A birthday and mountains and moon cakes

Today is P.'s 22nd birthday. We'll have a real celebration for her when we get back, but for the actual day, we headed to Grand Tetons National Park. It was actually quite a bit of driving when all was said and done. 

To get to the Tetons, we took one last drive through Yellowstone. As we went there was one side road we had kept meaning to take, but missing for various reasons. I am so glad we took Firehole Canyon Drive because in a park full of beautiful sights, I think this may have been one of the most beautiful. It had steep canyon walls, waterfalls, and a wide area where you could swim. It would have been fun to just be able to relax and enjoy it for a while. Actually, that is how we felt about the whole park.



We had another picnic at another beautiful picnic area.


And after lunch we reached the Tetons. This was our first view.


We stopped a couple of places and eventually ended up at Jenny Lake where we looked around for a bit.



See what I mean about the endless beautiful scenery?

To get back it was actually shorter to continue south to Jackson and the up the Tetons on the Idaho side. When we reached Jackson it was still a wee bit early for dinner, so we turned into the National Museum of Wildlife Art. When we got there the museum was about to close, but they had a lovely outdoor sculpture park that most of us enjoyed walking around. The museum looked really interesting, so I was a little disappointed that we couldn't go in.

A bison (that climbing was allowed on), 

and the baby bison next to it.



P. looked up restaurants and found one that looked as affordable as they come in Jackson. (Affordable and Jackson do not seem to go together at all.) The view was pretty good.


So after having spent more money on dinner than I had spent on meals for nine people for nine days, we started the drive back to where we are staying. I only had to close my eyes once on the twisty road we had to use to get to the other side of the mountains. 

And the it was time for some moon cakes to finish off the day.



We start home tomorrow, doing the drive in two long days. It has been a wonderful vacation, but one without a huge amount of down time. I think we're all a little bit weary. I'm also sure that J. is very much done with driving at this point. 

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