We giggle at names given to mountains by French trappers

Ah, the Grand Tetons:

They are beautiful glacial gifts (well, I guess the glaciers and John D. Rockefeller are both responsible for allowing us to enjoy these incredible mountains today - thank you Mr. Rockefeller!)  Kevin and I have decided we'll go there to be seasonal rangers someday when we've ceased being useful for anything else.

We stayed at Signal Mountain Lodge - a collection of cabins inside the National Park on Jackson Lake.  Here's the amazing view we woke up to out our front window:

A pretty idyllic place. 

Our kids have been spoiled with beauty over the last few months, and chose to sleep in the first morning we were there, despite the gorgeous lake outside the front door.  But that meant Kevin and I could take a lovely hike around the quiet lake by ourselves, so we let it slide.

The second morning, however, we all got up early to follow an agenda planned by Sage and Henry as part of their bid to become Junior Rangers at the park.  We headed to Jenny Lake, a beautiful blue glacial lake at the base of Teewinot Mountain.  We hopped on a boat with Ranger Anne:

The boat took us the the head of Cascade Canyon where Ranger Anne took us on a gorgeous hike up past waterfalls and fall foliage:

to a place called Inspiration Point where she taught us about how Glaciers work and how the Tetons were formed (very cool).  Somehow, we didn't manage to snap a single inspirational shot from Inspiration Point - maybe because by the time we reached it we'd already passed Exclamation Point (where you mutter something about how steep the climb is) and Perspiration Point (where you peel off layers of sweaty clothing despite the Autumn chill).  At Inspiration Point you just collapse on the rocks and become docile listeners since you have no energy for anything else. 

The kids made it with the help of walking sticks (ski poles) although I don't know if they provided more help or distraction during the hike:

After the Ranger Anne show, we kept on hiking up the canyon for a couple of hours to explore

and take advantage of family photo ops in the mountains

before heading back down:

We hiked back around the lake rather than taking the boat across and everyone ended up happily exhausted - ready for dinner and early bed.

We only had a few days in the park, but one of our top priorities was to see a moose - we never caught one during our Yellowstone visit and we'd heard they were plentiful in the Grand Tetons.  We weren't disappointed.  In fact, we witnessed a most amazing and bizarre mating display that left us crying with laughter and bewilderment. 

It all happened when a boy

met a girl

during the rut, or fall mating season.  Here's where you stop reading if you don't want the gory details which include lots of rolling around in moose pee (by the moose, not us).

We were lucky to come across these moose as they were engaged in elaborate courtship on a river island - this meant that we could get relatively close (less than 10 yards away on the river bank) while maintaining a somewhat comforting body of water between us and the hormonally charged animals.

The cow had a calf from the previous spring with her:

and didn't seem overly aware of the bull wandering around nearby...until...  

The bull came down to the edge of the island and dug out a hollow in the sand with his hooves.  He then stood over the indentation like he intended to pee in it, but he seemed to have performance anxiety or some other issue because nothing happened.  Poor guy - we couldn't help laughing, his intense posturing was very funny at the time. He repeated this several times before finally finding success.  The moment he did, the cow immediately became VERY interested in the bull, running over to where he was and watching intently:

There must have been some very powerful chemical stimuli given off by the bull, because the cow started acting really worked up, panting and making strangled sounds in her throat.  The bull finished peeing and started furiously stamping in the puddle with his front hooves, which only seemed to distress (or turn on?) the cow even more:

Soon his muzzle was covered with fragrant mud (queue the squeals of disgust from my children) and the cow was making all sorts of frantic vocalizations and I started to feel like a bit of a voyeur... As soon as the bull moved away from his puddle, the cow rushed to lay on it, like she'd found a valuable treasure that she wanted to keep all to herself:

Her calf eventually joined her, although the bull tried to chase him away a few times:

We stood watching this spectacle for at least 45 minutes and it was still going on when we left (nope, we never saw them consummate their relationship).  I'm afraid I can't do justice to all we saw with a few photos and my feeble words, but trust me that it was A LOT better than a National Geographic special.  Oh that we'd had a video camera! 

Anyhow:  Moose? Check.

Junior Ranger? Check.  Sage and Henry finished their requirements, raised their right hands, swore to protect the natural world wherever they go, and they are now Junior Rangers, with all the glory and plastic badges the role entails. (and as a side note, the new ranger stations here and at Old Faithful in Yellowstone are spectacular uses of our taxes!)

