Grand Teton National Park by Craig (June 16)

It has been a long time since I weighed in with the Dad Perspective. My apologies to Ellen for barely assisting with the blog. I'm going to write the posts that details our travels between June 16-18, starting with the 16th. The last time I was in the Tetons, I was 16 years old. To say that a lot has changed since then is an understatement. Like Ellen explained in the previous post, our accommodations were terrific. The tent cabins provided the perfect amount of shelter (for the right price). I was able to build fires in the woodstove, which kept me feeling purposeful. I would even jump down from my bunk at night to keep the stove warm.

The mornings were still chilly, as evidenced by our children:





June 16
Ellen needed a shower today, so we all went down to Colter Bay. Julia, and Grace, and I went to the Native American Museum in the village. A very kind native american artist, who had his materials on display, was very engaged with the girls. He let them play his animal skin drums while he played his flutes. He even made them small necklaces with a couple of very cool (and very old) beads on them.

After meeting up with Ellen we drove to Jenny Lake. From a launch there we ferried across the lake to a trail.



We then hiked up to Hidden Falls and Inspiration Point. The hike was great. We climbed up some pretty steep elevation with Julia on my shoulders most of the time. Grace, on the other hand, demonstrated her skills as a junior mountain goat (the girl can hike!)



The falls were cool but it made Julia a little nervous. The sound and spray were not to her liking.



We moved on to Inspiration point which involved a rigorous climb up into the rocky crags of the Tetons. This is how high we climbed above the boat dock:



And this is us playing around on the rocks:





From the top of Inspiration Point we could see bad weather closing in. Knowing that we had pulled a dunce move and forgot to bring raincoats for ANYONE, we decided to hightail back to the boat dock to catch the next ferry back to our car.



Unfortunately we didn't make it in time. I don't have any pictures of our retreat from Inspiration Point, but it wasn't pretty. By the time we reached the boat dock, thunder and lightning crackled overhead. This meant the ferry service was delayed until 15 minutes after the last peal of thunder. Also, we were not the only ones trying to get back on the ferry. We spent some time castigating ourselves for failing to bring raincoats and then huddled under trash bags someone gave us (no pictures of this pathetic sight). After about an hour waiting in cold rain, sleet and hail, the ferry resumed and we made it back across Jenny lake. The kids stayed dry but Ellen and I were wet and cold. We returned to camp by 2:30 PM and spent the rest of the day making s'mores in the wood stove. We played some games and then as a real treat Grace and Julia watched Toy Story 2 on my computer.

Up Next: June 17 and 18. Stay Tuned.