Keeping up with the Bragassas: 2011

Day 10 Sunday, August 21
Driving to Rapid City, SD

After an amazing time in Jackson Hole, it was time to leave to start heading east. Although we had slowly made our way east, we really needed to start booking it now to get to Charleston in a timely manner. Up to this point, our trip has been beautiful and we've been so blessed to have this opportunity to explore our wonderful country! I know everyone wants to go to Europe to go exploring, but I'm telling you, the United States is beautiful and has so much to offer! Everyone should take a trip out west to explore all the sights!

Today, we are heading to Rapid City, SD so we can hopefully see Mt. Rushmore tomorrow morning. Before we left, we decided to stop and take some time in the city of Jackson. Brian and I have both been here in the winter, but there's a whole different feeling when there's no snow on the ground! We had a great time just walking around and shopping a little bit. It's such a neat little western town (super expensive though!!). Here's some of our pictures from Jackson, WY and our drive to Rapid City.

Love these elk antler arches!

Life-size moose!

The flowers are unreal! This just doesn't happen in the south!

Famous Cowboy Bar

If you look really carefully, right in the middle of the picture in the shadows is a moose with huge antlers! It was really hard to get a good picture but we saw him on the side of the road while we were driving!

Scenery drastically changing...

The eastern half of Wyoming is super flat...

but they have jackalope!!

Leaving Wyoming...

Entering South Dakota...clearly it was late! One of the craziest things we've ever seen happened on this road...we kept seeing tons and tons of dead snakes! It was kind of gross!!

Day 9 Saturday, August 20
Yellowstone/Teton National Park

After a long day of driving around Yellowstone National Park, we finally made out way down through Teton National Park and to Jackson Hole late last night. We found a great place to stay (only $69/night!!!) which is unreal! It was called The Hostel which is exactly what it was, but not in the European sense of the word...this hostel had a king size bed with our own private bathroom. Downstairs in the common area, there was a game room, movie room, and a full kitchen for cooking. The only downside might have been that there's not a tv in your room, but we hardly spent anytime in there anyway! Best of all, it was located right in the mix of everything in Jackson Hole so we could walk to all the stores and restaurants, and we were only about a 5 minute drive to Teton National Park.

Now I must say, if you've never been to the Jackson Hole area, you definitely need to go! I can honestly say that I think it might be my most favorite place EVER!!! I had been in the winter to go skiing, but going out there in the summer was phenomenal! The views are gorgeous, the weather is awesome, and there's so much to do it's ridiculous! Like I said earlier, we stayed in Jackson Hole, which is different than Jackson, WY. Jackson is about 12 miles down the road and is a super neat little western town with a lot of character, while Jackson Hole is the actual ski resort that people refer to. Jackson Hole itself is a neat little "town" consisting of hotels, restaurants, shops, and beautiful out door recreation areas. On Saturday morning when we woke up, we decided that Vida needed to get out and play, so we took her over to a dog park in Jackson. Lucky for us, the dog park had 4 giant puddles...she quickly found those and went from white to black in about 2 seconds flat. At this point we didn't know what to do because Vida was disgusting and there was no way she was going to get in our car! As we were walking out of the park, we walked past a bulletin board full of announcements and current city happenings when we saw what might be the best advertisement on the whole thing...a do-it-yourself dog wash right down the road. Perfect!! Or it would have been perfect if the GPS would have worked...Brian decided to use his phone as a GPS and walk while I took the car. Coincidentally, both of them led us to the wrong place so we ended up having to put Vida in the car anyway and drive. Finally, she got cleaned off and was nice and tired and ready to go take a nap.

After we dropped Vida off, we decided we should head into Teton National Park for a hike. Unfortunately, the weather started looking a little iffy...but we still decided to chance it anyway. We were advised to go on this one particular hike that would take us to a beautiful lake at the base of the Tetons. Boy are we glad we listened to that person because it was A-MAZING! While we were hiking, we only saw about 3 other people and once we got to the lake, it was completely quiet. I don't know if I've ever heard quiet like that before.

Of course, the whole time we were out hiking, we had our eyes peeled for moose! I was kinda afraid we were going to come across a moose or a grizzly bear and I wouldn't know what to do, so I was constantly on the lookout...and apparently so was everyone else. While we were driving back to our hotel, we saw some cars pulled over on the side of the road which is a sure shot sign that there is some type of wildlife nearby. So what did we do? Oh we pulled over too and we were sorely disappointed...nothing. The people there was for some reason suspicion that a moose was around, which then caused every single passing car to stop, causing a bigger and bigger fuss about nothing. Eventually, Brian and I left and continued on our way and to our surprise...we found a female moose on the side of the road just hanging out in a river. There were only a few other people there when we showed up so we were able to get some really good pictures! Maybe it was the same moose all those other people thought was down the road!