Northern Utah, Eastern Idaho, and Western Wyoming — 7/13 to 8/25/19

Hi all!  First, I just wanted to give fair warning that this is a longer blog post than usual, mostly because it has more photos in it than my typical posts. Second, for everyone that receives notification of my blog post by email, you probably noticed that the email format changed.  Previously, the blog settings were set up to send you the entire blog post in the email.  As I looked at some other blogs that I subscribe to, I noticed that many just send out an email with the first few lines of the blog entry and then provide a link to click on that brings you to the web version of the entire blog post.  I decided to give that a try since the web version does a better job with formatting and photo size.  If you’d rather that I go back to providing the entire blog post in an email, please let me know by sending me an email at gljuggler@gmail.com

Where we last left off, Karen and I were getting ready to leave southwestern Utah to head further north to Provo UT.  So, why stop in Provo you ask?  The primary reason was that we needed to be close to a major airport (Salt Lake City) so that Karen could fly out to Austin TX to help Emma and Robin make their move to Orlando FL.  The plan was for us to get to Provo several days before she needed to fly out so that we would have time to “recover” from our whirlwind journey through all of the national parks and make sure that I was set for being solo in the RV (with the dogs) for the 10 days Karen would be gone. The other part of the reason for staying in Provo was that a dear old friend of mine, Lyn, from my high school days in Greenwich Connecticut lives in the Park City UT area, so staying in Provo would also provide me with the ability to visit her and husband Ira multiple times while Karen was away.

Before I say more about my visiting with Lyn, let me say a few things about Provo.  First, the entire eastern side of Provo is bordered by mountains.  There is something really cool about a big city sitting at the foothills of tall mountains – you see the mountains everywhere you go.  Second, Provo has all the amenities of bigger cities that Karen and I like – Starbucks, Costco, movie theaters, restaurants with all types of cuisines, etc., so it was nice to have those available after spending several weeks in the smaller, remote towns of southern UT that didn’t have those amenities.  Yep, we admit it, we’re not cut out to live in those small remote towns unless we have a bigger city within easy driving distance!

Speaking of mountains, our RV park in Provo was close to the mountains, so while it wasn’t the best RV park (packed us in like sardines), it did provide a nice view.  Most notable however, was that one night, around 10:30 pm, I was letting the dogs out of the RV to take care of their business, when I looked at the mountain and saw this huge orange “ring” on a portion of it.  It took a few seconds before I realized that I was looking at a wildfire!  Very eerie to see that in the darkness of night.  My first thought was wondering whether I (and the dogs) were going to have to evacuate from the RV park, but I knew the mountain was a few miles away, though it looks closer than that because of how big it is, so there was very little chance of that happening.

Upon seeing it, I expected to hear sirens, though I wasn’t sure if that happens when there is a wildfire on the part of the mountain where there isn’t housing…but it was strangely quiet.  It made me wonder if the fire had just started and nobody was aware of it.  I decided that as big as it was, there was no way I was the first to see it.  The next morning, I could see that the fire was pretty much out (just a lot of smoke), but I did get to see a plane fly toward the mountain and drop the red flame retardant on an area to prevent any additional spread of the fire.

Okay, now back to my friend, Lyn.  She and I met back in the early 1970s when we both lived in Greenwich, Connecticut and were attending the same high school.  Even though I moved to MD in the middle of high school, Lyn and I continued to stay in close contact through high school and college.  We drove a 6-week cross-country trip together in 1977 after we both graduated from our colleges.  While we saw each other a few more times over the next 25 years, we realized that it had been 16 years since we’d last seen each other…with fairly minimal contact across all those years.  Needless to say, I know that we both wondered what it would be like having this “high school reunion” of sorts.  To kill the suspense…😉…it was really nice seeing each other.  Within an hour of hanging out, we both felt like we were just picking up from where we left off – it didn’t seem like so many years had passed by.  Well, that is, other than the fact we both looked considerably older (though I’d say we’ve aged well…her a little better than me 😀) and we both have children that are older than the age when Lyn and I first met!

It was really great to re-connect with Lyn and it was an important reminder of how special old friends can be.  Not too many of my current friends knew me through my awkward high school years, but Lyn lived through them with me, so we have funny (and sometimes painful) memories of that time that only she and I share.  I’m looking forward to the next time we can get together…and I know it won’t be another 16 years before that happens!

