The Mighty Grand Tetons

 

Each weekend, we try to get away to see the amazing places that surround Yellowstone. After four weeks in Yellowstone, we finally made our way south into Grand Teton National Park. We set out after dinner on Thursday (our last work day of the week) for a late evening drive south out of the park to our neighbor-park, the Tetons.  We had a wonderful drive at dusk on the Moose-Wilson Road to our sleeping destination in Teton Village, where we slept in the van and then got up and out early for a boat ride across Jenny Lake and a gorgeous hike that yielded stunning mountain views, roaring streams and a serene lakeside. Oh, and did I forget to mention moose and a close encounter with a black bear? Here are some photos from the weekend.

 

 

 

Dusk falls on the Tetons

 

 

Waiting to board our shuttle boat to cross Jenny Lake

 

 

View of a Black Bear from the trail

 

 

 

 

Great view of a Moose in the grassy marsh alongside Moose-Wilson Rd



Small Town America - Soda Springs, Idaho

Soda Springs, Idaho

Located in Caribou County.  4.59 Square Miles.   Population 2,975

In the two and a half years we've been on the road, we've travelled through endless small towns from one end of the country to the other. There's always a Main Street.  One stops sign or two.  Perhaps a traffic light.  Sometimes quaint. Often struggling. These are the streets of someone's life.

They are sturdy little things, these towns. Despite the cracking, peeling signs and the occasional boarded up buildings, they house all the necessities of an American life.

There's always a diner.  At least one grassy square with Monuments to the town's war dead.  Most assuredly a baseball field, a fire station, a drug store & a gas station - either shiny new or one with ancient pumps, depending on it's proximity to the nearest highway.  There is often an aging auto repair shop, railroad tracks, if not a railroad station, a small town hardware store, alongside a flower shop and a little place that boasts a little bit of this and little bit of that, with a hodgepodge of collectibles and oddities in the window.

These little towns usually have a small historical society, a modest library. And some kind of factory or industry - the industry that either founded the town, saved the town, sustains the town, or is in the process of revitalizing the town. In Soda Springs, it is a Monsanto fertilizer plant and a Gypsum plant. In other towns, it's the local meat processing plant, the Del Monte canning facility, or the paper mill. These are places that keep the town afloat, that sponsor the 4th of July parade, and that give folks somewhere to go each morning, and somewhere to return home from each afternoon.

If you visit in the summer, you will still see the vestiges of the most recent 4th of July proudly adorning houses and mailboxes. Posters for the upcoming local county fair are posted in shop windows, promising unimaginable fun and excitement - not to mention the crowning of the prize-winning heifer and best-of-show zucchini.

But over and above these things, that are staples of small town America in the warm days of summer, each small town seems to boast some special thing. Some geographic oddity, some small piece of celebrity, or history, or Americana to draw you into town. Something they can put on a small brown sign. Something to be proud of.

In Soda Springs, Idaho it's the Soda Springs Geyser.

 

Soda Springs derived it's name from the hundreds of springs of carbonated water that are located around the town. In the middle 19th century, they were a well known stop along the Oregon Trail. In the city's heyday, the carbonated water was bottled in a local factory and sold as a popular "soda water" that put the town on the map.

The famous Soda Springs Geyser was not an attraction when the early pioneers stopped at the famous "Soda Springs" on their way across the West. The geyser is, instead, an unintended man-made attraction, unleashed when the town fathers were looking to tap into the hot springs for a "hot pool" bathing attraction in 1934, and instead drilled into a chamber of highly pressurized carbon dioxide gas and cold water, releasing the massive geyser, that flooded the down town area as it ran for weeks to the astonishment of locals.

The town fathers got their tourist attraction - although not the one they originally intended. The geyser was eventually capped and "manually" released to the delight of visitors. Today it is let loose every hour on the hour by a timed release valve and both locals and tourists alike, gather each hour to await the show. According to the interpretive signs at the attraction, the geysers height and volume has not decreased after many years.

Here are some additional photos from our brief stopover in Soda Springs, Idaho.

 

 

Hail to small town America.....

Fountain Geyser Surprise

Just a quick hello this morning, to share a few quick photos from yesterday morning, before heading off to work for the day. This week we are on late shift - which means we don't go into work until 11:30 in the morning. On these days we try to go out into the park and see areas we haven't yet seen. Yesterday we headed out at around 7am toward the geyser basins that surround the Old Faithful Area. We had a really cool experience when we were walking the boardwalk around the Fountain Paintpots area of the park.

We were headed toward a spouting geyser that we had noticed from the road that intrigued us when we passed a large Geyser, Fountain Geyser, that looked to us to be dormant (or at least nothing was going on with it at the moment). We could see it was very large and very deep, but looked dry and empty. We glanced at it briefly then moved on toward the smaller geyser that was our destination. Suddenly we heard an eruption behind us and turned to find Fountain Geyser fully erupting, spouting water high and wide. The spray even got us a little wet! We then took out our book and read that the eruptions of this geyser could last as long as 25 minutes. We watched in awe for about 15 minutes before we had to leave to head back toward Grant Village to work. Here are some stunning photos of the eruption.

