Today was a travel day. We started the day in Thayne, WY. I don’t know why when I think of this place I am reminded of an old Alan Ladd movie in which this toeheaeded little squirt of a kid keeps whining “Thayne, Thayne, come back.” Oh… that’s Shane. In any event, we departed Thayne this morning and headed north up US-89 through the town of Jackson into Jackson Hole and ultimately into a place called Flagg Ranch. Flagg Ranch is on a bit of land between Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstorne National Park.
Peggy and I were in Jackson Hole during trips when we were young in 1979 and 1981. In 1979, the second night of our honeymoon was spent in the honeymoon cabin at Colter Bay near Jenny Lake in Jackson Hole. We discovered that, due to our rush to get out of town after our wedding, Peggy only had a really snazzy looking pair of high heels in her luggage. We drove into Jackson the day after our arrival at Colter Bay and bought her a good pair of boots that were more suitable for the terrain we encountered in this place. Jackson was a tiny town then with about 10 blocks of commerce downtown. Now it is a pretty large going concern with many tourists, much stupid activity by out-of-town drivers, art galleries and a Starbucks. There appeared to be few improvements since 1979 unless you consider unfettered tourism attractive.
Without bothering to stop except at the numerous senseless traffic signals, we finally trudged through town with the Barbarian Invader securely attached to the fifth wheel in Charlotte’s bed. We emerged from the north end of the Jackson Hellhole into the beautiful Jackson Hole, a gigantic glacial valley with moraines dotting the surface. The road (US-89 still) climbs very slowly through Jackson Hole with some relatively small mountains to the east but the magnificent Grand Tetons to the west. The Tetons are wonderful craggy rock monsters with little other than glaciers dotting their surface. They erupt from Jenny Lake and rise right up to over 10,000′ elevations. They are very impressive.
We continued north through Jackson Hole until we got to the non-community of Moran where we continued north on 89 to Flagg Ranch. Flagg Ranch is not really a ranch but a collection of facilities dedicated to RV camping two miles south of the south entrance to Yellowstone. The RV park has full hookups, there is a close store and gas station, tourist info is nearby but Verizon cell phone and data service does not extend to this rustic environment. This place ain’t cheap. It is around $70 per night but that’s much better than $100 per night in Jackson. There is no wi-fi. The spaces are pretty close to each other but they are situated in a grove of conifers offering ample shade. We were able to get some TV service from our satellite antenna because our assigned spot was at the end of a row and offered a relatively unblocked view of the southern skies, required for satellite reception.
Since our travel distance today was relatively short, we arrived at Flagg ranch early in the day and were all set up by about 1:30 PM. We re-boarded Charlotte and took a short journey of exploration into Grand Teton National Park which starts just south of our RV park at Flagg Ranch. We do not have to pay to get into either Grand Tetons or Yellowstone, thanks to our access pass. We drove into the northern edge of Grand Teton and turned south on a secondary road that passes down the east edge of the beautiful lakes at the foot of the Tetons. There are elk, pronghorn and bison here for a fact. There is also breathtaking, majestic scenery on all sides. There are not adequate superlatives in my vocabulary to describe this extraordinary place. I like it a lot.
We finished our loop down the east edge of the lakes and then turned back out to US-89 near the community of Moose before heading back home to Flagg Ranch for the evening. We will be passing through this place again before we depart Flagg Ranch next week.
You can see some of the pix we got today if you click here