Tackling the Tetons

We have been exploring the gorgeous Grand Teton Range for the past couple of days, and last night we successfully guerrilla camped for the first time in a National Park. All of the official campgrounds were full, so we found a nice trail-head down a dirt road and parked there for the night in anticipation of getting an early start for a long hike today. Here's George eating breakfast in our trail-head campsite. A great view and no noisy neighbors with generators makes for a happy camper!

Our hike was a grueling 10 mile round-trip hike up, up, up (3100 feet up) to two glacial-fed alpine lakes at 9700 feet. As usual, I was the slowpoke of the family as my long-legged cohorts bounded ahead of me like mountain goats.

Adalaya even wore her mountain goat shirt!

We made it to the lakes in time for lunch - wonderful ambiance for our veggie wraps!

The wildflowers were blooming . . . I love the Indian Paintbrushes!

Then we found a nice napping rock, and Adalaya discovered that someone else claimed this rock for sleeping purposes. Our first of several marmot sightings on this hike.

And this sneaky mountain goat kid had lots of fun hitting her parents with snowballs in August! What fun!

Adalaya was quite the wildlife spotter today. On the hike back down she spotted a pika - our new favorite rodent - collecting food for the winter. Too cute!

After successfully completing our first 10 mile hike of our trip, we figured we should celebrate by going to Jackson Hole for dinner.

Little did we realize how busy Jackson would be, and every restaurant we went into had at least a one hour wait. Exhausted and hungry, we found a spot at the bar of the "Merry Piglets" Mexican Cantina and had chips and salsa, margaritas and root-beer while we waited for a table.

Stuffed and exhausted, now I'm going to take an asprin and go to bed!