it was our anniversary and there's no better way to celebrate it in the wilderness. we hiked a lot, saw tons of wild animals and unique landscapes. we saw beautiful geysers and hot springs in yellowstone. tons of beautiful herds of animals such as bisons and elks in the gorgeous hayden valley and lamar valley. even a couple of grizzly bears; three of them eating a dead bison. we had wonderful hikes to some beautiful scenic mountains at grand tetons and enjoyed being surrounded with cold water lakes on the mountains.
the only thing that was a bit rough while camping in yellow stone and grand teton was finding diverse ingredients for grilling at nights and sandwitches for hiking. so we ended up eating pretty monotone for most of the week. eggs or omlettes in the morning, cheese or other cold cut sandwitches for lunch, and grilled saussages, and vegetables at nights.
having only one mini burner and a very hot fire could be challenging some times. i guess after this trip we mastered the tempretures for grilling on the camp fire and cooking omlettes on our burner. the vegetables we grilled were usually corn, tomatoes, bell pepper, garlic, and potatoes. we even made use of some of them in the omlette of the next morning.:-)
the only fancy dinner we had was on our anniversary night at Jackson Lake lodge with a fantastic view of a valley with moose, elk, and tons of birds. i totally recommend their huckleberry margarita while you are sitting in the balcony. i should say the quality of fine dining was not comparable with any fine dining experience in the big cities, but at least there was a nice variety of local ingredients such as: elk salami and bison carpaccio as appetizers. elk salami was very lean and enjoyable. the bison carpaccio was a bit bland for me but maybe it was just the way they prepared it and the meat itself might be more flavorful. my main dish also was a nice cut of elk meat but the sides were not very special. what i enjoyed a lot was a chocolate dish as dessert which included a very heavy chocolate mousse (not a moose though) and a very nice cold mocca.
i totally recommend yellow stone and grand teton for the wonderful adventures and volcanic activities in the area. i could bear the lack of diversity in food since those unique views are totally worth it.