TGRT Day 1: SLC to Jackson

When I first started planning out The Great Road Trip (phrase borrowed from my friend Courtney) to take advantage of William's Every Kid in a Park 4th grade pass, I was closely watching several Kansas City area friends make the drive up to Mount Rushmore and over to Yellowstone and/or Grand Teton.   A few of our Chicagoland neighbors did, too, but I didn't think we had enough time off to make the drive worthwhile.   So we did TGRT by plane/rental car, and we're thrilled with how it turned out.   We flew Chicago to Salt Lake City (because that was the closest that Southwest Airlines flew), drove 6+ hours north/northeast to Jackson, Wyoming to spend two nights there before driving 2 hours north to Yellowstone National Park in Montana for 3 more nights.  Then we returned to Jackson Hole -this time for 2 nights in Teton Village - before driving back to Salt Lake and flying home.  We were gone for 8 nights/9 days and had an amazing trip!

 

First scenic overlook was Bear Lake, Utah, home of the raspberry milkshake, and the bluest water I've ever seen outside of the Caribbean!  John packed binoculars for each of us, and William had a great time using them. 

 

 

 The town of Garden City on Bear Lake had no fewer than 5 places within 2 blocks to order a "famous" raspberry milkshake.  I was skeptical but we got one of our shakes in raspberry and it was actually delicious!

The path we traveled was along the original Oregon-California Trail.  I wish we had made time to go to the discovery center/museum.  I have no doubt every 5th grader within 100 miles of there has been for a school trip!  The website said you get to shop for supplies before heading out on the trail!

As the trail ended and we entered more mountainous areas in Bridger National Park, we stopped for some more scenic views.  We saw a bald eagle.

Our hotel in downtown Jackson was The Wort Hotel.  It was very conveniently located on the main drag so we could walk everywhere including the park with the infamous antler arches.  There was also a well known "saloon" on the first floor that played live music on the weekends.  Unfortunately our room was directly above it and I wanted to sleep.   They were sold out for the weekend, so didn't have any rooms to move us to, but the second night the music ended earlier and we slept alright in our cozy room.