Grand Tetons National Park, Wyoming and Idaho

September 3 – 7, 2022

It was the longest five day trip ever, and I was so glad when it was over.

I got a call from my parents that my grandmother, who lives in Idaho near them, wasn’t doing great. She’d been moved from assisted living into a nursing home and likely wouldn’t leave there. I decided I’d take a trip to see her one last time.

As hard as I tried to not make this a sad post, that’s the sad reality of what spurred the trip in the first place.

I initially planned on flying out of Cedar Rapids into Boise and renting a car and seeing my grandma. Brandy and I discussed it thoroughly and decided it’d be cheaper to drive out, but it would take two days to get there, if I drove 11 hours each day. I looked at the route and saw that it would take me through the southern portion of Wyoming. I told Brandy this, and told her that Jackson Hole, Wyoming, would be a short detour on the trip if she wanted to come.

So she packed her bags.

Departure

As we so often do, we headed out after work on Friday evening, September 2, driving four hours to Lincoln, NE. We stayed the night at a Motel 6, which was pretty good for a Motel 6 experience. The motel (which really is a hotel) had been recently renovated, the room was clean and quiet, and we rested well.

The next day, we headed out early and made the 11 hour drive to Rock Springs, Wyoming. It really only should have been a 10 hour drive, but shortly after we passed through Cheyenne, interstate 80 was closed, forcing all traffic off onto a frontage road that forced us to crawl alongside the highway for several miles before re-entering.

Once we bypassed the inciting incident, we got back on the road and landed at the Motel 8 in Rock Springs. This was a true motel experience. The motel was a little (a lot) more run down and was in severe need of some renovations. We ordered a pizza from the Pizza Hut literally next door to the motel. When it was ready, I walked across the parking lot and picked it up, and took it back to the room, ate and, after 11 hours of driving, went right to sleep.

The next morning, we got up and made the three hour and change drive to our first major destination on our trip, Jackson, Wyoming.

Jackson, WY

Jackson, Wyoming, is a town in Jackson Hole, which is a valley between the Gros Ventre and Teton mountain ranges. As we got into town, it was evident that this town was in Wyoming. The town square is flanked on all four corners by massive arches built with elk antlers, which apprently have been there since 1960. The buildings surrounding the square are fashioned after the old west buildings that must have graced the area hundreds of years ago. Statues scattered throughout the square feature cowboys on bucking broncos while honoring local war heroes.

We made out way into a gift shop on the square to find a magnet to commemorate our visit, also picking up a couple of t-shirts (they surprisingly had some in my size.)

The square was crowded with holiday weekend visitors (this is a very important point I’d like you to keep in mind.) We quickly made our way back to the car and headed out toward our next stop, Grand Teton National Park.

Grand Teton National Park

In the weeks leading up to the trip, I had done some investigation on some hiking trails in Grand Teton National Park that we might enjoy. One of those, the Inspiration Point via Jenny Lake Boat Shuttle, is a short hike to Inspiration Point, passing Hidden Falls on the way. To get to that trailhead, you could take the Jenny Lake trail, which would add some mileage to the hike, or you can take the Jenny Lake shuttle across the lake and start the hike on the other side. I was very excited to take the shuttle and the hike.

We approached the park from the south, stopping at the Craig Thomas Discovery and Visitor Center, 1) to get a magnet and 2) to re-up our America the Beautiful pass.

The building is a large, mostly glass building that stands out among the surrounding tree covered rocky terrain. The gift shop offered the standard fare: patches, pins, mugs, cups and shot glasses. While Brandy went for a bio break, I headed to the magnet display and picked out a magnet. I had a nice chat with the clerk that checked me out. He saw my Dodgers hat then foolishly admitted that he was a Padres fan. When he asked about the outcome of the game between the two teams from the night before, it was my pleasure to inform him that the Dodgers had won, 12-1.

Once I’d broken his heart, I headed over to the counter where they sell the annual passes. I made the purchase and listened to that clerk as he reminded me to treat the pass like cash, it can’t be replaced if lost, and to add Brandy as a second user on the card, and to show my license as we entered the park with the pass.

Once business was done, we got back to the car and entered the gate to get into the park proper.

