Going East…..to West-15

Epilogue

We left for Salt Lake City after breakfast. Mukul had decided to take a different route for the return journey and we turned West after Jackson, entered the neighbouring Idaho State and joined the Interstate 15, which goes South and to Salt lake City. (You may see the map in Part 9) We stopped en route for lunch at a Chinese Restaurant and I was very happy at the mere sight of an Asian cuisine. We reached Salt Lake City a little earlier than we had imagined and decided to visit the Mormon Temple there before going to the Airport for catching our flight to San Jose.

I tried to reflect on what had impressed me most during this visit to United States’ two premier National parks. I really did not have to think much and I realized it was the superb organization at these National Parks. Since the mid-1960s, at least 2 million tourists have visited the park almost every year. At peak summer levels, 3,700 employees work for Yellowstone National Park concessionaires. Concessionaires manage nine hotels and lodges, with a total of 2,238 hotel rooms and cabins available. They also oversee gas stations, stores and most of the campgrounds. Another 800 employees work either permanently or seasonally for the National Park Service. Managing such a vast multitude of visitors, thousands of geothermal features and a large number of wildlife creatures and moreover, keeping them all at a safe distance from each other, is no easy task.

Due to shortage of time, we had chosen to take only a sight-seeing tour and had no time for hiking or angling. During our tour, we were mostly road-bound except when we walked on the wooden pathways around the thermal features. I was a little disappointed that we had not been able to see much of wildlife in both these National Parks. Hayden Valley is the spot in Yellowstone for viewing wild life and we did see a bear cub and a herd of bison but nothing more than that. We did expect to see something while rafting in Snake River in Grand Teton National Park but we did not see any four-legged creatures from the wild there either. I must say we were quite lucky in this regard when we visited Canada last year. Moreover, I somehow felt at ease with the Canadian wildlife but not particularly so while visiting these two National Parks. I wonder why…

I am appending below some additional pictures which, although as pretty as the ones you have been seeing so far but unlike them, do not strictly fall in any category/group; I would rather group them all under ‘scenic miscellany’. I have added, as an afterthought, four pictures of the Mormon Temple at Salt Lake City and they appear right at the end.

Scenic Miscellany

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(Concluded)