Last minute kind of trip….. Part 2

Welcome back to my, Miss Kayla’s, Cubby and mom last minute road trip….

A lot of the pics are with our phone but some are with moms camera… : )  click on pics to enlarge but use back button to return

It’s been so long just where did we leave off… Mom and I, Miss Kayla really need to try to keep up on my blog posts… Life just keeps us so busy that my blog keeps being put on the back burner… 

Back to Grand Tetons / Yellowstone National Park last minute kind of trip…. 

The next morning (Wednesday) mom decided we should have a slow morning since our previous days have been so busy and our next day (tomorrow) will be a long day with lots of driving. It was a gorgeous morning too. We got dressed and decided to head out for a stroll/walk. We went to The Bunnery Bakery & Restaurant for breakfast before strolling/walking over to the Visitors Center.

Mom thought the visitors center was for Grand Tetons National Park but it is actually for the Elk Preserve. Who knew and since I have seen the Elk preserve and we only drove by it multiple times before including yesterday, I got a stamp for my National Park passport book and got an official Grand Teton National Park sticker for my book (I know not right VC for that, but they carried them anyway). Who knew! I started this book a bit late – bummer, but I say its better late than never. 🙂 I have had it for a few years now (mom found out about them when she worked at the Channel Islands National Park Visitors Center).

Jackson is not the greatest place for wheelchairs to stroll around due to the sidewalks being boardwalks mostly with planks that creates a really bumpy rough ride for those in wheelchairs, but mom does her best to make it as smooth for me as possible and pushes me in the streets that have very little traffic.  It was such a nice day out – sunny where the sun was warm but the breeze did have a chill to it. The temps were 50s-60s.  We really enjoyed our stroll/walk around town.

We did some shopping too – well, me mostly. 🙂 I loved it. I got a shirt and a magnet.

I am starting to collect magnets now from different places for my refrigerator to hang up all my artwork that I do at my day program and camp. We then headed back to our hotel to chill out for a little while, get my treatments done before we headed out to the park that evening.

We had a nice break and left a little earlier so we could go to Moose, WY in Grand Tetons NP where the visitors center is for the park. I needed to get my book stamped. 🙂 It was a nice Visitors Center and I enjoyed going in it. Anything to do with shopping is always fun! 🙂 I got to turn a penny into a park penny but the photo of it didn’t turn out very well. That was my first time doing that – ever!! 

We headed out in search of Moose and Bear. Yep, Mom loves Moose. They are pretty cute and unique looking.

By the way, mom has been so proud of me. Today she was putting my g-tube gauze on and she only said quietly to herself, “K can you please move your arm back so I can put your gauze on” and guess what, within 10 seconds or so I DID! I responded to her verbal instructions with no touch ques and without her really telling me directly to do so. Mom has taught me a few things to help her with and I do them very well. I have also gotten good at telling her when I want out of my w/c, but that seems to come and go along with a few other things but she still continues to work with me on them so I don’t lose them. It’s hard for me to be consistent because I lose things with the seizures I have, but I try really hard to do the things mom has taught me or I figured out on my own. 

At the Visitors Center mom talked to a park ranger to get some insight on possible Moose sightings and where have they been sighted recently. This trip she realizes she needs some extra help. 🙂 The park ranger did say they are being more scarce lately but still seeing them. He gave us several places to look (some we already knew, some new ones). So… We tried a few and then this one spot we saw just bits and pieces of a mom Moose and her baby. They were pretty far back in the brush (you can see where I circled with a pink pen on where they are).. 🙂 

So patience was going to be key to being able to see them since we decided to stay. Mom Moose was laying down with her baby (baby was sleeping).  We waited and waited and waited like 3 hours before Mom and baby came out into more of an open area where we could actually see them.  Oh, this baby was just born on Sunday so it’s very very young – a few days old. The evening light was really nice and I was having so much fun hanging out, watching people come and go and mom visiting with two others that hung out with us.

We always meet the nicest people and its so nice to hear people’s reactions to seeing nature. The mom and baby Moose were only out in the open area for like 20 minutes before they headed much further back into the brush for the night.

We decided to head back to the hotel for the night since mom was planning an early morning for us.

Thursday

It was a gorgeous chilly morning out and we got up early and headed out in hopes of finding Moose and bear.  We went this one way that we had never been before and saw nothing. Mom looked really hard too. We continued on and even went to the Sacred Heart Church as we had not been there before and heard there have been Moose sighted there lately as well, but nothing.  We looked through so many areas that morning and nothing. We came across other people, tour groups, wildlife photographers and everyone was having the same luck as us – nothing. Quite different than our previous trips.

I love getting out at all our stops to help mom check things out and or take pics of. Mom isn’t taking many photos of this trip and saving her pics for wildlife. 1. I am not keen on mom’s photography like I used to be, so she saves it for special times, and 2. mom has gotten better photos on previous trips due to the conditions being better than now, so. If the conditions were better this trip she probably would have taken more.

