Prologue
I've walked with a camera slung around my neck for a very long time now. When I was barely an adult, I used to aspire to a level of technical competence that matched the pros. You know how when you're young, your ambitions outpace your everyday reality. Nevertheless, I subscribed to photography magazines, and regularly ogled equipment in a neighborhood camera store in New York (when I lived there), and signed up for a film developing course in college the minute my guidance counselor told me I should expand my horizons. I think she intended to steer me to literature and maybe art history. Instead, I learned how to print photos. And I bought a book at some discount bookstore that was a collection of photos taken by a guy whom I'd never heard of -- Ansel Adams. I'd just landed in America. I knew so little about American icons back then.
Ansel Adams (1902- 1984) was a brilliant landscape photographer and environmentalist (words attributed to him: “It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment”), and as I'm sure you know, he was especially famous for his photos of the National Parks. If you google which one of his pictures had the highest selling price, you'll learn that it was a photo titled "The Grand Tetons and the Snake River" and it sold not too long ago for just about a million dollars.
I saw the Grand Tetons, very quickly, on a drive through when I was just 10 years old. We had recently moved from Poland to New York for my dad's UN job and my parents decided we should do a road trip across the country. We saw the USA in our Chevrolet (older readers, remember that commercial?), only it wasn't ours, it was borrowed from the Polish Delegation.
I've wanted to go back for a long time, but my reluctance to drive long distances or, in the alternative, the complicated flights that you have to take to get there, have kept me away. Too, the place is expensive! (Remember my discussion of this with the Urgent Care doc over the weekend?)
But all this notwithstanding, I am going for the weekend, a long weekend, to Jackson.
Now how did that come to pass? Well, for reasons that are ridiculously hard to explain and make sense of, I needed to take a few short flights this year to qualify for a lifetime of benefits from my chosen preferred airline. They're making it more difficult to reach that "lifetime" level (and it does pay to have it if you travel as often as I do), but they've created a path just this one last time and I qualify, but I need to take a handful of flights before the end of the year. My criteria? Short, cheap, and to a place that I really want to see in this country. I was trying to decide where to go just as I was flying home with Snowdrop from Florida. I turned on a movie about a grizzly bear in Teton National Park and my first reaction was -- what a great story and my second reaction was -- I want to go there.
Jackson is three short-ish flights from Madison, and November is a terrible month to go there because it's the only month where everything shuts down: the summer/autumn season is done (it's cold!), and the winter/spring season has not yet started (not cold enough?). The prices for lodging are at their very lowest.
The Trip
And so this morning, I drive in the dark, past snow-dusted landscapes and catch a 6:25 a.m. flight to Minneapolis.
(breakfast at MSP)
From there, I'm to take a late morning flight to Salt Lake City. Home to the 2034 Olympic Games!
That second flight was a near disaster, as the scheduled plane had mechanical issues. We were lining up to board and suddenly the pilot takes the mic and tells us that the plane is being hauled to a warehouse far away. You have to accept that this does happen. However, it is safe to say that had they not found a replacement plane to take us to Salt Lake City, my entire plan for the weekend would have collapsed. But, miracles do happen and they "just happened" to have one standing idly at another gate. A big sigh of relief there!
Salt Lake City -- with the beautiful landscape on the approach.
Last time I was at this airport? When I went to pick up my mother in California (2018). We flew back through Salt Lake City. She did not crack a smile the whole long trip back to Madison.
Finally -- I take a late afternoon quick flight to Jackson. With a landing at 4:48pm Mountain Time, I'm calculating this to be an 11+ hour trip. Like to Europe! Only less time in the air.
The approach here is so interesting -- Snake River and all! -- that I stick my Kindle into the backseat pocket and concentrate on the view.
And then we disembark at the world's tiniest airport. I'm so focused on my surroundings that I forget all about my Kindle. It remains on the airplane as we speak.
Jackson, Wyoming
Until recently, I (along with many others), thought Jackson was actually called Jackson Hole. It turns out Jackson is the town (population, would you believe it, just 10,639, making it the 9th largest city in very sparsely populated Wyoming). It rests within the Hole, which is the valley.
I remembered it as sort of a cowboy town. Even back in 1963 -- the year of my drive-through, it looked almost like a movie set for a western. The Tetons that are just to the north reminded me of the Polish Tatra mountains and I could not fathom how cowboys and ranches and stagecoach setups fit into this gloriously wild and mountainous landscape. Shouldn't there be chalets instead?
Well, Jackson caters to both: the dude ranch aficionados and the mountain lovers. For example, my hotel, the Rusty Parrot (which reopened this summer, after a devastating fire in November 2019, started by an outdoor fireplace) looks like this:
My room has artwork with a nod to the horse and a nod to the elk.
For me the draw is of course the Grand Teton National Park -- just five miles north of Jackson. Maybe you know that Yellowstone National Park is also not too far -- some 125 miles to the north. Yellowstone was America's very first National Park (established in 1872). Grand Teton National Park was created in 1929 -- which has to be an incredible act of optimism, given our country's tough times then. I'm here only for the weekend. I can't do two parks (though as a kid, I did "do" both in just two days!). I'm focusing on the Tetons.
Not today of course. It's dark now, but I walk over to the town square, just to see it now, so many years later.
(The town square is lined with shops that definitely bring out the cowboy vibe; note the great neon. But, too, there's that recognition that we're about a mile away from the National Elk Refuge and of course the National Parks. Note the elk horn "gate" to the square. Finally, did I mention that Jackson is also a winter ski destination? Can you tell?)
I'd asked my innkeepers (many days ago!) for restaurant recommendations. It's not that I expected the eateries to be booked up. Quite the contrary: many are closed for a month. This month. I go now to a place called Gather. The photos on the website looked rather beefy, and indeed the menu features many incarnations of Wyoming beef, but this is true of many (most?) eateries here. Feeding the image of a cowboy town, where you come to chow down chunks of the herd. I'll have to decide whether to break down and join the steak-hungry crowds at some point (I actually do not dislike a good steak, unfortunately, even if I never have it in our kitchen back home). At Gather, you can also get plates with elk or bison. No thanks. I've come here to (maybe) look at these wild animals, not eat them.
I order trout. Idaho, less than twenty miles to the west of Jackson, sends a lot of trout to Wyoming. I see this fish on nearly every menu in Jackson.
(And a special thanks to my lovely hotel staff, who are friendly in the extreme, and who gave me the secret local code that gets me a diner discount at Gather tonight! What is it? I can't tell you! It's secret! Note that I have Annie Proulx book of Wyoming stories on the table. It was nothing short of fortuitous that for once I brought with me a real book in addition to my Kindle. I thought I'd get my eyes out of the screen for a few days...)
The restaurant is full of locals. We tourists always manage to stand out in the way we dress, talk, behave. I would be surprised if there was a single other outsider there tonight aside from me. And yes, that pic on the wall is... jarring. Other artwork depicts animals. To my relief.
I need sleep. I had very little of it last night and tomorrow -- well, I have a fragmented but extensive walk and for it to be good, it has to start very early.
Good night from the wild west. Thank goodness that we haven't yet felt compelled to conquer every last bit of it in one way or another!
with love...
