Thursday, September 16 - Day 14

Lisa typing. Dave here. What a great day. Moose up the wazoo - but more about that later. 28 degrees last night - maybe our coldest yet. I convinced Lisa to get out of her sleeping bag and with plenty of blankets and good mattress, we were snuggly warm. She said it was her best nights sleep so far. After morning rituals, out of the camp site by 8:05 and on to Moose, Wyoming where, guess what, lots of moose live. When we got there there was already a crowd formed along the banks of the Snake River watching a mother and her calf and a large bull moose. She was huge, he was huger, big rack, which I don't usually say about bulls. We watched them for about 20 minutes. The cow and baby laid down on the sand by the river and went to sleep. The male lay in a copse of bushes and became invisible. It is cliche to write that some sight is awesome but I must say, that watching a bull moose inspires awe. These thousand pound plus ungulates stand 7 feet high at the shoulders. They look pre-historic. Their enormous bodies and heads are balanced on spindly legs. The bull would thrash his antlers back and forth, I guess, rubbing them felt good. The calf stayed close by the mother and imitated her every move. She was nearly as large as the male, except lacking antlers. It was amazing that we were able to watch them without frightening them. We were withing 20 yards the whole time. After waiting for an hour for him to show, we decided to head to Jenny Lake for a hike.

Jenny Lake lies at the immediate foot of Grand Teton mountain. It's a beautiful, easy 7 mile hike around the lake, which varying views of the mountain range and the chance of seeing wildlife. Dave was trying out his ankle braces. We marched a brisk pace covering 5 miles in 2 and a half hours. We decided to take the ferry back across the lake at this point. Headed to the showers at Colter Bay and up to campsite for an early dinner of Udon noodles, green beans and chicken. After camp clean up and blogging, we are headed to Signal Mountain in hopes of seeing more bears and to watch the sun set over the Tetons.