First day in jackson

Thanks to Albertsons and their customers.  For not towing me or anything, and for not giving me strange looks while I shaved in the grocery store bathroom.  In fact, it seemed normal.  They even have wireless internet.  

My parking spot, below.  I thought next to the winnebago was a good bet.  Indeed, when I got out of my truck this morning someone was curled up similarly in the truck next to mine.  I'm still on eastern time, so I woke up at 6 and waited until the sun started to come up.
First order of business: can I ski here for reasonable $?  

I drove to the village (of jackson hole mountain resort), and looked into my ski options.  The drive to the resort was spectacular.  Rebecca and I never saw the mountains, and Jackson is surrounded by mountains.  The gros ventre range, the tetons, and the bridger wilderness sort of converge on jackson, resulting in tons of mountains and with all different characters.  The gros ventre are shallower peaks but a wider range, while the tetons are steep.  Not only mountains everywhere but variety!!  I got excited on the drive to the resort.

Unfortunately I could ski 20 days for $1300, or weekends only for $850, or get a season pass for $1800 or so.  All terribly expensive and simply not enough skiing.

Okay so I need to get a job at the resort, or somewhere related that will give me a discount. Nearly everywhere I went I heard the same phrase: hiring freeze.  One hotel needed a banquet manager and an accountant.  haha

Disenchanted, now, I got my snowshoes repaired and got some advice on local snowshoeing.  I headed for cache creek, just on the outskirts of town below the same ridge of Snow King resort.

There was a trail, but it was pretty flat and I wanted to go to the top of something.  So I chose the ridge.  I must have small snowshoes, because they sunk me above my knees, and if you've seen snow king, you know it's steep, too.  It was supremely frustrating.  I dont think I've ever been so close to giving up on a physical pursuit simply because it was really hard.  Take a step, kick in your next, step, sink, stumble, tumble...

Before I thought of giving up I saw this tree and wondered how it was still alive.  It was riddled in these little holes.  beetles?

Well eventually I could tell the top was coming so I made it.  Here's the town of jackson looking to the north. (the slope I climbed was north facing and didnt see sun all day).
gros ventre to the south I think.   Not a good view, but the wilderness goes on for quite some time.
And the tetons peaking out to the northwest.

What a great spot for backcountry skiing, I thought.  Decent pitch, nicely spaced trees, lots of space.  No tracks!  I deduce that there are places even better, and I will find them.  When I first started my hike today I thought, "oh yeah this is sweet maybe I'll do it again with my board."    2 hours up, about twenty minutes down.  No repeats thanks.  Maybe once I acclimate and get my fitness back.

Came back to town, got my 60000 miles stuff done, tires rotated, oil, whatnot.  Found a funky little internet cafe with some live music, and that's where I started this business.  

I dont think I'll stay in jackson, but I'll first try to find some folks to go ride with.  The mountains here are incredible and for that reason I will try to stay, but the town is overpriced and so is the skiing.  I have one skiing contact that I'll call when I leave the cafe.  Other than that I was told that the best places to find people to ski with are bars.  sounds like a plan.  A couch would be nice, too.

  

on the road some more

After the coldest night yet, nebraska was pretty thanks to a light dusting of snow.

After miles and miles of landscape like the above but not pretty, I saw scraggle pines and low but steep hills.  I scrabbled for the camera and snapped some video.  how useful.  Then I saw the "welcome to wyoming" sign.  Then there were mountains, captured successfully in a picture.  you may have to double click it to see the mountains.  
Soon after it got really windy.  I tried a couple times to capture the windy-ness, but eventually it got really windy and I stopped trying.  My truck is now sensitive to wind and I posted record low gas mileage for the several hundred miles of wind.

Once I got off the highway and onto wyoming 191, the wind got worse and the roads got icy.  From then on I've been running in 4wd, and it's a blessing.  Without it I'd have slept stuck in a drift on 191.

I got into jackson last night around 8.  I drove around for a while looking for a place to park for the night.  There's no overnight parking anywhere in jackson.  The streets get plowed, and there are signs everywhere for it, so I looked for vehicles with snow on them--these, surely, had been there for at least a couple of days. 

I parked, later, at Albertsons, the grocery store.  

on the road

I left ithaca Monday the 26th around three thirty.  Stored some stuff, and took this last picture of a familiar place (the front yard of my grandparents' place in elmira).

The road was long.  I remember having a lot of funny thoughts along the way, but I can't remember them anymore.  It's probably okay though, because I do remember that this one loop I walked repeatedly at a rest stop was 45 seconds long, 171 paces, and 76 sidewalk squares.  So the funny things I thought of probably aren't.  Here's a funny sign on one of the great lakes.  I will refrain from jokes.

A pretty sunset not long after:

On the drive i took some pictures, listened to as much news as I could find, overplayed the Raconteurs cd, played mandolin at rest stops, drove 10 miles under the speed limit to save gas, slept comfortably in my truck to a new low of 0 degrees, and cursed nebraska (the state is too wide).

Here's my rig.  In this picture I'm cooking lunch (probably in nebraska)

My sleeping halves are on the right.  On the left is a bunch of other shit.  It's surprisingly well organized, and by the end of the driving portion I was well set up for road tripping.  The objective of the organization is to minimize the risk of frostbite while trying to find a can of chili or some ramen.  Finding a towel, or deodorant, was difficult, because I didn't really need to find these things.  I also have a night stand and a nice wooden crate for bedside storage.

All in all, very comfy.  Great for sleeping.  Bad for living.  When it's at least twenty-five degrees and sunny with calm winds it's good for living too.  Too bad that won't happen very often.

hi

while I dont often document the things I do, I think the next few months (at least?) deserve some prose and pictures. 

my blogging experience is limited to the cornell cycling blog.  

the idea of skipping town and doing something completely different was initially Rebecca's.  I dismissed it initially because i didnt think it would work.  travel without some sort of plan that I knew would pan out seemed expensive and stressful.  So I looked into jobs.  

I think I've always wanted to save the planet--cliche for sure, but apt.  please distinguish planet from people.  While I feel bad about it, I'm not inclined to go help people (think peace corps).  So in high school I was thinking alternative energy--nothing in particular, but it seemed like an engineering solution to a global problem, but my inclination for saving the planet is for another time.

So I looked into jobs, didn't see much that struck my fancy doing what I wanted to do in a place that had mountain biking like nowhere else (the northwest).  picky, yeah.

I wasn't much enjoying the work I was doing in Ithaca, and while staying an extra semester would give me the chance to make something sweet in the machine shop, most of my friends would be working too much as usual.  Rebecca and I went to jackson in December, and, even though we never got to see the mountains, the people, the snow, and the terrain were great.  I talked with folks and decided I was okay with going to jackson without a plan.  It would be easy enough to meet people, find work, and man was the skiing awesome.  The awesome skiing is a very important factor.

I could keep talking but then I'd be repetitive later.