Vandrea Does America: Day 34 (Tuesday 7/24/12)- The Grand Tetons, WY

On Tuesday mornings the Jackson Historical Society offers a free guided tour of downtown at 10:30a. We joined our local tour guide and listened to story after story about the town's fascinating history. One that was particularly amusing dealt with the town's origin when it consisted mostly of rowdy cowboys. Rowdy despite prohibition. Drunk despite prohibition, having stashed whiskey in their post office boxes. The cowboys would sneak down and take their swigs before returning upstairs to the well attended dance party. The townsfolk would come to dance too and would lay their children in baskets under tables so they could, as they said back then, "bust a move." Gambling being also illegal, the cowboys rather than shuffling cards shuffled the babies around. These days people come to town square for the tour, in the early days people came to figure out where their baby went and who's baby it was they had taken home.

Another noteworthy story was how in 1920 the city of Jackson elected an all female city council. This was of course a first for it's time. Even more interestingly the top vote getters were the wives of prominent businessmen who were also running...against them, their own wives. In the end the people elected the women because of their community oriented ideas and care about social issues whereas the men were concerned mostly with business.

We spent the rest of the day driving through Grand Tetons National Park. The Grand Tetons is so named because of crass French explorers who came upon the area and declared that it looked like three breasts and so "Tetons" was born. The park boasts several historic sites, consistently beautiful views and, most of all, a plethora of wildlife. Stopping at Cathedral of the Heart, we came upon two elk grazing nearby. Seeing this, after visiting the elk free elk refuge, we were sure that this would be the peak of wildlife viewing. We were wrong...

In the afternoon we drove past a ranger with a mega phone and a determined look. As we got closer we realized that we were first on scene to view a black bear roaming in the hills. We were able to get some pictures from a far (legally you cannot be within 100 yards of a bear at any time) before the swarms of fellow onlookers arrived. (The look of determination proved to be the ranger's determination to yell at every moron, who seeing the crowd and being curious decided it was a good idea to put their car in park in the middle of the highway).

Now certainly this has to have been the highest point in wildlife sightings today, right? Wrong again...

As we drove back down the highway we saw a huge herd of buffalo right along the road. Stopping to take photos we got some great shots of these majestic creatures and considered ourselves very lucky to have gotten so close to them. At the time we didn't have any idea that the best would be within the hour. As we drove back down Antelope Flatz to our campsite there were more buffalo. In the middle of the road! We had to park (you are not a moron if you park your car in the middle of the road under these conditions) and wait over 20 minutes before they mosied back into the field. In the mean time we got some really excellent shots. Along the drive back down the long road we also got pictures of Pika and spotted some quickly moving grouse.