So after a good 4-5 hours of searching mom decided it was time to finally head to Yellowstone National Park, get to the lodge we are staying at and get checked in so I can get out of my chair for a longer break. As we were driving towards the other end of Grand Tetons National Park we finally came across a large female bear with a ton of people observing it and trying to get selfies and pics with their cell phones of it. After about twenty minutes of dealing with all these people mom decided it’s not worth it and we should just move on. The bear was back in the trees and it was hard to get a clear view of her, etc. Mom couldn’t believe how the people were being and even though there was a Ranger there, there was only one and he was being overpowered by the people. They weren’t listening to him and doing as they please. Not cool. 

We got back in the car and started driving slowly down the highway when this bear up ahead crossed the road, ran up a steep hill into the forest. Mom pulled over off the road and took a good look around for maybe more bears and to make sure this other bear wasn’t heading back but saw nothing. Since mom didn’t know where this bear was, she left me in the car listening to my music as she stepped out by the car to take a look. She stepped in the middle of the road (no traffic coming and can see a far distance in both directions) to see if she could see up the hillside in the forest for the bear. Nope, she never saw that bear again but while she was looking she heard something behind her in the distance and saw a second bear (semi-large, but face look to be of a cub) One other person had stopped to join mom and they both slowly walked back to our car (he was parked behind us) and viewed the bear from there. The young bear (not a cub from this year) was standing up looking across the street for the bear we saw cross which I assume was its mother.

By now other cars were parking, people getting out, people driving by stopping to look at bear, grab photos, it was getting pretty chaotic and no one was respecting the little bears’ space to cross the road. It kept trying to cross but couldn’t and was scared. He/she was so cute but it was becoming a sad scene and disbelief how people are these days. People sure have changed and not for the better. We were trapped in by the other cars so we just hung out until the bear finally got across the road and ran up the hill so people left. We were finally able to continue on to Yellowstone NP.

Yellowstone NP had a ton of snow and temps dropped about 5-10 degrees depending on where we were. Still a gorgeous but chilly day out.

We stopped at a big lake that was frozen over.  We got out to check it out and take some pics of us. It was a lot of fun!

Next we stopped at a waterfall and got out, had a picnic lunch and I was able to relax, take a break out of my chair. It was chilly but gorgeous out with so much snow.

We made a few more stops,

did some searching for bear and other wildlife, but mostly bear on our way to our lodge where we were staying in the middle of Yellowstone NP. Mom decided to splurge to stay there, inside the park since we were only going to be there a couple of days and wanted to make our daily drives for sightseeing easier.

On our way to the hotel, we made our last turn onto the road the lodge is off of and not even a 1/4 mile down the road there were a ton of cars parked on side of the road which is a good sign there is a wild animal in the area. Sure enough, guess what it was??? It was our first Moose sighting ever in Yellowstone that was along the Gibbon River in a pretty field. We got out of the car, walked/strolled across the street where there was a nice flat dirt area for me to see the Moose from. It was a bull Moose and he was several hundred yards away. Mom stood next to me photographing it. We stayed about 45 minutes before continuing up the road to our lodge. This was exciting because we never expected to see a Moose in Yellowstone. We knew they existed there but we just never saw one. 

We stayed at Canyon Lodge – only place that had availability that could meet our needs. It was very very very basic, but clean and had a woodsy cabin-like theme. Mom liked the decoration and our room but it was way overpriced. We basically paid for the location and that was it. There was a general store, a few places to eat at and the Visitors Center just down the road but not strollable (not wheelchair accessible) from our lodge. You could walk there if you can do a lot of stairs but couldn’t get there in a wheelchair so we had to use the car to go there. That was not cool because we like to stay in places where we can walk/stroll to places. But oh well – we just made our stops on our way out for the day or our way back in.

We finally got checked in and settled into our room. We had snow there too. We were higher up than in Jackson so mom was concerned.  We chilled out for a couple of hours

before heading back out where we decided to head north to areas we knew are popular for seeing bears and where some had recently been seen.  It was a gorgeous evening.

We came across a large paved pullout on one side of the road with quite a few cars and a ranger as there was a bear grazing not far so of course we pulled in, parked and got out. Mom and I hung out a few feet from where the ranger was (safe spot) to watch the bear that is 3-4 years old. The rangers know quite a bit about this bear and have been watching it since it was a cub. Its now on its own. I, Miss Kayla loved hanging out watching the bear. Mom didn’t get a photo of me watching the bear – she just didn’t think too and phone was in the car. We stayed for about an 30-45 minutes before continuing on. 

We climbed really high in elevation a few times where it was really windy and we came across this adorable calf grazing. Its mother was just to the left outside of frame.

That pretty much summed up our evening… Not much “wildlife” out in view..

(From here on out, mom lost her daily journal and will need to wing it). More to come…

Love,

Miss Kayla