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Well, I ended my last post hoping that we wouldn’t end up on top of a 10,000 foot mountain in a thunderstorm, so I might as well start this post describing what that experience turned out to be like. As it turned out, it wasn’t so bad. We got to the top of the mountain in the tram and had a few minutes to look around, then visit the little cabin and get a snack before the clouds rolled in and started spitting rain. We ran back up to the tram and found out that they were holding it there to see if the static electricity in the air would dissipate. Evidently even though the towers and cables are grounded they are reluctant to run the tram if there is a chance of lightning, so we got to see what the inside of a thunderstorm is like, up close and personal. The clouds came from the south and swept across Jackson Hole slowly, bringing a bit of lightning and thunder, lots of rain, and a few flakes of snow. The temperature at the peak was around 40 degrees the whole time and the wind ranged between 25 and 45 mph. At one point a bolt of lightning struck just down the side of the mountain from where we were and scared the socks off just about everybody in the tram. I think it was the closest strike I have ever been a party to, though it was difficult to judge the volume of the thunderbolt from inside the tram. In any case, it was extremely close, because the thunder followed the flash almost instantaneously. Eventually the storm passed. We spent about 45 minutes inside the tram car waiting while the wind and rain lashed the windows. On the way down the storm had left us a brilliant double rainbow.

That was Thursday. Before riding the tram we got an old time photo taken in town and had a late breakfast at The Bunnery. Then we took the kids on the Snow King Resort’s Alpine Slide, which they thought was a blast. Jonathan and Erica rode one sled and Marissa and I took the other. They thought the chair lift ride to the top of the hill was almost as much fun as the slide back down. After the tram we came back to town and hit the shootout a second time, then the Teton Steakhouse for dinner. We came back to our room and had a lazy night of TV watching. The kids veged out to Cartoon Network while Erica and I watched a movie on the laptop.

Friday morning we got up early, went back to the Teton Steakhouse for their breakfast buffet, which the kids loved (they ate about 16 strips of bacon each) and Erica and I tolerated. Buffet really is not the best way to have breakfast. After that we hit the road for Yellowstone. Jonathan had particular plans to spot Bison, geysers, a dragon’s cave and a mud volcano, and he was not disappointed on any of those counts. We had a pretty good run as far as wildlife spotting: moose, elk, bison, wolf, coyote, pellican, swan, and the extremely hard to catch grizzly bear, which we spotted and managed to get a couple far-off pictures of just outside the Old Faithful area. We drove the entire lower circle of the park, which includes the shore of Yellowstone Lake, lots and lots of “stinky pots,” as Erica named them last time we were here and she was pregnant and not too interested in smelling any more sulfur, the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River and Old Faithful, among others. It’s a full day plus trip and we made it in about 8 hours, which is really way too fast, but with the kids along it’s difficult to take the proper amount of time. Marissa chose a little stuffed Bison as her Yellowstone souvenir and Jonathan chose a prismatic light wand, which he has already broken as of this writing.

We arrived back in Jackson about 8pm and ordered pizza from Mountain High Pizza, which they delived to “Adan / Burk Rail Lodge.” The box said they serve Jackson’s finest, not employ them. The pizza was quite good, though, so I don’t mind the spelling errors!

Today we went back to the Bunnery and made it in time for their real breakfast menu, which is more complete than what we chose from on Thursday. I had the Bunnery Benedict, which I highly recommend. We bought both kids cowboy hats and got a mug to join our collection at home. After that we drove up to Jenny Lake and hiked around for about an hour. The kids had a grand time throwing rocks into the lake and clambering up and down the boulders along the lakeshore trail. Erica seemed to have a grand time reminding the kids not to kneel or sit in the dirt.

Tonight’s itinerary is made up of a visit to the Bar J Chuckwagon for dinner and a show and that will more or less finish up or trip for this summer. It’s been a lot of fun.

I didn’t get a chance to post anything yesterday cause we were too busy having fun. We arrived in Jackson at about 2:30pm after leaving home about 7:30 in the morning. We stopped in Preston, Idaho for breakfast and a look at a couple of the filiming locations for Napoleon Dynamite. We didn’t want to take too much time, so we only hit the high school, Pedro’s house and Napoleon’s house. We did manage to spot Uncle Rico’s orange van, though.

We ate breakfast at Tattle’s on Oneida St. I’ll do a by the way post on it later on, but let me just say I think it was the biggest breakfast we have ever consumed.

After checking into our lodgings, we headed for the town square and the stores. We hit the Ripley’s Believe it or not Museum and caught a performance of the Shoot Out under a threatening sky. We ate dinner at the Merry Piglets while it rained outside and then headed back to the Lodge for some well needed sleep.

Today’s possibilities include an old time photo and the aerial tram at Teton Village. It’s the last year of operation for the tram so we’ve got to get up there while we are here. If the weather is not good today, though, we might have to leave it till tomorrow. Being on top of a 10,000 foot mountain in a thunderstorm doesn’t seem like the greatest idea in the world.