Grand Tetons National Park

8/3/16

Dear NS,

How is your week off going? Have you done anything interesting? I hope that things are going well for you.

I've been in National Park area the last couple of days. First, I visited Yellowstone National Park. Yesterday, I finished up seeing the sights in Yellowstone. I saw more bison, pronghorn antelope, and even a bald eagle.

After finishing up with Yellowstone, I traveled through Grand Tetons National Park. The park is famous for three large mountains that you can see from pretty much anywhere in the park. In Grand Tetons, the main activities are looking at lakes, looking at mountains, and looking at wildlife.

One of the sights to see is a Mormon village from the 1800s. These Mormons lived together in this farming community on land that now belongs to Grand Tetons.

 The amount of wildlife I saw yesterday in this park was incredible! I saw a herd of bison in the afternoon. I had already seen bison in Yellowstone, so I didn't spend much time watching these. What I really wanted to see was a moose. I had asked a park ranger where to go, and he told about two different spots. He also advised that I go near sunset since that is when the animals will be more active.

Last night, I tried the first spot. There were animals there, but these animals were elk. Elk are one of my favorite animals; however, I really wanted to see a moose.

After driving around for awhile in the are of the first spot, I tried the second spot. A park visitor pointed me in the direction of a moose eating near a river just a short distance from the forest. Following in the direction the visitor pointed, I was easily able to find the moose. I took a bunch of photos and watched him until it was almost too dark to see.

At that point, I decided to take a walk around the area. As I walked further upstream the river, I made out two beavers on the opposite river bank. If I looked carefully in the fading light, I could see two beaver dams, a beaver den, and at least two beavers swimming. I even heard a beaver chomping on sticks.

I look forward to hearing about your week.

Your teacher,

Elaina

P.S. I also saw a grizzly bear eating a bison carcass in Yellowstone!