July 4th in Jackson

It felt good to be on a highway with a 75 mph speed limit again, and I was making good time, so I decided to just push on in to Jackson.  The drive in from Idaho is beautiful and green.  Just as I entered Jackson, the clouds lit up orange like the 4^th of July. . .

Tom and Catherine said I could stay at their house with some other friends of theirs.  When I arrived, I knocked on the door and introduced myself.  I could imagine how t all seemed kinda sketchy, and I probably didn’t look to believable, so I produced my cell phone and played them the message that Catho had left.  We laughed and talked and all was good.. I set up a tent in the front yard, because I still needed to dry it out from my stay in Oregon.  About 2:00am or so, a crazy storm rolled in.  You could hear it approach, then it would rain really hard for about 10 seconds, then it would move on.  That continued off and on for about 15 minutes.  “Mountain storms are strange”, I thought.  I realized I had a bag on my bike that I needed to keep dry, so I quickly opened the tent and scurried over and grabbed the bag, but to my surprise, it wasn’t wet.  As I went to get back in the tent, I got blasted in the midsection with water, and realized that the Holland’s have a sprinkler system.  I moved the tent over onto the driveway and all was well.  Lesson learned.

The 4th:

What a day.  They just don't get much better.  I met Jim and his beautiful fiance, Sarah, Sunday morning at their awesome home at the Fish Creek Ranch.  We hung out and caught up, then went fishing.  These pictures are literally "in their backyard".   What an amazing place.  Sarah proved the master fisherman on this day, landing a mammoth trout (I don't know, I just made that up about the trout).  Afterwards Jim loaded up his horses and we headed out to the rodeo.  Jim was entered in the team roping and had a good shot at coming away with some prize money, but it was not to be.  Jim's office is at the base of Snow King Mountain where the fireworks were to be shot off, so we walked over there.  (You know you have some prime seats for a fireworks display, when you are told 3 different times by the people putting on the show that you can't sit there because "you're in the fall out zone".)  It was spectacular!!  Rockets were being launched a mere 15 yards from where we were sitting, and by the finale, we had been showered with fireworks casings.  Several of the people there commented on how much they liked that particular smell.  For me, it made me think of being a young kid, shooting off fireworks in the neighborhood.  It's amazing how smells can trigger memories.  

After breakfast this morning I headed off to Dubois to see Tom and Catho and the rest of the folks at Teton Valley Ranch.  

Jim and Sarah, THANKS!  Your hospitality was extraordinary.  Jim, you voice was in my head when I decided to take this trip, and it will be in my head on my way home.  I'm lucky to have a friend like you, and Sarah, you're the best.  I'll try to "be in the moment" more often.  And Lucy, hope you got that squirrel. . .