(I love these "everybody be silly" pictures so much!)
In my ten or so years of planning these big camping trips I've learned that moving too often ends up being more exhausting than it's worth and that no matter how hard you try, when you get somewhere you'll find something you just don't have time to do. So, returning back through the Black Hills was my built in way to allow us to pick up and do some of those things we'd missed on the way out. I'll share more about our final leg of the trip in the next post, but I've gotten ahead of myself - back to the Tetons.
Saturday evening, after our day of horse back riding and hiking Mom and Dad hosted a true cowboy dinner complete with steak dinners for everyone, and a fancy cocktail made with Yellowstone (the TV show) whiskey. When I brought up the idea of doing a trail ride there was an option to add a steak dinner to the ride - but, unsurprisingly it was expensive and, being cheap, Dad and I both said "we could do that for less ourselves" so that began the plans for the big cowboy steak dinner. Mom and Dad hauled fancy steak cuts all the way from their butcher in Illinois, carrying them in their freezer for over 3 weeks just so we could pull off a steak dinner on this evening. I'm happy to say it turned out great and we all loved our meal for that night!
We got home, cranked the AC and let the kids plop and watch Disney+ in Chris and Brenna's camper. I think we all needed that kind of a break. On our last evening in the Tetons we ate at my favorite restaurant of the trip (Mom and Dad's steak meal aside). Right next-door to our campground there was a little Italian restaurant called Calico. Finding a reservation for dinner in Jackson Hole was like finding a needle in a haystack. If you're planning to visit during the summer months, do your research and make a reservation for something before you even leave your house. We had a big group, 10 total but I could not find a single reservation anywhere near us, on a MONDAY night. Brenna had started looking when they arrived in the area on Thursday and had zero luck as well. So we decided we'd go to Calico right when it opened at 4:30 and see if we could get on the wait list. Luckily for us, eating at 4:30 pm meant we could be seated, together and have a lovely dinner before the rush. I'm glad we tried because it was probably my favorite meal of the trip....well, hum - maybe not quite. It might be a tie with Alpine Inn in Hill City - more on that in my final post.
Saturday morning we left Yellowstone (Mom/Dad, Dan, and us McGraths) to head down to the Tetons. We exited the park through the south entrance, meaning on this trip we'd been through three of the four entrances - missing only the Northern one. I think we were all glad for the short driving day we had that Saturday. We joined Chris and Brenna, who'd left when we went outside of the park for the family reunion at our campground in the Tetons. It was so nice because they had 3 days to find all the good spots for us when we arrived on Saturday.
Saturday was pretty low key - we grabbed our Teton's stamp at the visitors center and got our campsites all set up but didn't have any activities planned for that day. But, first thing Sunday morning we were back at it bright and early with horse back riding! We'd enrolled the girls in horseback riding lessons back over the winter, partly in preparation for this trip and partly because Ryan's been wanting to put them in lessons since we moved to Marengo. This ranch allowed kids 6 and older which was perfect for us because Hazel had turned six just a few weeks earlier. I think the owner was a little nervous to have Hazel be so little, but I knew she'd be fine and she did great on the horse. I think our guide was thoroughly entertained by her during our tour.
Characteristically, Abby ended up with the slowest horse of the bunch - Dotty. In her weekly lessons Abby's been struggling with holding the reins in a way that the horse isn't getting mixed signals. Abby wants the horse to trot, but when she gets nervous she starts to lean back which means she's inadvertently telling the horse to slow down. Dotty I think was just slow in her own right and sensed that Abby wasn't a "strong enough" rider to make her listen.
We signed up for a 2 hour trail ride which honestly, was all any of us needed. Our group included Mom and Dad, Dan, the 4 of us and Chris. Rowy was way under the age cut off and they didn't allow riders with backpacks (or kid packs) so Brenna stayed home with Ro for this adventure.
The trail ride was one of my favorite things we did on the whole trip. We got to see parts of the Tetons we couldn't have on foot, we climbed 2,000 feet in elevation that day (is that right? All of a sudden I can't remember) and I can tell you for CERTAIN there was no chance that any of us would have hiked the trail we were on with the horses.
The day we rode there were quite a few forest fires nearby. None close enough to be a danger to us, but close enough to cast a foggy/orangey haze over everything that morning which you can certainly see in these pictures. Looking at them now it almost seems like we added an "olden days" filter to them but we didn't - that's just the way the sky looked that day. It was a little unfortunate because we couldn't quite see the Tetons in their full glory but we had a great time none the less.
I'm sure this will be a memory both kids remember for many years to come. It was such a fun experience and I'm so glad we were able to do it.