Marvelous, relaxing mountain retreat? Check.  If you're interested in hanging out around this:

or this:

we highly recommend a trip to the Grand Tetons - despite the silly name.

Yellowstone Rocks

We haven't dropped off the face of the earth (or off the edge of the Grand Canyon - though we came close... topic for another post).  We've just been so busy seeing the world that we've had no time to write about it. Now we're determined to catch up.

About a month ago we visited Yellowstone for the first time as a family, and it was lovely:

(Here's proof that the stones are really yellow:)

This was the first trip after our hiking extravaganza at Glacier, and we naively expected more of the same - how could we have predicted the crazy wildlife we'd encounter as we visited one of the biggest North American ungulate preserves during fall rut?

We spotted our first bison herd shortly after entering the park and excitedly pulled over to take turns watching the distant group through the binoculars.  We needn't have exerted ourselves, as it turns out we couldn't help running into bison at scary close range every time we turned around:

We stayed inside the park at Yellowstone Lake Lodge Cabins, which web reviews (discovered after prepaying for the reservation) had warned us would be "seedy" and "dumpy".  We were so excited...  But when we arrived we were pleasantly surprised to see that our cabin had been newly renovated, clean, larger than expected, and right across from beautiful Yellowstone Lake:

On our first morning excursion, we were lucky to see a herd of bison crossing the river, steam rising off their backs in the cold morning air.  Once they were safely on the other side, we hiked down to watch them against a backdrop of steamvents:

We heard an elk bugle repeatedly and he finally came into view, wandering amongst the bison:

We were so engrossed in the views before us, that it took a minute for us to register the rumbling behind us and turn around to see one of the more nerve-racking sights of the trip: a much larger herd galloping out of the forest, down the hill behind us, and toward us and the river.  Fortunately, they passed to one side as we ran to the other, and we enjoyed being part of our very own Nature episode:

Close calls with nature ended up being the general theme of our trip. We saw countless big, lonely, male bison without herds holding up traffic wherever we drove:

The big guys were larger than cars and obviously very comfortable as they slowly ambled down the middle of the street while we watched from what we hoped was the safety of our car:

Once as we carefully drove past a couple of bulls, I rolled down my window to take a picture and was surprised just how intimidating it was to be so close without anything but air between us (especially after seeing how fast they can gallop and watching a couple of bulls fight over a group of females).  These are truly powerful animals:

We also met a friendly coyote who let Kevin take pictures before scampering away:

We saw grizzly bears and wolf cubs from a distance and sat on a hillside for 30 minutes watching a black bear's ears pop up from a bush occasionally where he was eating berries.

On our last day in Yellowstone, we went to see a pertified redwood tree and Kevin and I decided to hike to Lost Lake, a quick mile away, leaving the kids to dirt-surf down a hillside (Henry's favorite activity of the whole trip).  The black lake was stunning and peaceful (especially without the kids):

As we got close to the end of our hike back, we looked up the hill to where we'd parked our car and noticed a group of people watching us with binoculars and taking pictures.  I felt like I was on the red carpet until we looked over to our left and saw the beautiful big black bear beside the trail:

Good looking as we are, it turns out that Kevin and I weren't the main attraction after all...  We skirted around him and enjoyed a great 30 minutes watching from a safe distance.

Of course it wasn't all wildlife at Yellowstone - we also had a great time visting (and a slightly less great time smelling) the geothermal features like steamvents covering the side of a mountain:

Bubbling mudpots that kept us entranced for over an hour,

dripping mineral springs,

their tremendous artistic potential,

and the desolation left in their wake:

And of course the geysers!  We visited Old Faithful early to get good 'seats' and waited, and waited:

And then enjoyed the show right on schedule:

 At risk of running on too long, I'll mention the other highlight of our Yellowstone visit:

The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone was stunning - I'd take it over Old Faithful any day (though Kevin says you really need to see both).   It's a magnificent gorge cut out by a beautiful river.  We enjoyed it from above:

then decided to hike down to see the falls more closely.  After about a half mile, we hit about 380 steep stairs cutting down through the rocks:

Going down was easy, it took a lot of jelly belly incentives to get back up.  But the views so close the falls were gorgeous, including some fantastic rainbows:

All in all, Yellowstone delivered an unforgettable few days - we highly recommend the trip! 

Now, on to our next adventure...