the spectacular landscape we see today. The drive through the scenic heart of this preserve is built around one of Earth’s most dramatic geologic statements. They are unencumbered by foothills; rising through steep coniferous forest into alpine meadows which are strewn with wildflowers in the late spring & summer; past blue and white glaciers to snow covered granite pinnacles. Jackson Hole is the broad valley at the base and is covered with sagebrush and occasional forested buttes and groves of beautiful aspen trees. There are a string of jewel-like lakes fed by mountain streams with the Snake River beginning in Yellowstone NP winding leisurely past the Tetons on into Idaho. Sections of this river make excellent habitats for and support moose, deer, elk, beavers, trumpeter swans, sandhill cranes, Canadian Geese and all sorts of ducks and other animals. We loved seeing almost all of them and on one evening especially we came upon lots of bison and almost a thousand elk from one meadow to another. One afternoon we had a laugh watching some marmots playing in the sun on the rocks on our way into the National Museum of Wildlife Art in the United States which has the largest collection of wildlife in the world. I am a huge fan of Robert Bateman’s wildlife art and one of his great pieces hangs at the focal point of the museum. It is probably his largest work and is called “Chief”. . It is of a bison running in a cloud of dust right at you and you will be mesmerized by it as is everyone from all over the world. We also viewed a video of Bateman and how he focuses on each of his works as he travels the globe to seek out his subjects. He is very intelligent, intriguing and sensitive to nature. We spent a lot of time driving from one vista to another throughout the park and you find that you don’t talk as that would seem so intrusive to the beauty and the many sounds of nature and all of its gifts. God must have had a wonderful time designing all of this for us!! I am so thankful for his work and getting to see it firsthand. Hope you will enjoy some of our attempts to capture that beauty. “Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.” Ralph Waldo Emerson