Travel Map

Tuesday, 4 September 2012

Jackson Hole, Wyoming

I had a couple of days set aside to hangout Jackson. Many people told me how awesome this town was, even though it was very well known to tourists.

Luckily Chris - my couch host's roommate - had all of Sunday and weekday afternoons off to hangout. Chris is an awesome dude, he is a one quarter Cherokee, one quarter Apache, half white recently-gay guy who comes from Mormon background. Chris is the kind of dude that has an esky full of beers in his truck, spends whole summers camping out in the mountains and knows the Jackson Hole roads like the back of his hand. Everyone in Jackson seems to know Chris and Chris knows everyone. He is a super nice guy, and so damn chill he could almost be Australian.

On my first full day in Jackson, Chris and I went to breakfast then drove around the Teton National Park in his truck. This was pretty sweet for me, most of the roads were very rough dirt which on a bike would have been pretty hairy. The first thing we went to was an old farm where the buildings were popular photographic locations for tourists.

Doing my best cowboy, the Tetons are in the background.
My next host's place.
I call this one "Pole and Mountain"
Everyone likes old barns, right?
After that we drove through some other pretty areas of the Tetons National Park, where I was only allowed to take one photo. Chris was sick of people taking hundreds of photos. I took a whole heap more than one, don't tell him that though.


Teton National Park
Swimming area in Teton National Park.
You can see a raft in the background.

We then drove up one of his favorite camping spots: Shadow Mountain. There were a few campers on the road up, and even a guy painting the landscape below. Chris has had many a party up this mountain apparently, and had even stayed in a tent up here for an entire summer. He used to get up in the morning, take a shower at April's (my host) place then head to work!


Afterwards, we headed back home where Chris cooked me a massive lunch (steak the size of a plate, and then a plate full of vegetables). I then spent the rest of the afternoon catching up on blogging and couch surf requests. That night we headed back up to Shadow mountain to drink and get photos of the Sunset over the Tetons.

The Tetons at sunset from Shadow Mountain.
That barn from earlier at sunset.
View from Shadow Mountain.
The next day Chris had to head to work, so I went for a ride through Teton Pass, through Idaho then back to Jackson. Round trip was a bit less than 3 hours. The ride was pretty awesome, a great set of curves and well surfaced. Very pretty scenery as well. I filmed some one it with the GoPro, and whenever I get some time I'll clean it up and post it online.


Near the end of the trip I had lunch at a place called "Yankee Doodles", which was a super American-themed diner. It was all red, blue and white and had a whole heap of pro-American paraphernalia on the walls. It is interesting to me that this sort of diner didn't seem to be aimed at tourists, whereas a similarly themed Australiana cafe in Australia would only be aimed at tourists. I guess Americans themselves love this patriotic kind of stuff.

That night Chris and I went to a bar quite a distance out of town. The bar was in some sort of "resort" called Dornans, where there was a bunch of touristy things to do. There was currently a "Hootenanny" going on, which was explained to me as some sort of band-focused open mic night. Chris wanted to start here as this is where he worked as a kitchen hand and he knew the people. It was quite a nice bar and I finally got to see a Moose in the wild on the way there!

Finally, a wild moose appears!
Anyway we met up with some older ladies to play a dice game at the bar. This was a weekly event for Chris which he kindly invited me along to join in. The game (called "horses"? maybe?) was mostly luck-based, where each round cost a dollar to play. I think I won 2 rounds and broke even. Afterwards he and I hung around with some of the workers at Dornan's, just drinking and chilling around their dorms.

Pensive Chris, along with some of the other people we
were playing the dice game with.
Eventually we headed out to many bars in Jackson. One of the more memorable bars had saddles for seats at the bars, and Chris went and danced with a few girls there. He is a really good dancer! As for me, I just drank a whole heap, I dance like a tall white guy.

Oh and I met maybe my 4th or 5th Australian at another bar. Again with a heaver accent than mine. This guy felt the need to wear an Akubra hat, seemed like a nice enough dude though.

The next day I said goodbye to Chris and headed back through Yellowstone to Montana. Many thanks to Chris, one of the most genuinely nice and fun people I've hung out with in the US!

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