Brandon, Keriann and Clara: Colter Bay Part 1: Animals and Dirt

These are the Tetons. Aren't the amazing? I actually took this picture with my cell phone. Pretty crazy, huh? This last week we were able to go up to Grand Teton National Park with Brandon's family. We stay in a campsite called Colter Bay. It is really nice because we don't stay in tents we stay in tent cabins. Two walls are wood and two walls are canvas. It's also cement floors, bunk beds and a nice patio area out front with a picnic table and fire-pit. It was so much fun and I have a lot of pictures so it's going to have to be in two parts. We'll start with animals and dirt. :)

Animals:

Something that is very important is what animals did you see and how many. We have gone three years now in the almost four years of marriage and I hadn't seen a bear so I was on the look out.

First we saw some buffalo. They were right on the edge of the road so I was able to snap a quick picture on my phone. (The car was moving so the picture isn't great. Also, I left my camera at home so most pictures are either taken by others or my phone.)

Next we saw some elk. We actually saw a big herd running across through the grass but we didn't stop for those either so no pictures. Sorry.

We also saw two moose on our way home! We thought about stopping but there were a lot of people and it was a pretty high traffic area so we didn't take their picture either.

The highlight though were the.... BEARS! We went up to a place called Signal Mountain where apparently there are bears often but we haven't seen one up there yet. Anyway, it was getting late and Clara was all done with the day so I talked Brandon into taking his sister, Camille's, car back to camp before the others were done. Boy am I glad that we did. There was a rumor of a moose living down Pilgrim Road so we were discussing whether or not to stop. As we came up to it there were A LOT of people stopped. We looked at each other and said, "Moose?" But then we saw the Rangers. RANGERS MEAN A BEAR! We pulled up and I got out to ask the Ranger what they were looking at. Not only was there one bear but there were THREE! A mom and two cubs.

He told us to drive down the road a little bit and we would be able to see them. So off we went and sure enough, there they were! I was pretty giddy with excitement by this point. I grabbed Clara out of the car seat and got out of the car. Again I only had my phone so we got Camille's camera. I was complaining that her camera was not very good when a nice young man with a huge camera told me that if we wanted he would give us his website and we could contact him for pictures. So I gave him my phone and emailed him when we got home. So thanks to Chase Dekker at www.chasedekker.zenfolio.com we have these amazing pictures of three grizzly bears.

Enjoy!