More Tetons Exploring

Since the day started out nice and sunny, we went to explore more of the Tetons. This time, we went into the park along the inside road which is closer to the peaks and is the road that takes you by all the mountain lakes and areas where we hiked last year and will hike again this year.

It wasn't long before we spotted our first wildlife of the day - a couple bison:

It was a nice drive through some familiar areas as we got some different views of the mountains:

We also came across this pronghorn that was slowly walking through a sagebrush field - alone:

 



The wildflowers are beginning to show and we took some shots of a few of them that we saw everywhere during our drive. We have a wildflower book, but some of these look similar to each other so we only took an educated guess about each of these. Starting with what we believe is the Helianthella, which looks like a small sunflower, but with light colored center disk:

 

 



and this one, that we believe is the Yellow Violet, which is common in areas of sagebrush:

Then finally, this white flower which we weren't able to identify yet, but were also everywhere we drove and think they might be a Marsh Marigold:

 

 

The peak season for wildflowers hasn't arrived yet, so we expect to see many more different varieties as we re-visit other areas.

 

The drive by a couple of our favorite smaller lakes brought back some memories of hikes we took last year and will visit again later on this spring and summer. The first is Jenny Lake:

 

 

and String Lake, which is close to Jenny Lake:

 

 

All of these lakes are beautiful in their own ways and offer several different hiking opportunities.

 

The weather started to change as clouds started moving in so we started home at about 3 PM. Along the way, and close to the entrance of the Tetons, is the Chapel of the Transconfiguration, which we visited last year and holds Episcopal services each Sunday:

 

 

Late yesterday afternoon a thunderstorm rolled through with high winds, up to 40 MPH. It was a little scary as we were concerned about our satellite dish being damaged, but everything survived the storm.

 

The clouds are still with us this morning, so the day's activities are still up in the air. We only have three more days to play before beginning our work schedule, so we need to make good use of that time as best we can...