It's Really Happening

After a quick pop-in visit to the Grand Tetons, we had to get crackin’; our next stop was the Denver area, and at the rate we were going, we wouldn’t arrive until 11pm. Just south of the mountains, we found ourselves in the way cool-looking resort town of Jackson, famed for amazing snow sports, restaurants, and celebrity residences. Again, we couldn’t linger long, we had to get into Colorado, but what we saw, we liked. This town is definitely on our list of places to get back to, especially in the wintertime for some snowboarding.

Then we drove for, like, 10 hours through one of the most boring parts of the country, west to east across southern Wyoming. There were thousands of snowdrift “fences” all over the landscape. There are probably more of those wooden structures then people in this state (it is, after all, the state with the smallest population). The only real saving grace of this super boring drive: there are pronghorn all over the place, right near the road in spots.

The one other notable stop we made was in Pinedale, where we yelped to seek out a coffee shop. However, we were led astray and we walked into a health food store, which ended up being pretty cool: it had a great selection of foods plus an adorable and playful dog that was determined to play fetch with us as soon as we walked through the door. Of course we obliged. At one point while Kristen was talking to the store owner, the dog sneakily stuck the tennis ball into the space between her knees, slowly backing away and waiting for the throw. Apparently the dog was a red heeler, and was raised right there in the store as a tiny puppy. After stocking up on a few roadtripping snacks, we drove down the street to the real coffee shop (and restaurant), Rock Rabbit Coffee & Bistro. Seemed like a pretty cool place for a sleepy town like Pinedale.

Eight hours later, our mission was to find a campsite in the mountains west of Boulder, but (again) we’d neglected to realize that it was Saturday night, so we'd be competing with outdoorsy Boulderites to find a spot. Around 11pm, after driving past three campgrounds with their signs reading “FULL,” we lucked out with a spot just south of Nederland. Fourth time’s a charm, right? So we set up our tent and sleeping bags, burned a tiny fire to basically finish our firewood, and finally got to bed sometime around midnight. Phew, what a long day!