Moving On

After surviving our night in the windy forest, we both felt ready to pack up and move on.  But before we said our goodbyes, we decided to squeeze in one last visit to Lamar Valley.

And the second time around?  Well, it was just as magical and amazing as the first.  Much like our first visit, we saw bears, antelope, coyotes, and tons and tons of buffalo.

I seriously can’t get enough of these cute guys!  They are kind of slow, and a little bit odd. . .but hilariously cute.  Eating, roaming, sitting, laying, sleeping, walking – they could pretty much be doing anything and I would love them and want to cuddle them.

It was truly the perfect last adventure for us to have in Yellowstone.  We both were beaming as we arrived back to our campground, ready to pack up, get on the road, and start the final part of our trip.

While the hubby got our camp packed up, I prepared a campfire breakfast.  We actually didn’t realize until we were here that it is legal to have fires at any time of day, so we hadn’t packed perishable breakfast foods.  Lucky for us though, the Canyon Campground facilities had a food store, so we stocked up on a few items.

A hot breakfast in our tummies, the after-glow of buffalo watching, and we were ready to hit the road.  We drove South heading out of Yellowstone, and within a few short hours we reached our next and final stop for the trip. . .Grand Teton National Park.

And when you arrive, the views are immediately breathtaking.

After checking into our campground, we drove over to the ranger station to get a little help with our itinerary.  Having come from such a large park where we spent most of our days driving, we were in the mindset that things would take an equally long amount of time here.  Cue our conversation with Ranger Dan:

Me: “So we wanted to drive around Jenny Lake. . .how many hours do you think we should allot for that?”

Ranger Dan: “Probably about 10 minutes.”

Me: “10 minutes!?!”

Ranger Dan: “Ummm yeah, its about 2 miles around.”

Me: “Oh okay. . .”

After our enlightening conversation, we both came to the realization that in general, Grand Teton National Park is significantly smaller than Yellowstone.

As we were leaving the ranger station and discussing our plan of action, we overheard a family talking about swimming in Jackson Lake.  We hadn’t even considered it, as we had assumed that it would be way too cold.  But we decided to drive over and give it a look.

Upon seeing tons of people braving the shockingly cold waters, we decided to give it a go too.  And. . .well, it was freezing.  But after about 10-20 minutes, your body seems to adjust.  (Or maybe you are just so numb you don’t notice that you are freezing anymore.)

After our quick dip, which by the way was amazingly scenic, we got dried off and started our drive to do the main loop around the park.  Originally we were thinking that this loop would take hours to complete, and days with all of the stops added in. . .but luckily Ranger Dan helped clear that up for us.

Grand Teton is a very easy and very straightforward National Park to visit.  Since we were basically there to enjoy the views of the Tetons, our plan was to just drive the main loop, and pull off at the various scenic view points.

So drive and stop we did.  And as you can see, we couldn’t help but stop for some more buffalo too!

We spent the better part of the afternoon just driving around and enjoying the views.  It was very relaxing and very beautiful.

When we finished the loop, we headed back to our campground to set up for the night.  While the Mr. got our tent all fixed up and ready to go, I worked on dinner.  Tonight’s menu?  A steak fit for a cowboy and all the fixings too – potatoes roasted on the coals, asparagus and cornbread muffins.

Everything was cooking along and lining up just right.  We were both just chomping at the bit, ready to dig in.  Then something happened.  The hubs had gone over to the car to grab a few things, and I went to the fire to flip the steak.  Just as I had grabbed the steak, the fire flared up, and some smoke got into my eyes.  I flailed a little bit and an “oh #*$%” exploded out of my mouth.  “What happened, did you drop the steak into the fire?” Ryan asked (slightly panicked).  And my response was a sheepish, “ummmmmm. . .kind of.” 

Yep, our almost perfectly cooked steak dropped directly into the ashes.  Or I should say, I dropped our almost perfectly cooked steak directly into the ashes.  Now if there was another steak, no big deal.  But we had only brought one large steak to share.  (Insert sad faces here.)  But when you’re camping, you’ve got to get creative and make the most of it.  So we quickly grabbed some bottled water and “washed” the steak off.  We popped it back onto the grill to cook off any other bits, and voila!  A no-longer charred, but hopefully still delicious steak.

We loaded up our plates and dug in – the asparagus was on point, the cornbread muffins?  Best I had ever cooked them.  The steak?  Well, not too bad all things considered.  And the potatoes?  Huh, oddly crunchy.  I had cooked them a good hour, but they seemed barely ready.  So we threw them back on the fire in a bid to get them properly cooked.

Eventually we got tired of waiting for them to finish cooking, so we just decided to enjoy this new creation. . .potatoes al dente.  Wine in hand, we enjoyed our dinner and shared some good chuckles about this cooking adventure.  It’s like they say out here on the range – when life throws you an ash-covered steak. . .you make steak.