We're going to jackson

With the Great Salt Lake in the rear view mirror we had a nice little drive ahead to get to The Grand Tetons! The drive was extended by none other than our good friend... Mr Roadworks. We were slowed by an hour or so, but that didn't matter as we were stopped in a rather picturesque location, especially for a geologist; with the canyons showing off the many layers of rock and folds!

After hitting speed again we were back onto the windy mountainous highways on our way to Jackson, of course while listening to the Johnnie Cash classic (and then later learning that He was in fact singing about another jacson, classic usa for reusing city names..) With the food box and esky restocked we were straight to the information centre with the intention of making our way to Yellowstone.. 

The ranger managed to suss us out before we reached the counter and immediately suggested the best free camping spot in town (which sat uptop a grassy knoll and had a kick ass view of the sun setting over the mountain range). He also gave us a list of hikes to check out in the area and gave us some invaluable advice to spend more time exploring the snow capped mountains, lakes and canyons of the Grand Teton National Park rather than the more famous Yellowstone. His exact words being "once you've seen one smelly hole in the ground, you've seen them all..." 

The highlight of our stay was a hike around Jenny Lake and up to 'Inspiration Point' which provided a panoramic view of the lake and surrounding area! The area was home to some cheeky marmots and was the first place we had visited in a long while with active bears roaming around. Hiking in bear country wasnt my favourite experience, there are warning signs at the trailheads recommending hikers carry bear spray ( and know how to use it) and make noise throughout the hike to prevent sneaking up on the bear. Rhys and I didn't fancy forking out $80 for some pepper spray in the off chance that we found ourselves face to face with a grizzly so went the latter and made lots of noise..I think we're quickly running out of things to say to each other!

After a big day of hiking we headed back to our camp site (once again with a great view of the Tetons, this time reflected In a beautiful lake) , made ourselves a mean camp fire and experimented with the creation of s'mores. It's an art we didn't quite conquer on our first attempt but melted chocolate, sticky gooey marshmallows and cookies taste good no matter how bad they look!