The best ride so far -- again!

SAT 7/17 -- Dubois to Colter Bay, Grand Teton National Park (66);
and
SUN 7/18 -- rest day
Following close on the heels of the best ride so far comes the new
best ride so far -- a scenic 30(*) miles up from Dubois along the Wind
River to Togwotee Pass (9,658 ft), and then especially the payoff -- a
long, 36-mile(*) descent into Grand Teton NP, with the spectacularly,
amazingly, stunningly beautiful mountains in front of us the whole
way. Here are a couple of photos of the view on the ride in, and one
of the view of the mountains across Jackson Lake, near where we're
camped. It's a little bit incredible to me, that I've ridden a bike to
the Tetons! As a group, both approaching and in the park, we've had
several bear sightings, plus bighorn sheep, moose, deer, and, for Hugh
and me, a wolf (or maybe a very big coyote -- but we decided to
declare it to be a wolf).

We're camped in the Colter Bay campground, which is -- finally! -- a
place really worthy of the term "camping," a place where we're
outside, in tents, for reasons other than the cheap lodgings they
provide.

Today, on the rest day, the group opted for white-water rafting on the
Snake River, near Jackson. Speaking of heels (see opening sentence), I
bailed out of the raft excursion(**), due to an attack of MDRF --
mysterious decrepitude of right foot. My achilles tendons were acting
up (stiff and painful) most of the day yesterday, and when I woke up
this morning my RF was noticeably swollen. So I decided to give it a
day of real rest -- I want to be ready to ride again tomorrow. It's
been a long, quiet (boring) day, foot elevated, guarding the campsite,
and especially the food bins, from bears. (That was another "benefit"
of my staying behind -- no need to pack all that stuff in the van,
which meant room for all the people.) I will say, with no small amount
of pride, that I have done a bang-up, 100% successful job on the
keeping-the-bears-at-bay front. Also, notably, anteaters, cobras,
dingos, egrets, fire ants, great white sharks, hoary marmots, ibises,
jackals, kingfishers, [etc. etc.], voles, wombats, X-men, yaks, and
zebra mussels -- not a one anywhere near our tents or the food!

Also, the foot seems better after a day of rest.

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(*) Because of a major road construction project (now in its 7th
year!), we didn't actually ride the full way up to the pass, or the
full way down. Near the top of the pass we had to stop and load our
bikes on a pick-up truck, which ferried us over the pass and around
about 2 miles of major work (and major road bust-up), and then we did
the same drill again a few miles into the descent.

(**) I had some pithy, footnote-worthy thought to add here at one
point, but it's gone now.