Day Twenty Six - Grand Tetons, Continental Divide Crossing 3 times

Our hotel today did serve breakfast, but not until 7:00 AM, so we took advantage of that and slept in until 6:30 AM. It was 47 degrees when we went out to start loading so we knew we would be wearing liners at least for the start of the day. We had the bikes loaded and were at the breakfast at 7:00 on the nose. They said "Continental Breakfast" so we didn't have high expectations, but we were very pleasantly surprised. They had a good choice of cold cereals, yogurt, muffins, fresh cut fruit (strawberries, cantalope, watermelon) and coffee. Getting the fresh fruit has been not so typical so this was nice. We were fed and mounted up by 7:41 AM. We did decide to fuel up so by the time we actually got headed up the road it was about 7:55 AM. It had already warmed up to 58 degrees!

Day 26 track

As we headed up US-26 through the Bridger National Forest it was very foggy. So foggy in fact, that we were already planning on taking a break in Jackson to wait out the fog so that we would actually be able to see the Grand Tetons. Here's what was prompting our thinking.

Foggy start

As it turned out though, by the time we got 26 miles up the road, and just 15 minutes after the picture above, this is what the conditions looked like.

Much better!

We got up into Jackson  by 8:26 and the town was already bustling with lots of traffic of all kinds. It was 3.5 miles to get through town and it took us about 10 minutes. Didn't stop or get any pictures, but it looked like an interesting place to stop and spend some time - on another trip. On the way out of town there was a fair amount of traffic headed out to Yellowstone, and we got to watch a commercial jet taking off from the Jackson airport.

In short order we were at the entrance to the Teton National Park and a quick flash of our passes got us right through. We didn't have to wait more than a few seconds! Now on Inner Park Road, we would stop at the first overlook which also had a park sign and after taking a photo of a family together they returned the favor and got this one of Larry and I.

Been there, Done that!

The scenic beauty here is truly breathtaking. The photos are nice but just don't do it justice compared to seeing it in person. 15 minutes down the road from the above photo, I took this one from the saddle.

Riding in the Tetons

We would stop again to get the following photos.

Awesome!

Can you see the creek running down the center?

About another 20 minutes down the road we'd stop again for this photo.

We saw this in the rear view mirrors so stopped and got the photo.

Rear view shot by Larry

About another 30 minutes down the road we stopped at The Peaks Restaurant on Jackson Lake for coffee and the best muffin I ever ate and then took some photos from the deck.

Jackson Lake

Larry, enhancing the view :-)

It had warmed up nicely now so we shed our liners and headed out once again. We ran down US-26 for about an hour and spotted a viewpoint so pulled of for some more photos. There we spotted a gentleman who was there on his 4-wheeler. He walked right over to us as we pulled in and we chatted for quite some time. Rex was a widower out enjoying the scenery and he was thrilled to see others like us out doing the same  We chatted for some 20 minutes or so swapping stories - us about our rides, and he about seeing the grizzly bear. He was even wearing bear bells as he has been hiking in the area just earlier. We could have talked longer but we had a lot of miles to go yet today so we bid our adieus and were off again. It was now 11:30 AM.

We continued southbound on US-26 and thought about lunch as we rolled through the town of Dubois, but we decided to run another hour down the road first. I caught this photo from the saddle at about Noon, just after passing through Dubois.

Just a few more miles and we were entering the Wind River Indian Preserve. I managed to get the following photo from the saddle.

Wind River

And another...

Wind River

We would end up stopping for lunch at 1:15 PM at the Gannett Grill, which I had found on a GPS search. It turned out to be a great find. Very unique and eclectic motif and I had the healthiest lunch since I started this trip. It was a spinach and romaine lettuce salad with bacon, craisins, walnuts, crumbled blue cheese and Caesar dressing. Yum!

Inside the Gannett Grill in Lander, WY

Inside the Gannett Grill in Lander, WY

We spent 45 minutes eating lunch and then decided to gas up in town because the gas prices here at $3.56 a gallon were the lowest we'd seen in days. Then we were off for the final leg of the day.

We would continue on US-287 for another 124 miles before we'd get to our overnight destination of Rawlins, WY. Nothing spectacular for scenery here, just a lot of dry desert scrub, some occasional cattle, and lots of horses along the way. Traffic was very light until it picked up as we got closer to Rawlins.

20 miles north of Rawlins, WY

Oh yes, we noted signs indicating we crossed the continental divide 3 different times today!

After dinner, I was walking back from across the street and caught this photo:

Pronghorn Antelope looking for his buddies?

Today's Stats: 330.6 miles in 8:16 elapsed time, 5:54 saddle time.