Vacation Day 3 (Rexburg, Idaho to Gardiner, Montana)

Thursday (July 25) – Trip Day 3 – Rexburg to Gardner, Montana – We left Rexburg in the morning heading southeast so that we could loop around the south end of the Grand Tetons.  The pass took us through Driggs and over an 8000 + foot pass and down into Jackson Hole (which was way too crowded.  

 We drove on up to Jenny Lake and had our lunch along the banks of the Snake River where it empties out of the lake.  The last time we were here we ate at the exact same place.  We were running behind schedule so we cut off our relaxing lunch hour and started on north for Yellowstone.  We reached a construction zone that advertised that we might have a 30 minute wait as we were flagged to a halt. About 50 minutes later we finally got moving – so what held us up?  A boat accident!  A LARGE boat was being hauled by a regular truck cab.  They apparently struck the side of a bridge - as this was an oversized load and apparently ended up stuck to the bridge.  Eventually they got it loose but as it passed we didn’t even see any damage, so who knows. Now we were seriously behind schedule.  We were using our America the Beautiful Senior Pass so we didn’t have to pay the $25 entry fee to Grand Teton or Yellowstone – so we weren’t out any money. 

Barbara has a repressed desire to be a waitress at times.
 

 This is our 3^rd trip to Yellowstone so we have seen most of it before.  Of course we wanted to see Old Faithful but naturally we had an almost 1 hour wait that ended up being more like an hour and twenty minute wait.  Old Faithful should be renamed Less Faithful, but anyway.  Now we were really late.

Barbara can be a hot head at times.

We basically drove through the rest of the park so we could get to Gardiner and have dinner at a descent hour.  Along the way we saw a lone wolf, a herd of about 12 elk grazing in a meadow and 5 antelope on a mountain side.  We finally pulled into Gardiner about 6:45.  We checked into our hotel and then ate an excellent meal and our day was shot. (My pictures of the elk turned out to be a picture of a bush!)