By the way, the drive from Provo to visit Lyn where she lives next to Park City took me through Provo Canyon (passing canyon walls with waterfalls) and past a couple of nice alpine lakes as you gain in elevation.  It was simply a beautiful and scenic drive — like one you would see in a national park.  In addition, while the temps in Provo were in the mid-90s, the temps up in the Park City area were in the low 80’s – that’s another part of the beauty of living at a higher elevation. 

After Karen returned from helping Emma and Robin move to Orlando, it was finally time for us to leave Utah and head north to Idaho and Wyoming.  The plan was for us to get up near the Jackson Hole WY area about a week before our kids would be flying in to meet us for a family vacation.  That would give us a chance to “scout” Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone National Park so that we could more efficiently plan our family vacation time.  National parks can be huge, so if you only plan to visit them for one day, it really helps to be able to preview the park and determine the “must see” places.  During the summer, RV parks very close to Jackson WY can get really expensive – upwards of $100/night — so to find more reasonably priced parks, you have to look at least 40 minutes away.  Karen found one in the small town of Victor Idaho.  The other benefit of being in Victor was that it is only 10 minutes away from the small town of Driggs ID, which is where we rented the Airbnb house for our family vacation.  That gave us a chance to scout-out the Airbnb and the surrounding town before everyone arrived.

Victor and Driggs are in the Teton Valley, which is the eastern part of Idaho that backs up to the western side of the Grand Teton mountains…and we had no idea how really beautiful and affordable the area is.  It provides access to mountains and canyons, as well as to rivers for fishing and kayaking or paddle-boarding.  It’s at a relatively high elevation, so even in August, the temps stayed mostly in the upper 70s and low 80s.  The drive to Jackson WY from this part of Idaho requires driving up and down Taylor Mountain with 10% grade in many places, so you better have a powerful engine and good brakes.  Jackson is a really fun (but expensive) town and it offers easy access to skiing, fishing, rafting, kayaking, off-roading, and, of course, proximity to two beautiful national parks.  All of our family members noted that this entire area would have a lot of appeal as a place to live during the half of the year that it has mild weather.  But only the true die-hard skiers/snowboarders in our group would consider living here in the cold weather, which lasts a long time!

Emma and Robin flew in from Orlando a day before the others flew in, so they stayed with us in the RV for one night since we didn’t have the Airbnb house yet.  They were rewarded for coming in early because we took them on a drive at dusk to a mountain/river area a few minutes away and lucked-out in seeing 3 moose in a field – our only moose sighting the whole week.  After the moose sighting, we then got treated to a very pretty sunset.

 The next day we left the RV park and moved into the Airbnb.  One of the reasons that Karen picked this Airbnb was that it had a driveway long enough for us to leave our RV in it and we could plug it in to an outside house socket so that it would keep our refrigerator and freezer running all week while we lived in the house with everyone else.  The Airbnb also had a huge fire pit and a hot tub large enough for the seven of us.  That evening, Gabe and his girlfriend, Nicole, flew in from MD and Jillian flew in from Boston.  Sadly, Jillian’s boyfriend, Chris, was unable to join us on this vacation.

I’ll try to spare you the blow-by-blow of our week-long family vacation, but I do want to share some highlights so you can get a sense of the area and the two national parks nearby.  Our first day, we went to Grand Teton National Park to take a small ferry boat across beautiful Jenny Lake to a trail that took us to Hidden Falls and Inspiration Point.  As you might recall from an earlier blog post, Karen and I aren’t into strenuous hikes – we’re more into hikes that are scenic and not too challenging – so this hike fit the bill perfectly.

Because the drives to the two national parks were pretty lengthy, our plan was to split up the park visits by a couple of days and do some nearby stuff in between them.  So, the next day, we rented kayaks and a paddle board so that we could float/paddle down the Teton River, which was only 15 minutes from our Airbnb.  This was the best float/paddle experience we’ve all had.  The weather was perfect, we were floating downstream with mostly tailwind breezes, the water was cold but clear, and the view of the Grand Teton mountains from the river was pretty spectacular.

