Smoke From A Distant Fire

This is long but I wrote it quickly. Minimal Editing at this point. 

I thought I might be able to beat the tour busses and RV’s getting in before 10am but that wasn’t the case. Dragging the trailer behind me made it difficult to find a parking spot amongst the already crowded parking lots around the popular hot springs areas. I was lucky to find some roadside parking for some of the hot springs and spent a few hot hours dodging the tourist crowds selfie-ing their way along the observation walkways. I zoomed through but still got some pictures that I’ll post when I figure out my photo sharing options.

I took a nap in the parking lot of the Old Faithful Lodge for a couple of hours. There isn’t any internet there so once I woke up, I just spent the evening sorting photos on the lodge. There aren’t many things that I think the government does well but they do excel at building and maintaining our National Parks. The Lodge is big and beautiful. So I didn’t mind sitting on a nice comfy sofa watching people go by.

I was hoping to stay up late and take some night pictures but there was too much light pollution. I decided to just have a second night of parking lot squatting. Again, there were no problems and I was the only one in the vast parking lot when I woke up.

Since I am rolling with barely an itinerary, I am finding that finding available campsites in and around the popular parks to be difficult. Having the tea drop to crawl into is quite nice compared to the last time I did this and was either sleeping in the driver’s seat or on top of all my luggage in the back of the Pickup truck.

Also not having a tent means I can just pick up and drive down the road without waiting for dew and/or rain to evaporate off the tent before I can pack up and move on. That is the biggest bonus so far.

Next stop was Jackson Wyoming. I had been there about 15 years ago and was a bit bored. A bit too much on the touristy side. I did want to take advantage of the dark skies for some night pictures and also do the obligatory Teardrop Photo at the Ski Resort. Jackson Hole.

I unloaded the trailer at the Gros Ventre campground, a National Park camp.  A pretty nice campground that was closer to Jackson than the Grand Teton National Park Facilities. The first day was just exploring, strolled through Jackson but got bored. Went back to the campground and took a nap before going back to town for some nightlife which was underwhelming. I went over to the Ski Resort to scope it out for the Teardrop Photo and see if there was anything going on. Not much really.

I was happy I didn’t have the trailer cause I took a “shortcut” home, up a bumpy dirt road along the base of the Teton Range. It was dark and bumpy. Probably would have busted the seams on the trailer frame, at least the ones I welded.

Pitch black too. Could only see what was in the headlights. At one point I caught something out of the corner of my eye, looked over and saw the face of a full grown elk about  8 feet away staring at me. That woke me up.

I pulled over to see what it looked like without the headlights. I couldn’t see 10 feet in front of me. I could however see every star God hung up there. I stopped and took some pictures. But it was dark and silent. Started to get creeped out pretty quickly, so I didn’t stay long and was on my way back to camp pretty quickly.

For some reason, I woke up long before the break of dawn. I was happy about it because I was hoping to catch some sunrise pictures on the Teton Mountain range. I had in mind to take the pictures at the cabin where the final scene of “Shane” was filmed.  I have been wanting to do that ever since I heard about it when I passed through here back in 2002. A didn’t find it in 2002 and have been obsessed ever since. The weird thing is that I have never even seen the movie and I not particularly fond of westerns. So it a mystery to me. Since I might as well get it done.

It was pretty close to the campground but I only had a hand drawn map and is pretty much an undocumented feature on google maps and no signs. Dodging deer in the pitch black night driving up and down Wyoming backroads for about an hour I had to give up. I decided to give up and head back to the old stand by location where everyone else catches the sunrise from, Mormon Row.

It was still dark when I got there. I set up a time lapse as a few others started to come in.  I think they were a bit peeved that I got to the best spot first.  With Time lapse once you start, you can stop and move. Lucky for them, as the sun slowly brightened up the day, we quickly saw that we were not going to get anything good. Overnight, a Fire burning in Idaho, had flared up and the valley was blanket in thick smoke.  We could barely make out the snow capped mountains. Total waste of an early rise.

I packed up, went back took a nap and decided to go for a buke ride, They have a nice flattish bike path that goes up the valley. I ended up with a 20 mile ride that included a beer stop at the famous outdoor enthusiast rest stop called Dornan’s.

I took another nap, drove out to the Shane cabin. This time it was right there, just 50 feet off the road that I drove several times in the dark. The view I had hoped to capture was still smoked in though.

Hung out in town that night since I was really rested up after two naps. But still not into the Jackson nightlife and was home early for an early rise in the hope that I could outrun the smoke.