Temple Square

Leg 1: Salt Lake City to Jackson

Got into Salt Lake City around 10:30 Mountain Time. Slept well over the five-hour flight. Thanks to the LIRR and the Air Train, I literally walked to JFK.

Upon arrival, I picked up my rental car. I like feeling like I'm in the cockpit of a fighter jet when I drive and the good folks at Hertz didn't let me down with an Infiniti FX, which was pretty badass:

There's not much to do in Salt Lake, so I drove to Temple Square and took a couple snaps and decided where to go. Thankfully, my FX was equipped with a GPS and after deliberating between Vegas, Reno, Pocatello and a few more garden spots, I decided to head up to Jackson Hole.

One of the cool towns I drove through was just inside the Wyoming/Idaho border, a town called Afton, Wyoming, the home of Olympic champion Rulon Gardner.

Apparently, not everyone loves Rulon

Those are antlers

There was a ton of snow (I drove through some flurries) en route to Jackson, which is a pretty cool little town with some energy too it. I was reminded of Santa Fe when I was there. Spent a little time walking around, and then decided to head over to Casper next.

Miles Traveled:275.15

Leg 2: Jackson to Casper

En route, I drove through the Grand Tetons, named by some lovelorn French explorers (you don't have to be bilingual to figure out what "grand teton" means in French). Unfortunately, a low cloud ceiling kept the lovely tetons concealed. I took some shots by the sign out front, but my laptop ate my memory card, which sucks.

After plowing through the Tetons, I drove through the town of Dubois, which is the hometown of Chance Phelps, the namesake of HBO's awesome flick, Taking Chance. The town was exactly what I expected, with flags and yellow ribbons everywhere. I would have like to have visited the cemetery to pay my respects, but I couldn't find it and felt weird asking.

From there, I drove to Casper, the hometown of Richard Cheney, our 43rd president. I would have loved to have seen a roadside attraction named "Hell's Half Acre," but it was dark out. And it turns out that it's way more than a half acre.

Upon arriving in Casper, I called 411 and got the address of the local Red Lobster, punched it into my GPS and was soon eating lobster pizza. I like to eat seafood as far inland as possible. If I was more like Christiansingstheblues, I would have taken a photo of my meal, alas I did not.

Miles Traveled: 286.93

Leg 3: Casper to Cheyenne

Got into Cheyenne, one of my favorite cow towns, at around midnight. I checked into the Plains Hotel (pics tomorrow) and headed out to the Crown, a local watering hole.

Unfortunately, I didn't bring my flack vest. That said, I love that Guinness only costs $4 at bars (that's like buy one, get one free).

Some housekeeping:

To the house band, do we really need the 3 minute guitar solos for every song? Sweet Home is a good enough song on its own merits, trust me.

And to the meth addicts (in my opinion) I spoke with at the bar--just keep your heads up, that DUI isn't going to keep you out of work for too long sweetheart. Besides, I'm sure management was restructuring so it was going to happen anyway.

Hitting the sack and turning in. Looks like I'm headed to Albuquerque in the morning.

Miles Traveled: 178.95

Daily wrapup

States visited: 3

Total Miles Traveled: 741

Labels: Road Trip