We arrived in Jackson tonight to find about six inches of snow piled on the sides of the roads leading into town. It’s cold here! Thankfully the forecast calls for it to warm up so we don’t have to freeze while exploring the national parks here.

We spent about ten (!) hours in the car today—it took roughly eight hours to drive from Kalispell to Jackson, and we took short detours to see Flathead Lake and the National Bison Range on the way. The Bison Range was especially interesting; we saw a lot of buffalo, antelope, bighorn sheep, deer, and a single elk.

The weather and sky were constantly changing on our drive through Montana and Idaho on our way to Wyoming. This made for quite a few dramatic skyscapes for us to enjoy as we listened to John Scalzi’s Lock In (which we finished—interesting concept but mediocre story).

Our hotel is right in the center of Jackson, less than 10 minutes from Grand Teton National Park, and about an hour from Yellowstone. Hotwire gave us the best deal again, at $79/night (considerably higher than the average we’ve spent on rooms so far, but better than we expected given the area). The plan is to spend at least four nights here and then move closer to Yellowstone for a couple days if we feel like we haven’t seen enough of it.

Some pics from the day (click for larger versions):

A buffalo at the National Bison Range in Montana.

We saw a few herds of antelope at the bison preserve.

On I-15 southbound, the sky was constantly changing.

Welcome to Idaho indeed—look at that sky!