Well, this has got to be the prettiest place we’ve been so far! The mountains are spectacular – stark white and crisp against the dark winter sky. The pass we were going to take over the Rockies was closed, so we took the scenic route – through Steamboat Springs and Rock Springs, where apparently my aunt Terry was born!
Once again, our planning skills were spectacular – and by that I mean “not.” We arbitrarily chose a KOA just south of Jackson, and arrived there on schedule (just shy of dead tired) to find that it was closed. We already knew all the park campgrounds were closed for the season, so we looked at one campground near Jackson Hole, where we could pay $79 for an RV space. We decided if we were going to have to pay that much, we might as well not freeze to death, too, and got a motel room.
The next morning we got up eaaarly and staked out Oxbow Bend on the Snake River. Wildlife sites said it was a great place for photos. We really wanted to see a moose! It was also just a really neat place to have to sit for three hours waiting for one. We saw several muskrat, geese, trumpeter swans… But no moose and no bear.
We drove around a bit before crashing out for the night. We saw two moose! There was a very insane guy parked in front of us trying to take a close-up of said moose – from about 15 feet away!! We didn’t stay to see what ended up happening to him. We stayed at Super 8 again – we’ll check more campgrounds tomorrow. We heard there was winter camping at Colter Bay campground starting in December; we’re hoping we can fudge that timeline a bit…
Cheers,
Anna (& Jim)
Anna A. Snook 