Day 8 Vernal/Naples – Teton Village
Mileage 296
miles States – Utah, Wyoming
This morning I wondered what I’d have to blog
about today since it was a straight drive through with no National
Parks/Monuments to visit. Perhaps I’d find two flies crawling up a wall, who
knows? The weather was awful and obscured any view we’d have of the Rockies
enroute (if we were even close enough to see then - it looked like it from the map, but who knew?), but I have endeavored to make the proverbial silks purse…
We crossed into
Wyoming...
And were welcomed by a beautiful rainbow that did raise our spirits.
We'd been suffering from scenery withdrawal and the grey weather didn't help, but we couldn't whine about it because perhaps this lull was just the ticket. It would serve to cleanse the palate before Yellowstone, like a scenery "cracker" between tasting two great wines.
The fall/autumn colors were kicking in.
We stopped once for lunch at Boulder, Wyoming, population 75. There was one building at the crossroads that contained a general store, a bar and a deli cafe. We stopped for lunch, not least, because I was tickled by the bar stools made from tractor seats. It's a long time since I'd sat on a tractor seat and a first time for My Husband!
The waitress was great craic, and since we were the only ones there siting up to the bar, she told us all about life in Boulder, Wyoming. The Boys, she said, were all going hunting this weekend and the girls were trying to come up with some fun things to do. She showed us photos on her phone of beautiful hikes nearby. By the time we came to leave, we felt like we had made a new friend, and we all wondered if our paths would ever cross again.
As we drove off, we said to each other, "Imagine living here..."
"Yeah," My Husband said, "And I could go hunting with The Boys!"
That kept us laughing for the next fifty miles! Good job too because the weather got steadily worse.
As we neared the Tetons, snow covered mountains peeked out from under the cloud ceiling.
Tonight we'd inadvertently pushed the boat out accommodation-wise by booking into the cheapest place in the area, an eye-watering $250 per night room at the Snake River Lodge and Spa. The place was full of those really rich types - you could tell by the expensive clothes badly put together, like it didn't matter if their $500 jacket clashed with their $1000 leather boots and $2000 hand bag because "Honey, expensive don't need to match!" A girl in the lift with us fitted the stereotype of the ranchers daughter to tee. I wondered what head of cattle her Da had - ya can take the girl out of Armagh ....
The foul weather gave us a great excuse to hole up in our room and watch cable TV! We were well overdue the rest. We ate Chinese Take Away from the night before (no ranchers daughter here!) but vowed to order breakfast to the room the next morning, making full use of the luxury before we hit West Yellowstone and the mysterious property we'd committed to for $170 per night that had no website and only very bad reviews!
The view from our luxury room conjured up images of pioneers heading West. How did they manage without expedia, and hotwire and Holiday Inn?
As night fell the clouds began to lift.
Perhaps we'd been very lucky with the weather after all, having it rain on the one day we didn't need to get out of the car. Maybe (to steal a few phrases from some of my best loved movies) the sun the will come out tomorrow...because after all tomorrow is another day...
Byddi Lee
