After our time in Oregon, we made quite the drive into Idaho! We drove through some strong winds in the middle of nowhere with no place to stop. We came upon a small town with trees down all over shortly after, which we had to route around. Then we continued our drive with gray skies out our left window and blue skies out our right – just outside the line of storms. Thankfully, we made it safely to our RV park just outside of Boise, Idaho.
I know there is a lot to do in the Boise area, but we did absolutely nothing aside from practical stuff. We cleaned, caught up on lots of laundry, grocery shopped, did haircuts, etc. I did pick up a few new book sets from Costco for the kids, and they were thrilled! We have many bookworms in this family.
After staying a few nights near Boise, we moved on to a park in Idaho Falls. We got settled in and enjoyed walking and playing on the playground that evening.
The next morning we got up and made the 2-hour drive to Grand Teton National Park.
There we met up with Ryan’s parents, Gigi and Pops, who came from Texas to spend some time with us. Our kids were so excited to see their grandparents!
We picked a bad day to be at a national park. The sky was filled with thick smoke from the California fires, so much that we never really got to see the Teton mountain range. Our hearts go out to our friends and others dealing with these fires in California!
The park was pretty crowded, especially at the Jenny Lake area. We decided to bypass Jenny Lake and head to Colter Bay at Jackson Lake.
We chose to walk an easy stroller-friendly trail around the bay.
We mostly enjoyed talking and catching up with Gigi and Pops as we walked.
Is it any surprise that we made our way to the lakeside to skip rocks? This is a Stegent family favorite.
The lighting of the sky was an orange color all day. We could barely see mountain silhouettes in the background.
We spent a good while by the lake throwing rocks, skipping rocks and venturing out onto rocks.
It was fun, though I knew the views could not be anything like they are on a normal day.
After walking Colter Bay, we drove back down toward Jenny Lake. We saw that it was still really crowded, so we decided to drive further down to the Phelps Lake area. As we drove, we started to see the Teton mountain range. We were excited to be able to see it at all. Even in its almost invisible form, it was beautiful.
We saw people stopped along the side of the road taking pictures. This is usually a sign that there is either a great view or a unique animal nearby. We pulled over to see, and sure enough…there was a moose!
After checking out the moose, we drove a little further and parked at the Laurence S. Rockefeller Preserve. We walked part of the Woodland Trail Loop. I will say that the signs marking trails at this park aren’t great. We had to ask other people to make sure we were on the right trail.
Shortly into our walk, we happened upon a small waterfall. We were not expecting it, so it was a great surprise! We loved that we were able to walk right up close to it and touch the water.
We walked further into the trail, and four other hikers stopped us to let us know there was a bear cub ahead. As much as we’d love to see a bear cub, we had no bear spray and people don’t say, “the momma bear rose up in me,” for no reason. Haha. It was getting late anyway, so we decided to turn around and call it a day.
I am positive we did not get to see but a hint of Grand Teton’s beauty, but we enjoyed the day nonetheless. And we really appreciated the beauty we did see.