The oft-absent mountains

We left Kemmerer Wednesday morning with a substantially cleaner car, Jane having been powerwashed by yet another torrential downpour. To be honest, I was ready to leave the town - the combination of the weather and the bad fossil hunting experience had kind of ruined the town for me. And I was headed on to bigger and better things - one of the most well-known national parks in the United States!

Our drive was a quick one, just a short hop up to Jackson, WY. We stocked up on food and gas there - which was an adventure in itself (though it shouldn't have been). We needed to get enough food to last us for a few days of camping, plus a week's worth of lunches. Fortunately, our cooler proved to be exactly the right size for eggs, meat, and some fresh fruits; a secondary large sealable container was tetris'd with all of our dry goods, which needed to be protected from bears. Based upon the number of groceries my car can hold (in addition to all of the camping gear and spare parts / fluids for the car itself), I've determined that 7 days of camping is totally doable in a '66 Mustang fastback. Any more may be pushing it as you've got nowhere to put a cooler large enough to hold your perishables.

We encountered a gas pump that had no shutoff (found that out by the explosion of gas out of the back of the tank as it reached full, as well as the telltale pile of kitty litter sitting right in front of the pump). So that was interesting. Reeking slightly more of gas than usual, we headed into Grand Teton National Park.

Unfortunately, there was no sunlight to be seen. In fact, the weather could have been called fairly dismal. Clouds and mists shrouded the famous Tetons and thus we were left with a view of fields and trees. We drove around a bit looking at various scenic overlooks (which were not so scenic in the rain) and eventually lucked into a bit of sun. Based on the number of people who immediately stopped to take pictures of the semi-visible mountains, it seems that the weather had been bad for a few days. I managed to capture a couple of interesting shots before they were covered again.

Misty mountain majesty.

Tons of really bright Indian Paintbrush in the wildflower fields.

Thursday was much better. We woke up early and took Jane to Jenny Lake, where we were informed that we had "awesome choice of touring car, dude". I left her in the lot and we headed out on a long hike across Jenny Lake to Hidden Falls, Inspiration Point, and Cascade Canyon. Again, the weather was not cooperating, so Inspiration Point was... not so inspirational. Instead, I took photos of the local plants and wildlife:

Kinda creepy mist at the start of the hike

A cute chippy chowing on some flowers

My god. Look at this monstrosity!

This is the best chipmunk I've ever seen.

A cute pika

We headed further up the trail to the Cascade Canyon trail in hopes of just walking until the weather was forced to clear up. That proved to be a good strategy as a couple of miles into the hike the sun came out and we even got to see some blue sky!

The day was beautiful so we pressed on and ended up hiking five and a half miles. Somewhere along the way some hikers introduced us to huckleberries, which were growing wild all along the path. Absolutely delicious! On the way back we were treated to some GREAT views of wildlife - a family of moose (a bull, a cow, and a calf) and a not-very-afraid mostly-grown fox cub, who got altogether too close to me.

This guy was huge! He was running through 4' of water like it was no problem.

No zoom! This picture blurry because I was like "Too close! Too close!" when he got a couple of feet away from me and started backing up. He ran right past me and continued down the trail.

Clouds were closing in as we completed our 11-mile hike so we headed to Signal Mountain Lodge for some bison for dinner. We then went back to the cabin where it hailed - for the second time this week - on my lovely vintage car.

Tomorrow we leave Grand Teton NP and head further north - there's only one possible place we could be going. Stay tuned for more excellent pictures, hopefully of more sunny landscapes than we've had so far! Kelly signing out.