Thanks to yesterday's long haul to Rock Springs, I had a reasonably short 4 hour trip to Grand Tetons National Park. I had a great sleep and was on the road by 9am. I stopped south of Boulder, WY to put on an extra jacket. (The temps have been no lower than earlier in the week but I was chilly. Relative Humidity is near zero here so I guess it may be due to an aggressive wind-chill factor.) While there I got a pretty good Ham and Cheese Breakfast Croissant from the gas station / general store. Amazing.
To my surprise, the approach to Teton Valley was a lot like driving over the Caprock in West Texas. Miles and miles of flat and then down you go with no warning. Except in this case elevation dropped from about 8000 feet down to about 6000 feet. As soon as the road started to fall I was into National Park (in and out). I got fuel in Jackson and headed for Jenny Lake.
I had my heart set on a campsite at Jenny Lake. The views from there are the ones you always see in Grand Teton brochures. I arrived 30 minutes too late and was sent 18 miles north to Signal Hill campground. I cussed myself all the way there but resolved to not be a baby about it. After finding a site and paying my $20.50 to camp, I rode back down to Jenny Lake to have a look around. I was reassured to find that although about a half dozen sites in the Jenny Lake campground have a view, most do not...at least they are no better than the one I got. So...chances are good I would be in about the same kind of site. And closer
to the frenzy stew of the park entrance. Signal Mountian is just fine.
Back to camp, I got the bike parked again...pretty tricky in a downhill backwards space covered with gravel. Have I mentioned that STella weighs in at 750lbs empty. Add 40 lbs of fuel plus luggage (almost 100 lbs all told) and you can see that she is quite a handful when stopped...and worse going downhill backwards. But we made it.
After setting up camp I went to the lake's edge...yea there is another lake in the park...a huge one. Check the map. After wandering the beach I hit the bar (yep, the camp has a bar and restaurant...and a hotel) for a martini, had a salad and poor chili for dinner and got back out to the beach for Sunset Church.
Then I found a weak cell signal and that's how the blog update is happening. Isn't modern life amazing?
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