Salt Lake City to Jackson Hole
Salt Lake City’s Temple is covered in scaffolding when we visit, undergoing a four-year renovation scheduled to finish in 2026, so no doubt many other tourists will be disappointed as well by not getting the full visual impact in this magnificent square. I guess it’s a metaphor for ‘work in progress’ for both the building and the Mormon Church. Membership of the Latter-Day Saints is declining in the US but growing elsewhere. Half their 14 million members live outside the States, but the estimated net worth of the Church at over $250 billion is staggering. Members are encouraged to pay up to 10 per cent of their salary to the Church, so you have to be a big believer that the money is going to put to good use. Back home in the UK, the reader might be surprised to learn that the Mormon Church owns many thousands of acres of land in Norfolk and Suffolk.
Talking of movement, there is a lot less movement on Salt Lake’s massive freeways – six lanes of chaos. The local residents may stay true to their religion, but their choices of lane along the freeway change by the second. It’s difficult to believe there is this much traffic this far north of Los Angeles. I remember visiting Salt Lake City some 25 years ago, walking into a bar and being told we needed a sponsor before we could drink there. The only other person in the place was Sam, who was clearly a regular and – surprise, surprise he agreed to sponsor us in return for a beer. Or rather several beers as it turned out, but he was good company. Having dinner later at an upmarket restaurant in the city, we had to finish the first course white wine and the bottles removed, before we could open the red. There would be a riot if that happened in a Scottish restaurant.
Onward from Salt Lake City, we travel through Logan Valley, visiting ‘Aggies’ for ice cream in her retro cafe. We find out it is a very expensive retro café, paying for all that retro I suppose.
That sets us up nicely for our foray into the hills as the snow lies thick, and where, at a particular dramatic viewpoint we unexpectedly meet a young couple from Iran, called Payum and Myta. I love these unexpected chance meetings with people, although it is a long way from home for all of us, but we see them again later in a couple of places down the road. Meanwhile, as we’re talking, a cross country skier casually slides by us in the snow…..and this is nearly summer ! We drive on past Beirdneau Peak and through beautiful farmland into Garden City at Bear Lake. It’s very quiet and resembles a ghost town by the water.
We continue through little settlements like Fish Haven, Bloomington and Paris. The one without the Eiffel Tower obviously. There are dozens of beautiful summer homes here, but not occupied yet for the summer season and with few signs of life.
We reach Montpellier where unfortunately, the tiny bank that Butch Cassidy robbed is sadly closed for the day. Maybe they only get robbed on four days of the week. Just because Butch and Sundance sang ‘Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head’ doesn’t make them good guys, but we get taken in by the romance of it all. Star Valley, Smoot and Afton with the antler arch over the street slip by, then Thayne, Alpine and Swan Valley disappear behind us.
We arrive in Victor at another Air BnB and step into Irma’s Place. This is a lovely house but there is no sign of Irma, although the door is unlocked and we had been told to settle ourselves in. A happy little dog runs up the stairs to greet us. Maybe the dog is in charge of check-ins? When Emma eventually arrives back from her day job, she keeps herself to herself and we go out and eat at the Knotty Pine Restaurant. We sit outside but as the weather gets noticeably chillier, we move indoors where the cosy atmosphere is countered by the noisy crowd and even louder waitresses.
318 miles today
We are in Victor for two nights, so leave early in the morning to drive the 40mins to Jackson. I find out that my credit card has been charged twice, so we need to go back into the Knotty Pine to query it. After a language barrier of American English versus Scottish English, we resolve the problem and take the Teton Pass Highway round Taylor Mountain to Jackson Hole. An eagle swoops over us and disappears towards the lake, reappearing with a huge catch in his claws as he soars skywards.
As we arrive, Jackson is holding the Annual Antler Auction for the Boy Scouts of America in the main square. Scouts from the Jackson District hike the 25,000 acre National Elk Refuge to pick up antlers shed from the male of the species. They must have an extraordinarily sized boy scout membership in Jackson because there are hundreds and hundreds of antlers, stacked high on pallets roped together in bundled lots and stretching down three or four streets. The square is packed with people listening to the auction from small bleachers, and we learn that these antlers are surprisingly expensive, so I resist an impulse to make a bid. We wander off looking for coffee through the displays of discarded animal jewellery.
An upmarket, trendy place called “Persephone” provides us with a breakfast of posh coffee and trendy muffins in the sunny garden.
We leave Jackson behind and try to find the famous Mormon Barn against the backdrop of the Grand Teton’s, but Google Maps takes me down a track that says access is closed. A three-mile detour down a second dirt track gets us to the iconic view. There are quite a few people around and no wonder, as the scenery is stunning with the mountains in full majestic form and replicates the millions of images produced of this scene over the years.
An hour later we’re buying bagels at Jenny Lake in a typical American General Store, but with the added attraction of a photographic gallery where there are some stunning, and remarkable pictures of the local wildlife. I comment to the photographer my admiration on one particular picture but my interest wanes dramatically when she tells me the price. I could buy a small motorhome and still have change. Somewhere to load the antlers I suppose.
On the way back to Jackson, there are bison behind us, bison beside us and bison in front. Huge herds scatter around the vast fields as we roll down the road to do the tourist thing in Jackson by having a drink in the Millionaire Dollar Cowboy Bar, where the stools along the bar are made of saddles and for some reason are all mounted by girls.
132 miles today
We left Irma’s in the morning, although we didn’t see her and never actually saw her husband at all. A perfectly lovely Air BnB, sadly lacking a personality in both the building and the hosts. We have to drive back through Jackson to get to our next destination of Yellowstone which is no hardship, so have breakfast in “Persephone” again – this time it is a cheese scone and then we’re on our way to visit a place that has been my dream for twenty-five years. Yellowstone.
