July 13 Day 13

It's off to Grand Teton National park today. After a light breakfast, we pack the bike and trailer and get ready to head toward Wyoming. A quick check shows that the new rear tire is holding air!

Due to our tire issue, we ended up spending two additional unplanned days in Idaho. With all the time we visited here, we never got a photo of an Idaho welcome sign. So, as we crossed the border from Idaho to Wyoming, Lennie made me turn around so that she could get an Idaho welcome sign shot.

Of course she took one of the Wyoming sign as well.

We rode across the Teton pass, which summits at about 8400 feet and then drops down into Jackson Wyoming. We stopped in Jackson for fuel, and a bite of lunch at Bubba's BBQ.

After lunch we headed into the Grand Teton National Park.

Below are a number of shots of the Tetons as seen from the main park road.

As the day progressed, the weather became questionable. There were a number of times that storm clouds lingered in the area, but Lennie and I were lucky enough to somehow stay out of their way.

The next few shots show the storm clouds that rolled through the area.

We did run across a couple of herds of bison, these guys were the closet to the roadway.

We also saw a number of these guys around the park.

Based on the recommendation of a park ranger, we drove to the top of Signal Mountain. The ranger indicated that a mother bear was raising her cubs near the roadway and we should keep an eye out for them. The ranger also indicated that male bears will often kill cubs to get the female bears to mate again. The females know that the males do not like to be near the roadways, so they retreat to those areas to raise their cubs.

We saw no bears on the way up Signal Mountain, but once at the top, we did see some really nice scenery. To the east, you could see the meadows and wetlands of the park.

To the west, you could see the Tetons in the background behind Jackson Lake. On the way down from Signal Mountain, a van heading up the mountain stopped us to say that the bear cubs were just up ahead on our side of the road. We drove slowly through the area, but much to Len's disappointment, did not see the bears.

After spending the day in the Grand Teton National Park, we headed north to Yellowstone. We arrived at the south entrance late in the day. Today, we would just be passing quickly through the park to get to our hotel in West Yellowstone.

Tomorrow, we will spend the entire day in Yellowstone. We will probably focus on the southern portion of the park tomorrow, and the northern portion on Friday.

Our stats for today indicate that we covered 254 miles, bringing our trip total to 4060 miles. Below is a map of our route from today.