We headed up Teton Park Rd. for a few miles, looking for the parking lot for Jenny Lake. As we approached, the sides of the road quickly became clogged with cars parked, on both sides of the road, for a couple of miles before we actually reached the parking lot. I made the mistake of pulling into the parking lot anyway, and was almost immediately trapped in a logjam of cars circling the lot to find parking. We made a pretty major mistake in trying to visit the park on the Sunday of a holiday weekend. We decided to just drive the park and see what we could see from the car, and pull out at any scenic viewpoints that were not obscenely overcrowded.

At our first opportunity to exit the parking lot, we did, and continued up Teton Park Rd, noting another couple of miles of cars parked on the sides of the road.

We continued to drive for a while, enjoying the scenery. We found a couple of pullouts where we stopped and snapped some pictures of the majestic mountains surrounding us. On one such occasion, we overheard other observers saying that there was a three hour wait for the Jenny Lake shuttle that I was planning on taking.

Oofta! (ah, great, I’m assimilating to Midwestern vernacular…)

We continued on to the Jenny Lake Overlook where we stopped for a few more pictures, then decided we should head on to our next destination, Idaho Falls.

We headed back into Jackson and turned right onto the Teton Pass Highway where we twisted and turned through the mountains,, enjoying more scenery. It was the end of summer so everything was still green.

We crossed the Wyoming-Idaho border and before long, we were at our next stop, Idaho Falls.

Idaho

We got to our motel, Motel West, in Idaho Falls, just before 3:00 on Sunday. As I was checking in, I asked where a good place to eat would be. The clerk and a gentleman that was in the lobby chatting with her when I walked in, made a few recommendations, but, apparently, everything shuts down early on Sundays.

We settled on Cedric’s Family Restaurant, just across Interstate 15 from the motel. It was fairly close to their closing time, but we figured we’d have enough time to eat something real quick. We sat, and as I perused the menu, I noticed that the margins were stuffed with anti-Joe Biden remarks. I knew Idaho is a very republican state but I didn’t realize the local businesses would be so blatant about it. I guess I should have known.

Ah well.

We ordered and quickly ate before heading back to the motel. The room was fine, better than the Motel 8 in Rock Springs. We turned on the TV and before I knew it, I was asleep by 6:30.

We woke up Monday morning ready to make the 4 hour drive to Nampa, which is where my parents and grandmother live. We got to my parents’ house right around noon where were greeted with great enthusiasm; we hadn’t seen them in over a year and a half.

We were welcomed into their home and were given a tour. They have a nice little three (four?) bedroom house that they just got done with some major renovations on. The kitchen was basically brand new, and it showed.

We walked through the rest of the house and were treated to a lunch of some wraps and chips, and we sat and chatted with them for a while before we headed out to the nearby Holiday Inn Express.

The room was nice enough, standard Holiday Inn fare, with a sitting area separated from the sleeping area by a short wall. The TV would be shared by both areas by way of a swiveling wall mount. After settling for a moment, I left Brandy to work while I headed out to see my grandma at a nursing home just around the corner.

My Grandma

I had a very close relationship with my grandma (and my grandpa, too, before he died in 1991.) I’d spent numerous holidays and summers with them, I lived with her for a little while before I met who would later become my wife, and at one point in the late 90s, I even worked with my grandma at the Washington Mutual mortgage department in Fullerton, CA.

She was one of the most cheerful, generous, caring women I’d ever know.

As time went by, her health deteriorated and, after moving from her home in Whittier, CA, to New Mexico, then following my parents to Idaho, she was placed in assisted living. She wasn’t there long before she had a health scare and was placed in a nursing home.

The home is very close to my parents, so they make sure to visit her regularly, and when I got the news that time was short, I decided to make this trip, so see her one last time.

I walked into her room, and she was looking up at her TV. She looked frail, and tired. Her hair was a mess and the wrinkles on her face had gotten much deeper than I remembered them when I’d last seen her in late February.

I caught her attention and she welcomed me with a big “Hi”. I leaned down to give her a kiss and noticed the TV wasn’t even on.

I sat and chatted with her for about 40 minutes during which time she constantly looked like she was about to fall asleep. I reminded her no less than four times who I was, who my son was, where I live, etc. When I saw that we were going to have that same conversation once more, I decided that was enough. I gave her a kiss goodbye and left.

Needless to say, that was a very difficult goodbye, as it was our last.

Back to my Parents’

I went back to the hotel to get Brandy and we headed back to my parents’ house. We got there just as they were finishing up dinner of ribs, coleslaw, and my dad’s world famous baked beans. Dinner was delicious and was followed up by cream puffs, which I absolutely adore.