Introduction to Yellowstone - Part Two

Hello Friends! I am typing this from a hotel in Red Lodge, Montana after an amazing day and a half off work and away from our jobs in the Grant General Store.  It's hard to believe we have been in Wyoming/Montana for three weeks now, and have completed 3 weeks of work.

We take turns posing in front of "Old Faithful" during an eruption

It has gone by fast, but also slow in some ways.  We are in an odd sort of pattern. The actual work we are doing in the Grant General Store is very much "physical" work - much more so than we have done in the recent past.  Especially for Andre who is working in the grocery area of the store and spends a great deal of his work day stocking grocery shelves, unloading deliveries, and basically running around in between ringing up customers.

We are working split shifts, which basically means we work half of our shift (4 hours), then clock out for 2 1/2 hours and come back to work the second half of our shift later in the day. This is not optimum (and was not disclosed to us when we were hired) but apparently is the way all of the jobs with this company work here in the park at the Yellowstone General Stores.  Because we want to take advantage of every opportunity to see the park, we generally do something during the long middle of the day break. Either a short hike, or some touring of a new part of the park that is reachable in the short time span we have, before suiting up to go to work for the second half of our day. We work 5 days on and 2 days off and our days off are Friday and Saturday.

This odd pattern of work/living makes for long days on our feet for a series of days, followed by two days off during which we take off in the van for two days of exploring the nearby towns and recreations spots, going as far abroad as quickly as we can and jamming in as much recreation as we can!  Our first couple of days off we went whitewater rafting and horseback riding in Big Sky, MT. Last weekend we went to Bozeman, MT for the weekend.

This fantastic brewery was one of four we sampled
 on our weekend in Bozeman

This current weekend we are in Red Lodge, MT after an incredible journey through the Lamar Valley area of the park and then a leisurely ride over and across the Beartooth Highway, a stunning scenic route from the northeast corner of the park outward into Montana.

 

At the highest elevations, we are once more in an Alpine climate
with the last vestiges of winter still present.

Of course, Andre wants to walk on the snow
(and then throw a snowball at me!)

To give you a taste of our weekends off - we left Grant Village after our work shifts were over on Thursday night at about 6:30. We had used our mid-day break to pack up the van so we were ready to go right away. We drove north through the park slowly, stopping at scenic views, including waterfalls, canyons, historical sites, etc.  Just as we pulled into the Tower Falls General Store/Visitor center, we caught site of our first "park bears". Two large black bears were visible moving across a ridge clearly visible from the parking lot.  We watched them until they had turned the corner and started moving away and down into a thickly wooded slope on the other side.

Two adult Black bears move slowly across the grassy ridge

We were thrilled to have seen bears for the first time in Yellowstone and went on to visit the store and do the short hike out to view Tower Falls, a narrow waterfall that drops dramatically 132 feet before joining the Lamar River.  On impulse, we decided to continue onto a small hiking trail that went down to the river. It was 8:30 by now and the sun was starting to drop. Andre and I were both secretly hoping we would see the bears again, maybe feeding at the river.  We stayed about 10 minutes and were just starting back up when the reward came. Andre noticed the bears moving slowly from the woods to the river bed. Then we were shocked to see them walk right into the river and swim slowly across the fast moving river to exit on the other side, shake off the water, and head on their way, up the slope on the other side, presumably to their dens for the night.

Tower Falls rushes over the rocky spire formations

The first bear becomes visible entering the river a half hour later!

They swim steadily across the river

Up onto the other side and shaking off the water...

After our amazing encounter with the bears we continued on to spend the night in the van further north in the park to position ourselves near the Lamar Valley to have the best shot of seeing wildlife early in the morning as we passed through the valley toward the park's northeast entrance. After an amazing ride through the valley, stopping frequently to observe multiple herds of bison and Pronghorn sheep, we exited the park for our ride across the Beartooth Highway and on to Red Lodge for some R&R, a hotel with a Jacuzzi. After a visit to the Red Lodge Brewing Company and a few hours out at a local sports bar to watch the Women's USA soccer team beat China in the quarter finals of the world cup, we headed to the hotel for the night. This morning we will head back toward the park and be back in our room by 9PM or so, ready to start another work week tomorrow.

It's not a bad life....

Here are some more random photos from the past week in the park.

One of the more amazing thermal features at the West Thumb thermal area
 at the edge of Lake Yellowstone.

A large Male Elk lounges in the wood near the lake

A hike out to Duck Lake



A geyser erupts in the distance as we drive along "Firehole Lake Drive"

Our little van among the steaming thermal features

A land alive and bubbling

Until next week....