The Adventure's of April - Day 2

Bighorn National Park, scenic overlook.

We got going about 8:00am on Tuesday morning, after having breakfast and a long talking/researching session with the motel manager and some other guests... Turns out none of the roads around Yellowstone National Park were open yet for the season, so we had to change our route somewhat. So that was a bummer, to not be able to go there. But the way we went still had tons of gorgeous scenery and lots of things to see. We had a hard time getting anywhere, we stopped so much! 

Right after leaving the little town of Ranchester, we entered the Bighorn National Park, and mountain range. It was absolutely spectacular to drive through. Two full hours of none stop beauty and magnificence.

Overlooking Ranchester and beyond.

We even saw some cool wildlife... deer in this area and a couple hawks later on.

As we got higher and higher into the mountain range, reaching an elevation of 8,568ft. the scenery changed quite a bit. There was lots of snow and tree covered landscape.

After a while we started going down hill a bit more and things turned more into canyon and desert. We made a stop at Shell Falls, though it wasn't really open, since when does that stop us ;p 

Panoramic view of the mountains at Shell Falls.

 We drove for about an hour or two when we reached the town of Thermopolis, the location of the World's largest Mineral Hot Springs. It was so fascinating! 

Tepee fountain

The mouth of the spring.

That is all solid mineral build up from the water. It just went on and on.

Swinging bridge and some of the mineral water flowing under the boardwalk.

After leaving Thermopolis, pretty much right away we entered Wind River Canyon, it was beyond spectacular... having huge cliffs and mountains shooting up into the sky on either side of you, just feet from the road side.

We went through a series of three of these tunnels, one right after the next.

Once we were through the 15-20 miles of canyon, we came out on the other side to see that the landscape was flattening out quickly. 

But it didn't stay that way for too long, we were quickly approaching the Shoshone National Forest.

The temperature majorly dropped and we started to head up into high elevation again. The roads were slick from the snow and ice, but Nathan cruised through there like a pro and we did fine.

We then reached the highest point of the range and saw the Continental Divide, Nathan's first time ever seeing it. It was pretty cool to say the least!

Then we drove back down into some valleys and reached the boarder of the Grand Teton National park!

It was quite a bummer though, we drove for about an hour through the Tetons and couldn't see much of anything because of the heavy fog and snow surrounding the mountains. Which was also making it quite dark and hard to see anything.

At long last, after a very scenic day of travel, we arrived in Jackson, WY. We absolutely love it here, it's probably my favorite town I have ever seen or been in. Don't be surprised if we move here... ;) 

We had a great nights sleep and a terrific stay in our mountain view motel downtown. Today we are going to attempt to view more of the Tetons, then shall be heading to Idaho, and Utah!

I'll keep you all posted!