Jackson Hole & Grand Teton National Park

Last night Bailey and I drove up to Idaho Falls to spend the night at our friends house. This morning all five of us got an early start to begin our ultimate summer road trip!

Stop one was Jackson, Wyoming. Utahns love Jackson but for some reason Bailey and I had never been. We loved all of the fun shops, it is such a cute place! We shopped around a bit and grabbed some lunch before heading to the Tetons.

We only had a few hours in Grand Teton National Park but I’m glad that we were able to get a taste of it. So beautiful! We were able to see Jenny Lake which was pretty but I especially loved the rugged peaks that the Tetons are known for!

We went on a couple of little walking trails and stopped by the visitor center, but all too soon it was time to head to our Helena hotel. We thought it made sense to drive up through Yellowstone, so the drive was really pretty. Until we came to a complete stop on the highway! The line of cars in front of us went on longer than we could see. After a little bit of walking and asking around we figured out there was a bad crash about an hour and a half earlier and people had been waiting since then. We considered our options but decided to just wait it out. We determined that it would likely be faster to do so, and after an hour and 45 minutes and lots of snacks we were back to full speed! It was a long time to wait but it did save us gas and time in the end to just wait it out rather than reroute.

Unfortunately that got us pretty off schedule. Luckily it wasn’t a tight schedule, but driving late into the middle of the night is not our favorite. We were able to enjoy more of Yellowstone on our way out of the park though. It may be one of my favorite national parks! We especially loved the two buffalo that walked right next to our car.

We made it to Helena at 1am. The drive was pretty uneventful except for the time we woke up to Spencer yelling. I was in the passenger seat and saw a giant flying thing headed right towards us, we think it was an owl. It hit and dented our license plate, poor thing. I feel so lucky that it didn’t hit our windshield though! We were in the middle of nowhere so I wouldn’t have known what to do if it was serious!

Anyway, stay tuned! We have some really exciting adventures ahead!