The road less traveled

So we went back up to the cabin over the fall break at school. We thought it would be really cold and stocked up on the cold weather gear and it was actually very nice - about 60 degrees. We had a lot of fun. It was just me, Dirk and the kids. Gretta and Kyle came up and spent the night Friday night, but other than that it was very quiet and peaceful. We had a resident bald eagle across from the cabin. Nobody was really vacationing up there so we had the whole area to ourselves. We loved it. We went into Yellowstone on Saturday and then on Sunday we went home through the park. Normally we go back through Idaho to go home and it's about 4 hours. This time we wanted to go through Yellowstone, down through Jackson Hole, and back into Utah through back roads in Wyoming. It took us about 10 hours, but was a ton of fun. We saw things in Yellowstone we hadn't seen before (Moose Falls, Lewis Falls, a mountain goat up close, lots of elk and bison, and new and different geysers, etc.), We loved the drive through the Tetons (Athena reminisced about the time she hiked the Tetons (25 miles over the ridge in two days). We stopped at Jenny Lake and were amazed at the peaceful quietness of the lake. Then we went back roads through Wyoming. We passed over into Utah in the dark. Our trip over the Rockies was on a two-lane, pitch black, multiple switchbacks, 7-9% grade, 51 miles of no pull-outs, stores, gas stations, nothing. It was a little nervewracking to say the least. We were disappointed we weren't able to enjoy the scenery through this quaint area, but at that point, with fists clenched through the terrorific ride, we just wanted to get home. It was really nice taking the road less traveled and for once the kids never fought the whole ten hours. This is a trip to remember.