Snake River and Alpine Slides!

Finally, it was time to say goodbye to Yellowstone. We checked out, and after a brief kerfuffle with the front desk about the bill ("um, I think this charge is off by at least $1000..."), and a parting visit to the gift shop (where Kasandra finally bought herself that cute "I'm Your Hucklebeary" shirt), we were on our way south to Grand Teton (again).

Signal Mountain

On the way south, we drove up to the top of Signal Mountain and saw both a great view, and this funny sign. If anyone can make sense of why it says "UserFee" on it, please tell me!

It seemed apt that we would have five bars at a place called Signal Mountain. This was probably the reason:

Our next activity was to do a scenic float on the Snake River, but the outfitters said it would be too windy to go out until the late afternoon. So how to burn a few hours?

Answer 1: EATING!
Answer 2: ALPINE SLIDES!

We had a delicious lunch at Dornan's Pizza and Pasta Company in Moose, WY. We had really yummy pizza, pasta, and beer – a perfect lunch, in a dining room with a spectacular view of the mountains.

Alpine Slides in Jackson

After lunch, we still had some time to burn, and we weren't sure what to do in Jackson, so we figured we would just...check into our hotel early? This seemed somewhat boring to us, so during the drive from Dornan's to Jackson, I frantically looked for things to do on my Nexus One. I suddenly remembered Uncle sending me a link about alpine slides, and managed to look up where it was, find out their ticket prices, and text the other van about the change of destination. I LOOOVE my data plan!

The alpine slides at Snow King Resort ended up being totally, totally awesome. (What else would you expect? I mean, *alpine slides*!)

Mom and Dad needed to be convinced that it wasn't dangerous, and they ended up going down sooooo slow that I got worried and asked the guy at the desk to radio up and check on them. But in the end, nobody fell out of the lift, had a heart attack, or broke any bones going off track. Everyone was all grins at the bottom – possibly the biggest grins we saw all trip!

Except maybe Tiffany, who got stuck behind speed-demon Kasandra. :-)


Scenic Float on the Snake River

Originally, I was completely gung-ho about taking the group white water rafting. Mom has always wanted to go, and of course, Chris and I had an amazing time on our three-day trip down the Rogue River in Oregon. But a week of snow and ice convinced us that perhaps getting soaked in frigid water in gusting wind and rain wouldn't be that much fun. So we went on the scenic float and hoped that we would spot some wildlife.

On the drive out, we briefly spotted a moose. On the float itself, we saw a couple beavers building dens, and a pair of bald eagles! Here's a shot of one of them sitting on a branch. I saw its mate sitting in the nest across the river, but couldn't quite catch it on camera.

We were also amused to find that beavers really do chew through the bases of trees like they do on cartoons!

Still, it was cold and we were happy to get someplace warm and have dinner! We thought our folks would appreciate some Chinese food (finally), and went to the Chinatown Restaurant in Jackson. The big "kids plus Ama" table thought the food was yummy, but when I asked my Dad what he thought, he was surprisingly frank: "Oh it was terrible. Everything tasted the same." In retrospect, I guess that was totally true, but still, I thought it was satisfying. We're such gringos. :-)

The menu even had a big tipoff how Americanized it was: "American Delights: French Fries". Ha!

And finally, for our last night together, we stayed at the Trapper Inn and Suites (a.k.a. The Lexington) and played poker, spoons, and Monopoly (the card game) into the wee hours of the night.

The End

Who knows when we'll EVER be lucky enough to get everyone's schedule lined up like this again, but wow that was a lot of fun memories! The sequel, I'm told, might happen in China – but we'll see!