Forget the photo on the left for now, I'll get back to that. Today I'll start with our Compliment Tally. Are you ready? TWO!! The boys received a gushing compliment from two staff members at the Colter Bay Visitor Center in the Grand Teton National Park. They couldn't tell us enough about how wonderful our boys had been! That should have been great news alone, but later that evening our waiter at dinner in Gardiner, Montana also gave the boys a sincere compliment. So that's three compliments in three days (two in this one day) -- and that means three treats coming. We'll start those today (Wednesday)

Yesterday was a day of travel and site-seeing. We left our motel after a big breakfast at a restaurant and started to make the 110 mile or so journey to Gardiner. This is a slow drive since it's coming through the Grand Teton National Park, John Rockefeller Parkway, and Yellowstone National Park. So traffic moves slowly and we're stopping. We stopped at that visitor center at Colter Bay and this was the first time many of the boys bought souvenirs, so leader Jeff (our banker) had a busy hour handling transactions. We then headed on up the parkway toward Yellowstone when it wasn't long before we saw the first herd of bison. That made quite an impression - and within a minute so an antelope. Later on we saw a few more bison, and look forward to seeing more great wildlife as we explore Yellowstone over the next few days.

After our "trail" lunch at Lewis Lake, we went to the Old Faithful area - which, as you can imagine, is very crowded with tourists - so our group was hardly noticeable. We had just missed one eruption, so we had a little over an hour to explore the visitor center there including more souvenir stalking. Then it was time for the next eruption of Yellowstone's most famous geyser. 

After leaving, we headed through the northern section of the park (which includes the geyser basin) to our motel home for the next four nights in Gardiner, MT where we walked to dinner through the small town along the Yellowstone River where we enjoyed great pizza at the K-Bar - a Gardiner landmark since 1953.

Click to see more photos from Wednesday's adventures.

Fifth-year camper Mark has a comment for you in this video...

After a breakfast at McDonalds, we headed into the Grand Teton National Park for our first major hike of the trip. We chose a hike to Leigh Lake for several reasons, one being it is considered one of the less crowded hikes in the park. It was also nice because it followed very flat terrain through an evergreen forest along side of Leigh Lake. It was still a very warm day and the hike ended up being about 5 miles long. Lots of great photos taken by kids along the way.

A couple of boys spotted a deer and several saw some geese, but that was the extend of our wildlife spotting for today. That will change tomorrow as we head into Yellowstone National Park.

One funny episode (to me anyhow) during the hike was when Will Rasco started a business on the way back to the trailhead of carrying others' backpacks for 50 cents each. (I think that was the going rate.) He was carrying four at one time counting his one. He had quite a business going until he got busted! So everyone had to end up carrying his own pack. I don't know if Will ever collected the money or not.

The hike was great fun and the kids did really well. They're ready to go again.

We returned back to Jackson with a stop at an overlook of the Teton range and had plenty of time late afternoon for some swimming and hot-tubbing in our motel pool. We walked to dinner to Bubba's Barbecue which was another 1.5 mile round-trip hike. Boys were tired after today and so are the leaders.

After dinner we gave the boys time to chill in their rooms with friends and/or swim some more. We also told them they needed to have on clean clothes for breakfast tomorrow.

Compliment Tally: Great news. The waitress at dinner tonight gave the boys a sincere compliment and that means a treat is coming their way. I'm so proud of them. They're such a great group of kids. Thanks parents!

Click to see photos from our trip.

Hello from Jackson, Wyoming – a bit of the old West and the first day of our trip. Yes, we’re here and the flight was uneventful. We like it that way. As is to be expected, travel days are long and boring but the boys made the most of it. And I will have to say they were angels. YES, angels. I’m not kidding! We were an hour late getting into the Dallas-Ft. Worth Airport. That wasn’t a problem except we were to meet Avery, the brave adventurer from Tulsa, Oklahoma - so we were a bit concerned that our delay would somehow or other cause a problem with our meeting him. No worries. His mom was allowed to accompany him through security and we were able to have plenty of time to make introductions, grab snacks, and play video games on a myriad of devices these boys are packing.

Excitement started building as our flight made its descent into the Jackson Hole Airport. We all were thrilled to see these snow-capped mountains with elevations over 12,000 feet. It’s quite an impressive site.

It was a long day and the kids were great sports.

Compliment Tally – none today but I will say they were fantastic!

It took about an hour to arrange to get luggage, pick up one small van at the airport, drive into Jackson to pick up the two passenger vans, and then return to the airport to pick up the boys. They were great sports about the wait time. We made our way into town to our motel, checked in, and then walked to dinner at a restaurant called the Sidewider. The boys discovered that the restaurant had an arcade, but don’t worry – we didn’t let them spend too much time there. We finished dinner – it was a late one – walked back to our motel and settled in for the evening and the big adventures ahead.

Everyone gets to sleep in tomorrow, but by 9 we hope to be getting a late breakfast and heading out for a hike in the Grand Teton National Park.

Our excitement has been building for months and tomorrow morning it all reaches a frenzy as we meet the boys at the airport. We're off for our 12-day adventure to the mountains of Wyoming & Montana including stays in Jackson, Cody, and Dubois in Wyoming and Gardiner in Montana. We'll hike, explore, raft, horseback ride, geocache, take in a rodeo, a couple museums, a tram, a chuck wagon dinner...and a whole lot more. Everything is a highlight on this trip, but getting to hike in the Grand Teton & Yellowstone National Parks is truly magical.

Check this blog out each day for updates on our adventures including photo or two and a link to a full set of photos from the activities.

Thanks to all the parents and grandparents for your support.