Grand Teton
There are some hidden perks to being a teacher... in this case one of my former outstanding history and philosophy students just happend to be working for Flagg Ranch -- a lodge/restaurant/camping facility right smack in between Teton and Yellowstone.
John Rogers is an amazing individual. He is around 20 with the maturity of a thirty year-old. He is also incredibly kind, smiles easily, posesses a warm, infectious humor with just a smattering of his teacher's cynicism and dry sarcasm, and is surpassing his former philosophy teacher by reading lots of philosophy in the original rather than mere commentary. John also has a wonderful girlfriend, Annie Mae, who appears to be his perfect match in every way.
I host an annual party for my graduating seniors and my former students. When John didn't show up and I found out he was in the direction I was headed, I put the word out for him to contact me, which he dutifully did. And then, the gravy. He hooked us up with 4 nights for a whopping 10 bucks a night PLUS a free Snake River float trip PLUS he and Annie Mae's wonderful company and excellent advice where to spend our precious time. Genna and Annie Mae became lifelong friends as an added bonus -- it was hard to imagine four more kindred spirits than we all turned out to be.
The actual spot we stayed in was the employee dorms which are also used in the event that the main inn is overbooked. Actually, there's not much difference in quality between the inn and dorms but there is a HUGE difference in price - 150 bucks vs. 10! The dorms were actually a motel that were originally in Yellowstone or Teton proper -- the Park Service wanted them gone so the owner struck a deal -- give me land right outside the park and move my motel sand you got a deal. So they jacked them up, braced them, and moved them several miles. The braces remain -- here are interior and exterior shots of them: 
Here are the dorms themselves - A, B, and C. We were told that C is for the hard-core partiers, A is for the nerds (very quiet), and B is somewhere in between. We got A.
John and Annie Mae took us to a great restaurant at Leek's Marina which sits on the edge of Jackson Lake in Grand Teton.
That's Mount Moran in the background. At 12,605 feet in shorter than Grand Teton by about 1,000 feet but is far more massive, giving it the appearance of having a higher summit. Our pesto pizza with chicken was wonderful.
The next morning, per John's suggestion, we headed towards String Lake in Teton. The original plan was to just sit in our chairs and read but when Genna saw a trail name that appealed to her, we were off for an impromptu 4.5 mile hike to Hidden Falls. The scenery along the way was beautiful 
Now, yours truly is not in the best hiking shape but I kept up with Genna throughout the first leg of the hike. As we got to the falls (or what I thought was the falls) we got separated. I wandered around and couldn't find her so I started to head back. When I got to the car I surprised that she wasn't there, so I slumped into the seat and cranked the A/C. Thirty minutes later still no Genna. Just as real panic was starting to set in, I saw her walking towards the car. "How did you get behind me?", I asked. "Well, you never went to the falls." "Yes, I did." "No, you DID NOT!" "Well, I was there at that bridge and all that rushing water." "That was the BOTTOM of the falls, the TOP, the falls themselves were another quarter mile up. I waited and waited, took some pictures and decided you weren't coming."
So here are the Hidden Falls I missed. 
The next day we went for another short hike and this time we both missed the supposed highlight of the trail. 
The highlight was Huckleberry Hot Springs which is a favorite soaking spot for hard core visitors, locals, and seasonal employees. John told me that the Flagg Ranch staff had recently been instructed to destroy all maps indicating the springs and to deny knowledge of it to inquiring tourists -- he tries to send us to it, but we didn't cross the piddly little brook, around which was the elusive springs. Maybe it's just as well. Here's why the Park and the Ranch was steering people away but many think this is just a ruse to reduce traffic to the equivalent of a highly-valued fishing hole.
That evening was one of the highlights of the trip -- a sunset float trip down the Snake River.
We headed out for our 40 minute trip to rendezvous with the rafts and vans. On the way, in the middle of nowhere, was a mobile radar manned by a couple of soldiers. Weird sight out here I thought. We loaded up in the vans towing the huge rafts and headed ten miles back up to the put-in spot --- you basically float for 2.5 hrs back to your car. On the way to the pu-in spot, our driver/boatman pointed out the radar installation and said, "You see that radar spinning, that means Dick Cheney is coming to town." "Are you for real?", I asked. "Oh, yeah", he said, "you know he's on his way in a day or two -- that radar's out there all the time but it spins when he's on his way."
The float trip was so serene. Our boatman Steve was not only an accomplished navigator, he was a master of the local history, geology, botany, and wildlife. We saw several eagles, including an entire bald eagle family -- the young were LARGER than the adults. Steve said they are fluffier because of their down and about a pound heavier until the parents kick them out of the nest for good. We also saw sandpiper cranes, beaver, and a moose cow with twin calves -- Wyoming Wildlife BINGO! 
Then Steve related an interesting story. He pointed out to the bank of the Snake where Big Dick likes to fish. It is in that same area that the eagles like to nest and thus the area is off-limits to fishermen (but not rafts) a few weeks a year. Well, a couple of years ago, Dick wanted to fish there during the nesting season. And, if you're the former CEO of Halliburton and W's righthand man, the rules, of course, do not apply to you. Apparently one of the boatmen was so outraged that he spilled his guts to any media outlet that would listen and Big Dick was busted. So, now, according to Steve, when Dick wants to fish during that time of year in that spot, the Park Service removes the signs a few days before he comes and replaces them when he leaves! Steve noted in the Vice-President's favor, that "it probably doesn't make that much of a difference...the area is one of the most protected in general so the eagles are probably OK....still, you'd think the Vice-President of the United States would be more sensitive when it came to the national bird..."
I couldn't believe my ears. Not the part where Dick Cheney is an asshole -- I knew that. It was the part where somebody in the tourist biz, where politcs are a taboo topic with the "guests", was moved to speak so openly. And this wasn't some PETA member, white-wine liberal with a Greenpeace sticker on his Volvo nor a young woman named Butterfly. These sentiments were courtesy of a guy who looked like the Marlboro Man, a rugged individualist, a Wyomingian through and through, a guy that sounded like he had voted Republican since he could vote, was sincerely befuddled that Cheney was such a huge Dick. I Googled the incident -- you can read more about it http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32031-2004Aug25.html
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