June 1 Brigham City to Jackson Hole, WY

June 1 – Brigham City to Jackson Hole, WY

I got up a little early for a shower before we headed out.  Good old US89 took us from Utah all the way to Jackson.  We traveled on the 2 lane road through some beautiful countryside…beautiful to me because there was a river with water in it, and mountains with trees on it!  Some of the mountains even had snowcaps.

We drove until Afton, Wyoming where we had lunch at the local diner and walked down the street to the Chocolate Factory and treated ourselves to a great piece of dark chocolate:  Dark chocolate pistachio truffle; I had dark chocolate huckleberry truffle.  They disappeared too fast for me to get a picture, but believe me they were decadent.

Between there and Jackson was lots more beautiful scenery…the Snake River was full. We found out when we got to the campground that it has been raining like crazy here for the last month---hence the green and the full river.

We had no trouble finding the Fireside Resort campground for this is the third time we have stayed here.  It is on the Moose Wilson Road just before Teton Village (the really high class tourist village of Jackson Hole.)  We just go about 5 miles further up the road and it enters the Grand Teton National Park by the back door. 

 

As soon as we got set up I shooed Chick off to get a Wyoming Fishing license good for the next two weeks and to scout out the banks of the Snake River as it passes us just down the road.  While he was gone I got my pictures onto an external drive and got my computers a little more organized.

Five days before we left my old reliable PC I use on trips died a tragic death.  I ordered a new laptop to be delivered fast and it arrived just as we were leaving.  While I waited for its arrival I formatted the hard drive on my old reliable (now old unreliable) PC and attempted to rebuild it with the basic software I need for doing the blog and handling all the pictures. 

Today I needed to figure out which one to use (the software is slightly different) and get into some better routine for handling the pictures as I will be having a lot more now that we are “on the ground” and not in the car.

Just as Chick returned from his scouting expedition and I was getting the steak ready for the grill an incredible storm began.  Trees were losing limbs and branches all around. The sky was black with ominous clouds.  I turned on the weather radio we carry and the storm warning for this area was for winds of 40 mph with gusts to 70, heavy rain and maybe hail through the night.  The trailer was shaking and I made Chick join me in the truck as it shook less in the wind and we could see better what was happening.

By after 7pm it started to calm a little and we were hungry  so we went back into the trailer.  Funny thing, though,  all the electricity was off!  We immediately turned off any lights that might draw on the battery and switched to LED lanterns.  We don’t think the battery is reliable so we don’t want to put any load on it. 

I fixed dinner on the gas stove, no problem.  We turn the pump on if we need to run water and then turn it off. We can hand crank the weather radio for updates.  I can use this PC until the battery runs down. (the other PCs battery no longer holds a charge).

The weather forecast is for the temperature to get to 42 degrees tonight. We closed up the windows, put the down comforter on the bed, and will sleep in our sweatshirts. Chick, forever the optimist, has set up the coffee for morning as usual and plugged in the heater ready to be turned on if any power comes back on during the night.  I am skeptical but if it does, we are ready.

Chick is reading by LED lantern light and I am just finishing this up.  I will see if there is internet (ha) and then decide what to do.   At any rate, we are “home again” in Wyoming.