Visiting the Grand Tetons

Trip  to the Grand Tetons

Today we arrived in Jackson Hole, WY.  As I got out of the plane onto the tarmac, this is what I saw: huge mountains that seemed so close, I could touch them.  

For the rest of today, I have been giddily taking photo after photo of these  mountains.  The weather has been somewhat rainy which means the mountains come and go from view.  They are powerful when the sky is gray.

When the sun comes out, they are nearly inspirational.  

At the top of Signal mountain summit road, we also saw across to the valley.  Just lovely.

Chuck and I also took photos of each other--proof we were there!

And here's the only animal we got a photo of.  I thought it was a ground hog, but it's actually a marmot, which is related to squirrels.  I saw a brown squirrel, but somehow that doesn't count.

I also took a lot of flower photos because this is wildflower country.  Tomorrow I hope to look them up in a guide to the Rockies nature that I bought today at the Jenny Lake store.  

Here's one I know the name of--Down's peony, a rare and native peony that I saw near the parking lot at Jenny Lake:

At the end of the day, I caught a bit of the sunset.  It was rather cloudy and rainy but the sun appeared for a while before sundown.  The water in the foreground is Jackson Lake.