Journey to the Yurt!

A week ago, our son Evan threw us for a bit of a loop as he announced his wedding to Nash Way had been move up a month and would take place, not in Moah Utah as first planned, but September 29th in Driggs Idaho. After a mad scurry to reschedule Roger's flight home from Detroit, reschedule meetings at work and a general plans reshuffling on my part, we set off this past Wednesday for Driggs.

Driggs Idaho is a small town of 1200 people whose population rises dramatically in the winter as it supports Grand Targee ski resort located on the back side of the Grand Tetons. It's sister city of Victor, eight miles south with a similar population, sits at the entrance to Teton Pass which winds through the mountains to Jackson Hole Wyoming, The Grand Tetons and on to Yellowstone National Park. The scenery is stunning and it should not have been a surprise that Evan and Nash, enjoying all outdoor activities especially those associated with water, would have picked this location for their wedding. What's also not surprising is that they planned to spend their honeymoon in a 30 foot yurt isolated in the backcountry outside of Driggs. While it's not my idea of honeymoon comfort, I must admist it suited them very well.

We started our road trip from our home in Farmington Utah, and for Kim and Mary who will understand, I couldn't get the infamous 6 hour traffice jam I experienced in Bangkok one Friday afternon, when the "perfect storm" happened, out of my mind. The easiest way to get to Driggs is to take 1-15 north to Idaho, continuing on through Pocatello and Idaho Falls where you turn northeast heading through Swan Valley and on to Victor. Pretty simplistic directions, but afer traveling this route for years on our way to Jackson, we could almost do it blindfolded - almost.

Victor Idaho: As we checked around for lodgings on Wednesday evening, we realized that during the "shoulder" season, there wasn't much available especially as Victgor is pretty much an inexpensive bedroom community for the workers who travel the pass daily to work in Jackson. We settled on the Cowboy Roadhouse Lodge and went exploring.

Wednesday evening, while looking for a place to eat, we ran into the only traffic jam we experienced on the entire trip. A two lane road takes you from Victor to Driggs and back. Constrution work had reduced it to a shared one lane road. We sat for up to 15 minutes, coming and going, looking around at the vast openness of of the country and wondering "of all places"? We were rewarded however, not with a good place to eat, as that ended up to be the deli at the only grocery store in town (!), but with spectacular scenery as we drove up the canyon to Targee in hopes of an open restaurant.

Next posting - The Yurt