The morning broke with raindrops and clouds so we took our time hitting the parkway since there wouldn’t be a good sunrise to capture. It was still early, somewhere between 7:30-8am when we left. We figured it wouldn’t be a great day for landscape photography but we were hoping for some wildlife sightings. You know we stopped for photos anyway. Just can’t help it. Close to the Teton Resort (lots of skiing there in the winter) was a hot air balloon lifting into the sky. Even with all the low lying clouds it was still beautiful.

Today ended up being our scouting day. We drove the scenic loop and ended up with some decent shots as the sun did manage to shine pretty well in the afternoon. Our first sighting was a Great Gray Owl. Apparently it’s like magic if you see one of these guys. The pics didn’t come out that great – still trying to figure out why – but here’s a crappy image just to prove we saw him/her. The pronghorns and bison were just off the side of 89 doing their thing. šŸ™‚

The clouds hung around all day. Never did really see the peaks of those mountains. We stopped in Jackson Lake Lodge for some lunch and photos. Just gorgeous.

The clouds were trying so hard to part and give us some blue sky and sunshine, so we decided to backtrack just a little and go back to Oxbow Bend to see if we could get any better shots. It was certainly beautiful but I’m not sure which we prefer.

From there we drove the rest of the loop around the park with our last stop at Jenny Lake. Got a few decent shots there too. We were much closer to the mountains in this spot.

Wildlife we saw today:

  • Great Gray Owl
  • Fox or Coyote (I say fox, Bob says coyote)
  • Pika
  • Bison
  • Pronghorn or Antelope
  • Pelican

Break time back at the condo for a few hours before heading back out to chase the sunset – which turned into a bust. Oh well. You just can’t plan the weather and those clouds had been haunting us all day were still sitting over top of the peaks. Still all in all a good day. A rainbow appeared right as we were leaving Mormon Row …

Driving this park has been a unique experience for us. In every other park we’ve ever driven, we drive in the mountains. This park is in the valley beside the mountain range. So the road is flat and the speed limit is 55mph. How weird is that? There are some hikes, and we are planning to do a couple of short ones, but with most of the hikes the end result isn’t much different from the scene you can get from the pull off or overlook. Still plenty to do though. Every day the light and sky is different which gives you a different resulting image. Plus we want to go into Jackson and putz around, maybe do the cable car to the top, etc. But tomorrow, we’re planning to start a sunrise chase before the crack of dawn. Wish us luck …

Next day …