I just realized I never wrote about our whirlwind weekend trip to Jackson Hole, with a side trip to Yellowstone. As I've already mentioned, this was also Keely's birthday weekend. Jackson Hole is about a 5 hour drive and we arrived in time for dinner on Friday. We ate at Snake River Brewing and it was really pretty good, plus it was a short walk from our hotel. Turns out it was about the only good restaurant choice within walking distance of our hotel, a fact we discovered when trying to find something to eat on Saturday night. We actually almost ended up at Snake River again, but ended up finding the little Mexican restaurant to celebrate Keely's birthday dinner.
On Saturday morning, we left the hotel at about 9 AM and drove up through Teton National Park to Yellowstone. It's pretty much winter up there already so most everything was closed. We drove for at least 2 hours to finally arrive at Old Faithful. This was to be the furthest we ventured into Yellowstone, there really wasn't much time for anything else. When we got to Old Faithful, it had just erupted a little while earlier and it was on a 90 minute schedule. So we had about an hour to wait, and we looked through the visitor center and store. It was pretty cold and windy, but we were lucky that there was no rain. We sat down and watched the natural wonder erupt, it went on for about 4 minutes. I expected it to be higher but it was still pretty impressive. After that event, we walked around the pathways a bit and saw some of the other natural hot springs and formations.
We grabbed some snacks from the gift shop (who knew huckleberries could be used in so many ways?) and drove just a little further up the main road to Black Sand Basin, and I am glad we did. This was even more fun than Old Faithful because you could actually stand in the steam created by several natural hot spring pools. We all really enjoyed the warmth, especially since the weather was getting cooler.
We started our drive out of Yellowstone and back through Teton N.P. stopping at several places to take pictures and poke around a bit. We made one more stop at the visitor's center and museum at the main entrance of Teton.
All in all, we were in the car for at least 4-5 hours on this one day, not to mention the 5 hours each way from SLC to Jackson Hole -- so a ton of driving for one weekend. I'd guess I would like to get back to Yellowstone one day, but because we live in the Rocky Mountains and have been to several mountain towns, this was not all too impressive to us. That might sound snobbish -- but it's true. The area is probably way more impressive to those who live in completely different parts of the country but it wasn't for us. The only thing we missed out on was the wildlife. We looked and looked but saw nothing, except for a few ravens outside the Old Faithful visitor center.
I just realized I never wrote about our whirlwind weekend trip to Jackson Hole, with a side trip to Yellowstone. As I've already mentioned, this was also Keely's birthday weekend. Jackson Hole is about a 5 hour drive and we arrived in time for dinner on Friday. We ate at Snake River Brewing and it was really pretty good, plus it was a short walk from our hotel. Turns out it was about the only good restaurant choice within walking distance of our hotel, a fact we discovered when trying to find something to eat on Saturday night. We actually almost ended up at Snake River again, but ended up finding the little Mexican restaurant to celebrate Keely's birthday dinner.
On Saturday morning, we left the hotel at about 9 AM and drove up through Teton National Park to Yellowstone. It's pretty much winter up there already so most everything was closed. We drove for at least 2 hours to finally arrive at Old Faithful. This was to be the furthest we ventured into Yellowstone, there really wasn't much time for anything else. When we got to Old Faithful, it had just erupted a little while earlier and it was on a 90 minute schedule. So we had about an hour to wait, and we looked through the visitor center and store. It was pretty cold and windy, but we were lucky that there was no rain. We sat down and watched the natural wonder erupt, it went on for about 4 minutes. I expected it to be higher but it was still pretty impressive. After that event, we walked around the pathways a bit and saw some of the other natural hot springs and formations.
We grabbed some snacks from the gift shop (who knew huckleberries could be used in so many ways?) and drove just a little further up the main road to Black Sand Basin, and I am glad we did. This was even more fun than Old Faithful because you could actually stand in the steam created by several natural hot spring pools. We all really enjoyed the warmth, especially since the weather was getting cooler.
We started our drive out of Yellowstone and back through Teton N.P. stopping at several places to take pictures and poke around a bit. We made one more stop at the visitor's center and museum at the main entrance of Teton.
All in all, we were in the car for at least 4-5 hours on this one day, not to mention the 5 hours each way from SLC to Jackson Hole -- so a ton of driving for one weekend. I'd guess I would like to get back to Yellowstone one day, but because we live in the Rocky Mountains and have been to several mountain towns, this was not all too impressive to us. That might sound snobbish -- but it's true. The area is probably way more impressive to those who live in completely different parts of the country but it wasn't for us. The only thing we missed out on was the wildlife. We looked and looked but saw nothing, except for a few ravens outside the Old Faithful visitor center.
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