The next day, we geared up for the long drive (and long day) at Yellowstone National Park.  There are multiple places to enter Yellowstone, but we decided that coming in from the western side would work the best for us – it would give us quickest access to some of the more spectacular features as well as increase the odds of seeing wildlife.  While Yellowstone may not have the spectacular red rocks structures of the southern Utah national parks, its thermal features are unmatched anywhere – hot springs, geysers, mud pots, and steam vents.  In some areas, it really looks other-worldly.  To think that the earth’s crust is so thin in this area that there is a risk of falling through is just mind-boggling.

After seeing the thermal features, our hope was to drive through the valleys in Yellowstone that are known for their wildlife – deer, elk, bears, wolves, and bison.  We knew that the best chance to see wildlife would be to hit this part of Yellowstone from 6:00pm on – wildlife tends to feed either near dawn or near dusk.  We went through the first valley (Hayden Valley) and was disappointed to see only a few bison that were quite distant from our car.  When Karen and I had previewed Hayden several days earlier, there was a large herd of bison that walked right next to our car.  As it started to get close to dusk, we continued up to the Lamar Valley area and was rewarded for our persistence – a large herd of bison walked right past our car and we followed them up the road.  Emma, who was the one among our group with the most intense interest (other than Karen) in seeing wildlife was sooo happy!

The next day, Karen and I had arranged for a 2:00 pm guided whitewater rafting trip down the Snake River in the Jackson area, which, at this time of year, is mostly a Class 2 river with a couple of Class 3 rapids – perfect for our group since 4 of the 7 had never been whitewater rafting before.  Rivers are rated from Class 1 to Class 6, with 1 being easy and 6 being extraordinarily difficult.  Class 2/3 level rapids provides a reasonable amount of exciting rafting mixed with a relatively lower level of risk of getting tossed out of the raft.  Just like our feeling about the kayaking/paddling down the Teton River a couple of days before, the whitewater rafting trip was really great.  The water was about at its warmest temp (maybe around 60 degrees), the scenery in the canyon was beautiful, we saw some otters in the water and an eagle in a tree, and we had a lot of fun navigating the rapids courtesy of our raft guide.  In a couple of flat areas of the river, we could jump out of the raft for a swim, so the younger five of our group all took that opportunity.

By the way, we did go back to Grand Teton National Park the last couple of days of our vacation and I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you that we finally got to see a Black Bear from a relatively close distance – about 40 yards.  At one point, he stood up on his hind legs and turned to look at us…and that made those of us standing outside of our car a little bit nervous!

While near Grand Teton NP, Karen found an area known as Mormon Row, which has many old/historical structures (barns, houses, etc.) still standing…and very photogenically positioned with the Grand Teton mountains in the background.  Here is a photo we took of one of the old barns:

I think that just about captures the highlights of our family vacation.  On a more personal and family level, it was just so nice to get our family all together for the first time since December.  It highlighted how much we miss being able to see our kids on a regular basis.  It was great fun hanging out in the hot tub late at night, talking, and staring up at the star-filled sky – and seeing a good number of shooting stars!  We also sat around the fire pit and enjoyed Robin’s creation of “stuffed” marshmallows, where he puts the chocolate pieces in the marshmallow and then heats them up over the fire.  We’re a “game” family, so we played lots of cards together, spike ball, and pickleball (there weren’t’ any cornhole boards…sigh).  Emma brought my radar gun from Gabe’s pitching days, so five of us headed over to a baseball field to give our arms a speed test, which was fun.  Nicole, who had been a travel team softball pitcher through high school, even gave us a demonstration of how to fast-pitch, so we all tried it with a baseball.  Pretty funny!  Speaking of Nicole, I have to give her a shout-out for being such a trooper in hanging out with our family for 7 straight days.  She tried so many new things on this trip and went with the flow the whole way!

Karen and I are still trying to recover from the sadness of seeing everyone fly back home after such a wonderful vacation.  It helps to know that we’ll see them again in about two months when we return east to attend a wedding.  In the meantime, we’ll begin to get ourselves ready for the next part of our journey, which will take us north into Montana, almost to the Canadian border, where we’ll go to Glacier National Park…most likely the last national park we’ll hit before we begin our trek eastward toward Maryland in October.