Before I dive into our latest adventure, warm thanks to everyone for your comments. Funny or serious they are appreciated as are  all the good wishes you’ve sent. Sorry I haven’t been able to reply individually.  My computer set- up is so inconvenient in a very small camper that simply keeping up with blog entries is a challenge. But keep your comments coming. We read all of them and enjoy the banter. And I promise I will avoid using the term “girl” ever again, except in regards to cowgirls, as cow-women seems degrading to our comrade sisters.

This will be a rather short entry. Although we put in 149 miles from Hoback Junction,where our RV park was located, words seem so inadequate to describe this magical part of our country.

You don’t ride into the Tetons, you ride past them. Rugged, majestic and covered in deep, deep snow. Snow lingers on in this part of Wyoming into late spring. We had hoped to ride up to Signal Mt., but the road was closed because the snow was too deep. On the route going north, the Tetons seem close enough to reach out and touch. The above photo was taken on the return route going south and the Tetons appear farther away and are viewed across a broad valley dotted with fir trees and and rolling pastures. In the winter, elk roam this valley to graze.

The map below illustrates our route past the Tetons and the loop to Jenny Lake.

Riding north through the park, with the Grand Tetons to our left, we found the one- way loop road to Jenny Lake, a 200 ft. deep body of cold clear water formed by ancient glaciers as they carved out a basin and then melted.

 

After our visit to Jenny Lake and a granola bar lunch, we returned to the main road, rode north to Malone where we turned south on the park road for the trip back to Jackson.

With the Grand Tetons now to our right,  so many photo ops presented themselves that we had to choose just one to capture the beauty of the scene. With the massive mountains in the background, our motorcycles appeared tiny and insignificant.

Although we had been warned to look for for deer, elk, and possibly bears, we encountered only camera-laden tourists from across the country and around the world. Just the same, warnings about wildlife are clearly posted on the highway.

 

Reluctantly, we left Grand Teton National Park and returned to Jackson to stop in for peek at “The Million Dollar Cowboy Bar.” The bar dates to 1937 and received the first liquor license in Wyoming after Prohibition. Frank had been there on a cross-country skiing trip in 1988 and claimed it was a “must see” bar. Frank was true to his word. It’s unique. The bar stools are horse saddles, the ridiculously long bar top has silver dollars imbedded into it and the interior is made of large knobbled pine. A more Western, cowboy-themed bar does not exist.  We broke our solemn rule not to drink while out on the bikes and each had a beer with some chips. Having a drink there was almost obligatory.  Saying, “I’ll just have a sasparilly,  Maam,” to the bartender would have been criminal.

We walked around the town square for awhile which has arches of made of scores of elk antler horns at each corner entrance to the square. (No elk are harmed; they shed their antlers annually which were collected for the archways.)

 

It was time to return to the Badger Den at the Lazy J RV Park in Hoback Junction and ponder the beauty we had experienced–all of it too exquisite to try to put in to words.