We sat and chatted some more, about Iowa, and what our short and long-term plans were, and they talked to us about their upcoming travels to California to see their daughter and grandkids.

It was an experience unlike any that I recalled with them. It had been a long time since I felt so welcomed and unjudged by them.

It started to get late and we had two VERY long days of driving ahead of us so we said our goodbyes and headed back to the Holiday Inn Express.

Another night of early sleep took me and after waking up before the sun Tuesday morning, I grabbed breakfast from the lobby of the hotel. I sat there waiting for Brandy to wake up, then, when she did, I took her a to-go box of food to her her day started.

The Return

Google Maps has the drive from Nampa, ID, to Coralville, IA, at around 22 hours. We decided a nice even split of two 11 hour days would be best so we hit the road nice and early.

We headed east on Interstate 84 into Utah. We connected with Interstate 15 and headed south into Ogden before finding Interstate 80 which would ultimately lead us all the way home.

As we crossed into Wyoming, we started seeing signs for a place called Little America, which appeared to be a placed geared toward truckers. Several of the amenities they advertised were very trucker-focused. Brandy made mention that we should try to find it and stay there for the night. As it so happened, there is a Little America in Cheyenne, about halfway on our journey.

We exited the interstate in Cheyenne and quickly found the resort. We pulled up to the front doors and tried to book a room on their website but found a weak signal on our phones. I instead walked in and up to their front desk, which oddly enough, was far back into the lobby. I passed a couple of gift shops and a cafe that was closed for the day before finding myself at the registration desk.

The resort was indeed very high end. It was not at all what I was expecting. I asked for a room with a king bed. We were given a room in “lodge 3”. She handed me a map showing me how to get to lodge 3, I got back to the car and we drove up to our room, which opened up onto a golf course. In the middle of the lodges was a courtyard containing a pool (which we did not use.)

Once we got in and settled, I called in a to-go order from the hotel’s restaurant. I ordered a pulled pork sandwich and Brandy got the Clubhouse Sandwich. As soon as the order was placed, I drove to the nearby Sinclair gas station to try to find a case of drinking water but they had none. I went back to the hotel and made the trek in, past the front desk and to the hotel’s restaurant. There was a coat closet to my right and the staff was all wearing black vests and bow ties. It was a rather high end place to be sure.

I was expecting the food to be ready by the time I got there, especially after the stop at the gas station, but they hadn’t even started on it yet. I sat in the lobby of the hotel and waited, and when they came out to give it to me, I made a beeline to the room to finally relax.

I sat myself at the little table in the room and opened the Styrofoam container… and was super disappointed in what I saw. The pork was extra crispy around the edges and was woefully under-sauced, and the fries were old and tepid. Brandy was only marginally satisfied with her sandwich as well. They only gave us like two packets of ketchup so I gave them to Brandy and wound up not eating my fries.

Definitely not worth the $35 we paid for it.

As usual on this trip, almost as soon as I finished eating, I was asleep, resting up for the last push home.

The Home Stretch

We both got up in the dark Wednesday morning. We quickly packed up and headed down the street to a Safeway to get ice, water and some pre-packaged breakfast foods – doughnuts, pastries and the like. Once we filled the cooler with the purchases, we got on the road. We soared through the last little bit of Wyoming, through the state of Nebraska, and most of the state of Iowa, finally getting home just after 5:00.

I’m glad I took the rest of the week off. After being in the car non-stop for five day, I needed some bed time. I think I slept for twelve hours Wednesday night. I spent Thursday unpacking the car and just kind of relaxing. Christy had gone grocery shopping while we were gone, so I didn’t even have to worry about that when we got back.

Conclusion

So, the trip overall was a success. I just wish we hadn’t crammed it all into five days. If we spent more than a day in Nampa, and maybe more time in Wyoming, I think it would have been a better trip, but it was still satisfying, being able to see my parents for the first time in a year and a half, and seeing my grandma again. Visiting a couple new states, and checking a National Park off the list (though we will have to re-visit it to explore it properly.)

I always love seeing new places so as it was, I am still happy about the trip.

I did put some pictures up on my Photo Diary, make sure to check those out.

Coming up soon, some big news, and a slight shift in the tone of the posts for the time being.

And one more big trip coming before we shut it down for a while.

In the meantime, as always, thanks for stopping by my little corner of the internet. I always appreciate you.

-Phil