Majestic Grand Tetons

We met up with Sam's brother and his family in the cute, albeit touristy, western town of Jackson Hole, WY and spent a night in a hotel before heading into the national park.





We rolled into the first-in, best-dressed Jenny Lake campground insanely early to ensure a spot, and upon arriving we saw this guy waiting to greet us:



Um, hello there. What a great way to start the wildlife portion of the trip. It was Father's Day, so I snapped this photo of Sam and his boys:


The Grand Tetons are aptly named, and rise so dramatically and close to where we camped.





The campsite was equipped with a bear box to store all our food items. Riley was fairly petrified of bears and insisted on sleeping between Sam and I in the middle of the tent during our stay. It was overly cozy with us and Little Kenyon on the edge of the tent; luckily, Jackson and Alex felt comfortable staying in their separate tent. We never saw bears here, although we did see a couple of silver foxes trotting nearby.
We took a predawn float trip on the Snake River; it was leaner on the wildlife than we had hoped, but we did spot a bald eagle.











On what is now known as the Day of Australian Complaint (although there have been others) we all took a hike to Inspiration Point. If you are curious what would spawn endless complaints from a certain Australian teen, forego the round trip ferry ride across the lake and decide to hike around one way, only taking the ferry on the return. Whoa. 5-year old Kenyon managed to log his longest hike (4 miles) without a negative peep; the 14-year old also logged his longest hike but I can't say the same for his attitude.




Even though Inspiration Point itself wasn't terribly inspirational, the waterfalls on the way there were great.








A local told us about a hike to Huckleberry Hot Springs, so we set out after a kind stranger stopped us and lent us his bear spray just in case.
The area was gorgeous...








...but the hot springs weren't all that special--much of it was too hot or shallow to enjoy. Worth it for the hike and scenery more than the springs themselves.








The night before we left, we went on a drive in search of wildlife and scored two amazing finds:
A beaver!




And a MOOSE!








The awesome moose was the highlight of the Tetons for me.