TWB June 15th 2019 Experience: June 2019

Day 16: Jackson Hole, Wyoming; Grand Tetons; Yellowstone

We woke up today at 5:30am and left the campground around 6:30am. People on the bus listened to Grant and Josh tell 15 jokes and play 3 songs all about potatoes as we drove through Idaho while people in the vans didn’t even know we went through Idaho due to napping. We had cereal bars and bananas for breakfast. We stopped for a bathroom break then drove for about an hour before arriving at Jackson Hole.

Majority of us spent money on bison burgers and souvenirs while enjoying the small western town. We reloaded the bus around 1pm then drove a short ways to marvel at the Grand Teton mountain range. We visited the Church of Transfiguration where we reflected on our time so far and took appreciation for the amazing view it allowed for. After a hugs, laughs, and taking pictures, we reloaded the bus to headed to Yellowstone National Park. We road for about two hours watching the snowy mountain range disappear as we entered the valleys that are home to Yellowstone. We arrived around 5:30pm, took some group photos, and then explored the gift shop. We reconvened at 6:15pm to listen to Piper, Sam, Reagan, Bryton, and Anna present their research. We waited about 30mins for Ole Faithful to erupt.

After that we rode over to the Painted Mud Pots and the Twin Geysers where we met with Lauren Abernathy who specializes in geyserology. She led us around the small park with her inside out umbrella where we saw a bison sleeping. The two sets of twins took a picture in front of the Twin Geysers. Iconic. Jacob pretended to push someone off the pathway before realizing she wasn’t with TWB. Sorry girl.

We left and ate dinner… or attempted to anyways. We had turkey, ham, and cheese sandwiches with mustard or mayo and Kool-Aid and jello for desert. However, there was a slight mishap resulting in the bus only having less than one loaf of bread. We competed for bread by answering trivia questions. We ate bananas and cereal bars to substitute the missing bread. After dinner we were lucky to see lots of bison crossing the road, a couple wolves, and a herd of elk. We then stopped again and prepared to watch Captain Marvel for the rest of the ride to tonight’s campsite.

Our awesome counselors!

The guys!

The Chapel of Transfiguration

Lauren and Sydney!

Enjoying the most beautiful view!

Our favorite counselors twinning!

Sam McConnell telling us about Yellowstone National Park!

Piper Gallen telling us about Jackson Hole, Wyoming!

Raegan Griffin telling us about the geysers in Yellowstone!

We got to see Old Faithful and watch it erupt!

Group pic!!

The beautiful lodge we stopped at for a bathroom break!

Just our very own Lauren Abernathy as our ranger around the painted pots!

On the way to our campsite we got to enjoy some Byson in the road!

Our view as we headed to Cody, Wyoming!

Day 15: Salt Lake City and Bear Lake

To wake us up, the counselors had the bright idea to blast popular Mormon music at 7am. After a long night of eating candy till 1am, we all felt not so great when morning came around. For breakfast we ate a traveling breakfast of poptarts and grapes. We drove about 45mins to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The tour guides enlightened us on how their religion differs from common Christian beliefs and led us on a tour of their chapels.

After that, we spent a few hours at the largest mall in Utah. Most of us took advantage of the Apple store and Chic-fil-a along with the large selection of stores to shop in. Some popular store picks were Forever 21, American Eagle, Cotton On, Vans, Rolex (although we were all too broke to buy anything), H&M, Alex and Ani, Madewell, and Bohme. Evan bought Pepsi logo tights, Joe got a windbreaker that everyone likes, and others bought rodeo worthy clothes.

We left around 1pm and drove for about 2 hours to a Wal-Mart where Harrison bought a tiny unicorn shirts and Hayden bought a 12 pack of Arnold Palmers. We drove another 2 hours playing card games and made bracelets to pass time. Josh and Jacob tried to eat cookies off their foreheads without hands. Emily tricked out some white sneakers with red and blue sharpies for 4^th of July.

Tonight we’re staying at Bear Lake Campground. When we arrived to the campground, we got to see the beautiful view of the lake as we went down the mountain. As we waited for the cooks to make dinner, we played football, Frisbee, and set up our beds for the night. The cooks made a great dinner of chicken fettuccini with broccoli with pudding for dessert. After dinner we competed in a water balloon-tossing contest between our groups. After each group had a winner, they competed for the final win. Happy won the battle, but Sneezys are in lead overall. After that we took a plunge into the (what we were expecting to be warm but was actually polar bear arctic cold) lake where we took a giant bath. Once our legs were numb and our lips were purple, we headed back to camp for a sing-a-long around the warm fire. Then Reanna, Piper, Anna Riley, and Madison Styer had a sing-a-long of their own while they wrote the rest of the blog post. Everyone else took showers and got ready for bed in anticipation for a good time tomorrow at Jackson Hole, Wyoming!