We arrived back at our campsite just after lunch time and hooked back up with Brenna and Ro. We'd decided that B could pick what we did that afternoon since she had to miss out on the horse back riding so while we were gone that morning, Brenna was out looking for adventures for us! She suggested we take a gondola ride at Teton Village and do some hiking up at the top of the ski slopes. In the summer the ski runs are converted to mountain biking trails so it was fun to see the mountain in a totally different season that we're used to.
We'd take the kids skiing back in February of this year but they stayed on the bunny hill with the rope pull, so this was the first time they'd been on a ski lift - which they all LOVED after Abby got over her initial hesitation about the whole thing.
I don't know that any of us really knew what we'd do when we got to the top (note the shoes the kids are wearing), but, when we got up there we found a few hiking paths so we decided we'd hike up until we were tired and then come back down. Turns out the Tetons, and the hike here at the top of the mountain and Jenny lake - coming up next - were the two most strenuous hikes we'd do for the entire trip. Neither of them were planned and neither were well thought out.
Notice the difference in the sky and pictures from just a few hours later in the afternoon. By the afternoon much of the smoke/orangey color had cleared though you can see here we were still left with a haze for the rest of that day.
This hike here the top was maybe one of the prettiest ones we did, they'd covered this section of the mountain to prairie plants for the summer so there were flowers blooming everywhere.
On our final full day in the Tetons (Monday) we decided that we wanted to see Jenny Lake. Of all the places we went on this trip the Teton's section was my least planned. I knew we wanted to go there, but what we'd do, and when was pretty wide open. Dad had a list of the "top things to do in the Tetons" and we used that to guide some of our choices. I'd never heard of Jenny Lake before this trip, but it was on the list, so we set out to see what it was all about.
Arriving at Jenny Lake was just like showing up at so many of the other national park sites we saw on this trip - the parking lot was packed with people by 10 am. We lucked out and got a really really good spot randomly, but Chris and B had a full half mile hike just to get to the visitors center. While we waited on them we checked out the gift shop (of course the kids nagged us to get a stuffed animal - we were officially stuffed animal'd out by that point and gave it a hard no!).
Ryan found a ranger and got some information about hiking and the ferry at Jenny Lake. He learned that there were two options. You could take a ferry from the ranger station across the lake and back. Or you could hike to the other side (half way around the lake) and then just ferry back. What he did NOT ask about was the length of the hike depending on which way you went around the lake (clockwise or counter clockwise). Turns out the 7 mile hike around the lake was not exactly split in half - two miles one way, a whopping 5 the other. In hindsight, the ranger should have mentioned this because, as you can probably already tell, we took the 5 mile route and regretted it once we put all the pieces together. This is what happens when you start out without a plan! I know better than this! But, I was living in a moment of whimsy...a moment of "can someone else figure it out and I'll just float along"...a rare moment in which I didn't feel like I needed to be in charge. So. Much. Regret (Kidding!!)
Hey, at least the kids had hike appropriate shoes on this time! Honestly though, this hike was beautiful. It was more than we were ready for - I think Mom and Dad didn't even think we'd hike that day and we bit off more than we could chew with this hike, but the kids finished it. If we'd have known what we were getting ourselves into we wouldn't have done it and we'd have missed out because I know I heard both Ryan and Brenna say that this was their favorite hike of the trip and I think B said it was her favorite hike of all time! Top 5 for sure. I mean, with a review like that, we can't be too sad it happened!
The hike started off in the woods (shade) and as we rounded the one end of the lake it opened up to be much more shrubby with lots and lots of open areas and flowers. We hiked right along the lake for a lot of it and then had to jut inland to get around where the river flowed into the lake (that's the part that added quite a bit of mileage we didn't expect). Murph wanted to try and forge the river (picture below) with the kids on our backs to avoid the out and back to the bridge but the rest of the group decided that didn't sound like a good idea.
We had limited snacks and water (because we weren't trying to do a 5 mile hike) and I had to pull out every trick I had to get Abby to keep hiking and stop whining but we made it. We were hot and tired when we arrived at the ferry but we made it! I'm a little bummed we were too tired to make it to Hidden Falls and Inspiration Point (both sites we heard were amazing from other hikers) but we all knew we were pushing our luck if we tried to get the kids to take 10 more steps - LOL! Someday, honestly, not too far away we'll be able to easily take hikes like this without a second thought.
Anyways, we had fancy pizzas, a giant salad, Aperol Spritz's and fancy Huckleberry cocktails and it was a lovely evening. Course it didn't hurt that I landed myself at the "adult table" and Ryan and Chris were left to manage the kids at a totally separate table. That may have contributed to my overall rating of the dinner - LOL!
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