Day 67 - One last national park as a family

We woke up and it was cold, but not nearly as cold as the day before.  It might have been that I slept with more clothes and blankets, but I also think it was warmer, albeit slightly.  It was drizzling though so I was immediately glad that we had explored the West Thumb region at the end of yesterday.  

We got our day off with breakfast and then a treat by Yellowstone standards - a warm shower.  When Amy and I had visited previously, we were tent camping and there were no showers available.  We vividly remember getting to Grand Teton National Park and they had pay showers and we would have paid 10x what they charged!  So, when the host told me we had 4 free shower credits, I knew they would not go to waste.  The woman who took our voucher said that they had unlimited hot water and good water pressure.  She wasn’t kidding - it was great.  

While we had hoped that the rain would let up as we showered, such was not the case - it continued to be a cold drizzle as we packed up the camper.  I did my best to keep the rain out of the inside as we collapsed the canvas, but don’t think I would be completely successful.  Still, we had to head south and we just hoped for better weather down there.

We headed south out of Yellowstone and soon, sadly, were out of the park.  However, the bright spot was that we were now in Grand Teton National Park because the two have no space between them!  We stopped for our family picture at the sign and then stopped at the Flagg Ranch visitor center.  While we were there we heard some amazing news “The sun is coming out to the south”.  Better still, we now had internet access and could confirm that indeed the radar said it was clearing up to the south!

We headed to the campsite (Colter Bay) which fortunately had an early check in for us and set up the camper more to dry out than anything else.  Then we took Rover and started to explore the park.  

The first stop of the tour was at the Colter Bay Visitor Center.  This place was a lot of fun - they had a number of fur and antler samples that the boys could touch to experience first hand.  

There was also a very helpful ranger that gave us the advice that a hike around String Lake would be good for us with nice views and a good distance for us.  Plus, it would keep us away from the camper which needed to dry out without us!  So, off we went toward String Lake.

There was a bit of a drive to String Lake, but it was so scenic.  The clouds hadn’t completely lifted, but the breezes would occasionally blow enough of the clouds out of the way to give us a decent view of the majestic mountains.  Once we arrived at the trailhead, we managed to get the last parking spot and started on our hike.

What we noticed on the hike was that nearly everybody there had bear spray.  We did not have any and hadn’t had any since Banff.  We didn’t know if that was a problem or not so we relied on our noisemakers - a 9 and 11 year old boy.  Turns out they didn’t let us down!  

As for the hike, it wasn’t extremely challenging but was a great walk around the lake providing some amazing views of the water with the mountains around it. Here’s a few examples of what we saw as we went around String Lake.

Once we finished, I wanted to go the longer way around back to camp so that I could go past the iconic Snake River overview where Ansel Adams took his famous photo.  The clouds hadn’t lifted so my attempt wasn’t so great.  But I tried anyway.

We got back to camp to find that the camper wasn’t completely dry but was nearly there.  It was a nice change after the damp feelings of what we had in Yellowstone.  We enjoyed some dinner and then watched a Simpsons together.  Then, just before bed we introduced the boys to Hearts.  They caught on pretty quick and very much enjoyed ensuring that I always got the queen of spades.  Not a bad way for our last night together in nature.

Total mileage - 10,375 miles

# States/Provinces - 19 / 2