On the Road to the Tetons

Friday Kinsey packed us up for our move to Jackson Hole. It had rained the night before and I could hear her outside grumbling about getting wet. You may recall we ended up in a back in space upon arrival in West Yellowstone. The reason Kinsey likes the pull through is because you can just pull up to the RV, hook up your toad and be off. There's a lot more jiggering around with the back in arrangement. She's constantly looking at me and asking "Why aren't you giving me a hand here?" Well, duh, I'm a dog!
She finally got everything packed up and hooked up and away we went. At the entrance to Yellowstone we were advised that we would have to go the long way around to get to Jackson Hole as the road was closed just after Old Faithful on the usual route. The detour added about 65 miles to our journey and about ten points to you know who's blood pressure. She is forever complaining about how hard it is to both captain and navigator. All this complaining. I think it must be an age thing.

Once we are on the move Kinsey doesn't like to stop for no thing. She just wants to get to the next campground and get set up. Here's an example of her in transit photography. Note the lovely texture of bug splats and the intriguing reflection of the dash.

On the Road Again

Her's another example of her award winning windshield photography. I mean why bother? I'm wondering if she shouldn't have some kind of mental health evaluation. That's the politically correct way of saying, I think she's daft!

Buffalo grazing

About a half hour out a light in the display came on. That always freaks Kinsey out. It was an exclamation (!) in a triangle. Never seen that one before. We pulled over and got out the manual. The light meant the hood wasn't closed. But, it really was. Kinsey opened and slammed it and that did the trick. The light was never heard from again. Kinsey bot Clementine new in 2007. The engine is a Mercedes diesel and it has performed nearly flawlessly but, as Kinsey knows, things start sagging with age.

About thirty minute out of Jackson Hole the phone rang and we pulled into a viewpoint. And, what a view it was. It's a darned good thing she took the time to drag her gear out and take some photos because this would be the most photogenic day of our time there.

Kinsey recently started uploading photos to a Fine Art America site. She works at her art under the Ansel Adams theory that 12 good photographs a year makes a great year. Those twelve go onto her Liberated Photographer website. In order to get those twelve she takes thousands of images every year that never get to see the light of day. Some of them, like the image below, are very pretty pictures. Beautiful though they may be, they do not represent her vision of her art.




Sometimes Kinsey is anal about researching where we are going to stay but not this time. She just chose the first one that popped up on Google. It turned out to be the Jackson Hole RV campground. She had called the RV park to get directions but got no answer. We had no idea where it was so we stopped at the Chevron station right as you enter town. Kinsey asked for directions and the clerk told her "That campground got torn down." Already tired from the drive Kinsey near stroked out. She'd put down a deposit.

We finally got through and got directions. There are really only two RV parks in or near Jackson Hole The Virginian, right in town and The Jackson Hole to heck and gone out near Teton Village.

Long suffering me

The entrance to the campground is so well hidden we drove right by, ending up at Teton Village and having to turn around. One of the disadvantages of towing with four tires on the ground, you can't backup so you need to be careful where you turn around or you can get jammed up pretty good. We headed back and Kinsey asked out loud "Please, let there be an RV pulling out so I can find the darned place!" And, there was! Another of those "Is it Serendipity or is it Something Else" moments.

At first Kinsey was not happy about being so far from the park but as things turned out she decided she really preferred to be out and away from town. Even though it was getting on toward the end of September the traffic in Jackson Hole was bumper to bumper. We're not fond of crowds. Well, Kinsey isn't. I love being around lots of people because they always make a fuss over me.

Once set up in the campground there was still a lot of daylight left so we headed into Jackson to get a map. You may recall Kinsey's passion for maps. We had tried to get a atlas of Wyoming before we left Montana but no luck. We had no better luck in Jackson. Kinsey decided to forget that and just go get a Forest Service map. She asked five local people where the Forest Service office was and not a one knew even though the office is right next to the Visitor Center on the way into town.

The Forest Service sent us to the Visitor Center to pick up a map called "Jackson Hole Trail Map". Kinsey loved this map. She highly recommends it for those wishing to try hikes outside the parks. We also stopped and bot a fresh bear spray. The one Kinsey had was a few years old. Turned out she was very glad she had because we were about to be regaled with some recent, nasty grizzly attack stories.

Ciao for now!
Molly Montana

©Kinsey Barnard