Summer Road Trip: Part 1- Granite Falls, Jackson and Teton National Park

Here's the map of our big Summer Road Trip!

This post is about our first few days. Get ready for some pictures!

We left after church on Sunday and stayed up at my mom's house so we didn't have to fight Denver traffic on Monday. Thanks Mom!

Monday we left about 6am and headed up towards Jackson, WY. The KOA was booked so we made our way towards campgrounds that were first come first serve. We ended up staying at the Hoback Campground. It was really nice and spacious!

As we were setting up our tent, the camp host recommended a nearby hot springs! In a flash the rest of our evening was planned!

If we had been smart we would've just camped and hung out in the Granite Falls area that night, but I didn't come across the campground when preparing our trip. It was a really nice area!!

Before we got to the springs we hiked around and took some pictures by this awesome waterfall.

Doesn't it look like the mountain's just about to fall apart??

Nature truly is amazing. This waterfall was not very far from the hot springs, but the water temperatures were completely opposite! None of us had been to any sort of hot springs before. It was a great way to spend our night!

Once we were roasting hot and ready to get out of the water, we headed back to our campsite and made up some dinner. When searching for foil dinners I found this cajun style dinner. It is a must try for camping! So easy and so tasty, and not just because we were hungry, it was really really good!

Corn, smoked sausage, potatoes, shrimp, butter and creole seasoning!

We all slept well our first night of camping (though it was quite cold), but it was just a quick stop on our trip. We packed up and headed up to Jackson Hole, WY, Grand Teton National Park, and then our route took us through Yellowstone on our way to West Yellowstone to camp that night. We should've added one more day in our trip here because we didn't get to see everything in Jackson Hole and Grand Teton National Park that we wanted to in one day.

While in Jackson Hole we had to get pictures by the antler arches, of course! We walked around the shops, had lunch and went to the Ripley's Believe it or not museum!

 Did you notice how terrible my kids are at taking pictures???

Here's an old picture of Dan and I at Jackson Hole! This is when we were first married. Pre-kids, pre-military :)  The picture was stuck to the glass of the frame so i had to scan it with the glass still in front of it. (Sometimes it's hard to believe how much technology has advanced, even since we were first married! No digital pics!)

And here we are 12 years later! I'd say life looks good on us! (don't mind the bandana, I had camping hair)

Dan was joking at a passerby to join our pictures. He awkwardly walked away, but this lady jumped right in! Lol!

Love this guy!

 
Here are some pictures from the museum. Our kids love the Ripley books so they really enjoyed it.

Valerie, I took a picture of the snake wine just for you! They say it could help with RA!!

If you read this sign closely it talks about a volcano eruption that affected crops so much it caused a lot of families to relocate. It is said that this is when the Smith family relocated to Palmyra.

This next group of pictures are of the Tetons. What a beautiful mountain range! We just pulled over to the side of the road and went camera crazy on our way up to Grand Teton National Park.

 Can you spot the glaciers and glacial erosion??

It was already getting quite late in the day and we still had to make it all the way to West Yellowstone AND set up camp. Our time in Grand Teton National Park was short, and to be honest I wasn't in the best mood. We stopped at their visitor center, drove around awhile, and up Signal Mountain.

We had a quick dinner of PB&J and headed back down the mountain to continue on up to West Yellowstone. This is when Dan's highlight of the trip happened, a baby bear sighting! Mama bear was nowhere to be seen so he had to be careful while snapping some pictures.

See him yet?

Hi baby bear!

Like I mentioned, our route up to West Yellowstone meant we got to drive through the South Entrance of Yellowstone and out the West to our campground. The sun was setting (at 9pm) when we passed a lot of the geysers. Look at these amazing pictures Dan took and nature provided for us!

We were all very tired after a long day, but that scenery got us all excited for the next day in Yellowstone! We were able to set up camp quickly, even though we were in the dark :)