Day 11: Yellowstone

Yep, I'm still going on about this trip.  Sorry for dragging it out but since I'm over halfway done and some of the best pictures come from Montana, I'm going to keep slogging on.  After Jackson and the Grand Tetons, we headed north to Yellowstone.  We only spent one full day here so we definitely want to go back and explore the rest of the park.

As you drive into the park, you start seeing clouds of steam on the horizon.  And as you get closer you start seeing how massive these steam clouds really are.

Because some of the hot water from the hot springs empty into the stream, the stream starts to give off a little steam as well in the early morning (looked super eerie).  This particular morning was COLD!  But since the streams were relatively warm, we saw some fly fishermen in the water without a lot of extra jackets.  If you ever want to go fly fishing in the water during the fall, do it at Yellowstone.

Looks like an alien planet.

Also during one of our hikes we had a close encounter with a bison.  I took this picture peering over a rock.  I admit I was a bit scared, this guy was massive!  (Though looking at the pictures now, he looks a little gaunt).

Here's a picture of all the people waiting for Old Faithful.  I've seen it before and wasn't that excited the first time, so this time I just people watched.  I couldn't actually find any photos of old faithful even though I thought I took a picture of it.  

Guess you'll just have to be satisfied with this (tried googling old faithful gifs and couldn't find any):

Day 9-10: Jackson, WY and Grand Teton National Park

When we got to Wyoming things got more interesting.  I discovered my most favorite small town: Jackson!  I love love loooooove this town.  We were initially only going to spend 2 hours here and move on to our next stop, but we didn't want to leave so we decided to stay overnight in the area.  Yay for spontaneous airstream adventures!

Lucky for us, Jackson had RV parking!  And since it was the off-season, we had the parking lot to ourselves.  Too bad we couldn't stay overnight there since it would have made our lives so much easier.  But more on that later.

How can you not love a town that has parking stalls for RVs only!

Our first stop: the Fjallraven store (there's only a handful of these in the US, and there needs to be one in SF--they would make a bundle off of the rich hipsters here).

Been spending most our lives, living in the hipsta paradise...

Too many to choose from, but of course I had to get a backpack here.  I ended up with the maroon one there.

My other 2 favorite stores were MADE and Mountain Dandy.  

Here are some of the things I wanted to buy, but just took a picture of instead.

And here's Mountain Dandy, started by the same person who started MADE.

After a bit of shopping, we took the dogs for a walk around the small town.

Their main park had these awesome arches made from antlers.

As the sun was setting, we were looking for a place to eat dinner.  Right next to the Cowboy Bar is a restaurant called Local.  It was AAAAAAMAAAAZING!!  The couple who runs Fjallraven recommended this place, and they're from NY originally so you know that they would recommend something good (ok, so maybe not all New Yorkers are foodies, but still they were right).  As the name suggests, most of the food here was locally sourced.

Buffalo tartar.  Not usually a fan of raw meat, but I had to try it since you're not going to get fresher buffalo anywhere else!  The meat was lean and the texture was bordering on fresh sashimi.  The best tartar I've ever had.

Beer sampler on obligatory reclaimed wood plank branded with a cow.

I had the steak with foie.  One of the best steaks of my life!  

Brian went with some Elk medallions.  Also very tasty.  So much food!  But the prices were super reasonable.  

By the time we finished dinner it was super dark out, and they had a special antler arch for Breast Cancer Month.

And desert was some ice cream.  I tried their huckleberry ice cream and it was delicious!

So here comes the adventure part.  Since we didn't plan on stopping over in Jackson, we made a last minute search for RV sites.  We ended up going with the RV campground in Grand Teton National park, which isn't that far away from Jackson.  However it was elk migration season, and there were signs all over the road telling us to be careful of the elk.  So we drove a bit more carefully (plus it was pitch black) so it took us about an hour to get to the campsite.  Along the way, sure enough we saw some elk right alongside the road.  It was cool, but also creepy at the same time.  Elk are huge!  Much bigger than deer, and when their eyes glow they don't look very friendly.  These aren't my pictures but they look pretty much like what we saw that night.  They just kind of glared at us as we passed by.

Once we got to the campsite, it  was super small and dark.  And it required some back-up maneuvering of the trailer.  It was the most difficult RV site to get into!  Our 27 foot RV barely fit, and our truck didn't fit at all so we had to then park it somewhere else.  It took us about an hour to finally get it right.  We were exhausted!

Yea, something like this.

The next morning we woke up in beautiful Grand Teton National Park.  Of course on the drive in we didn't see anything, so the next morning was a pleasant surprise.

Too bad it was so gloomy, but still breathtaking!

Trying to pose with some uncooperative dogs.

Bye Grand Teton, and back to Jackson.

So we went back into town to grab some coffee and breakfast.  We had some delicious sandwiches at Backcountry Delicatessen (if you're in Jackson go there after you go to Local).

Those are some odd movie times.

 I have been informed it's probably phone number, thanks Jen!

Fall was in full effect!

Thanks Jackson for a great time!  I'm definitely coming back!

Day 9: Hello Wyoming

On day 9 we finally left Utah and headed into Wyoming.  On the way we passed by JC Penny's "Mother Store" and I had to stop.  So we parked the truck and RV around the corner and headed into JC Penny's first store (gotta say I love the unexpected stops on a road trip).  Who knew it was located in Kemmerer, Wyoming?  There's nothing else in this town and this store is located on a main street that only has 2-3 blocks of stores, and most of them were empty.  I'm amazed how a small store in the middle of nowhere actually became such a prolific chain.  I remember going to the JC Penny's in Ala Moana (Hawaii), and to think this is where it all started.  Too bad JC Penny's is going out of business now (edit: well it's not really too bad since they're an example of bad fast fashion--how else could they sell their clothes so cheap?  Well at least I'm glad I got to see this piece of history before it's all gone.

When the store first opened, they didn't have a cash register on the floor so they would send the money up to the second floor in those canisters and someone would calculate the change and send it down.  They probably got robbed one too many times back in 1902 so they devised this system.

That was the first cash register, next to the bust of Mr Penney.  I loved all the history and relics on the top of the shelves.

And some scenic stops in Wyoming.  So beautiful!