THE GRAND TETONS

Welcome to the Colter Bay Tent Cabins! And not just any tent cabin, but our own #148. When I asked the young attendant in the office as we were checking in if the bike lock was still on the poles, he said, "I can tell you've been here before. That's my favorite kind of customer." and then he just handed over the stacks of Bear warnings, Fire warnings, and How To Burn Your Wood Stove Without Burning Down the Tent warnings without having to explain. He did feel it necessary to give us a map just in case we had forgotton where #148 was and as we were leaving, he also mentioned that #150 (where Allison's family was staying) had a bear in it two nights ago. Allison and I decided not to share that with Chris.

We got right into the swing of things by deciding we were too lazy to cook dinner, so about 9:00pm when we were building up a big bonfire to cook down for marshmallows, Allison and I decided that we would at least wrap the corn up in foil and throw that in the fire. Delicious! But that ended the laziness. Allison rustled up some terrific Dutch oven meals the next breakfast and dinner. In fact, the breakfast was so good we kept munching on it all morning, so we were too fat and lazy to make lunch. Speaking of marshmallows, it turned out that everybody liked to roast them, but nobody wanted to eat them. But this was a Grandma camping trip -so what's a little waste if it makes them happy? We put out a sheet of foil next to the fire pit and opened the whole $1.19 bag and let them roast and discard to their hearts' content. When you see the occasional marshmallow fall into the fire and billow up like a Fourth of July snake it makes you wonder if the kids don't have the right idea after all.



We played lots of games, with and without the kids. Sometimes they played without us. As I watched Zoe play Sorry with her Grizzly bear family I asked if she was moving for them because they were bears. She glared at me very sternly and said, "They choose not to because I picked the game." Later, she game over to me and in a whisper, hissed, "Don't call them toys in front of them. They don't like it!" Bytheway, Zoe won the game.
During my laying-flat times in the tent cabin I played Mother-May-I with the kids and taught them an old favorite from my youth on Simondi Ave: Here Comes a Jolly Butcher Boy. Somehow, typing it out it seems a little less innocent than it really is. Zoe was great, Jimmy was easy - he was always a motorcycle.




For the most part we sat around enjoying the scenery and letting the kids play. Zoe, who remembers last summer, kept saying over and over, "I wish my cousins were here."
We stopped on our way south to let them float their boats in String Lake. Zoe wanted to wade like she did in Jenny Lake last August, but the occasional floating icebergs made her think twice about it.







We had our final meal at the Cheese Factory in Thayne, Wyoming, enjoying once again the cherubic face of a four year old who thinks if he scowls hard enough and yells authoritatively enough, using language unbecoming such a tender youth, he will immediately receive anything he wants. It never happens and yet he never learns.





We had a great time on this vacation and learned several things:

• A four year old with a bladder the size of a walnut should not take long car trips.
• That same child does not do well watching lots of little geysers while waiting for the big one
• Chris can be very pleasant, in spite of great pain, when he is feeling guilty.
• There are few buffalo in the Hayden valley in June.
• Grandpa has checked off a major item on his bucket list.