Down the hill, and a ten minute walk from our cabin, is the horse corral of Teton Village Trail Rides. We pass the corral every day as we leave and return to the village, and each time, Brin has advanced his campaign for a family ride. Not surprisingly, he eventually wore us down, and we agreed to schedule a two hour ride for their first opening at 8:00 a.m.
With our trail guide Jessie (an experienced 16 year old girl with a good sense of humor that we all enjoyed immensely), we headed out at about 8:15 on our trusty mounts - Jessie on Putter, Tammy on Hazel, Brin on Salty, and me on Mailman.
The ride was quite enjoyable, and was a new experience for both me and Brin. Jessie pointed out various items of interest along the ride, such as a 500 year old evergreen, a tree where a bear had scratched, and another where a porcupine had stripped a band of bark from an evergreen trunk. At one point, we rode around the perimeter of a very large green pasture, which made for quite a sight with the woods to our side and the massive Tetons rising above (unfortunately, my camera battery died before I could get these shots). It was a wonderful experience, and, even though we were all a little sore in the nether regions, we all agreed that this is something we want to do more of when we come back.
It was a welcome change of pace to stay close to our cabin for a day since we had been on the run for so much of the week. We visited various shops in Jackson Hole, and purchased the obligatory pins, patches, hats and t-shirts, and spent a while talking to an American Indian museum/shopowner who enthusiastically told us what we needed to do next time we visited Wyoming.
After sharing two orders of Idaho trout fish and chips from the Mangy Moose lunch café, we headed off in search of a drug store to find nail polish remover for Tammy (apparently, the dry air caused her recently manicured nails to become rough and dry like sandpaper - she noticed it shortly after we arrived in Wyoming). We found her drug store, and as she was coming back out to our vehicle, I asked Brin if he wanted to take a look at the western wear store next door. It was a costly mistake.
After about 30 minutes or so, I walked out with a considerably lighter wallet, and Brin walked out with cowboy boots, a western belt, a Roper brand western shirt, and a pair of cowboy cut Wrangler brand jeans. This was no costume - this was the real goods, and it looks amazingly good on him (several gentleman around town have addressed him as “cowboy”, which he loves) . Tammy and I will never forget the way he strutted as he walked out the door (he insisted on wearing it out). The whole cowboy culture has really captivated him.
We spent some lazy time back at the cabin, and eventually worked our way down to the Alpenhof Restaurant for some German food and fondue.
The hot tubbin’ before bed felt wonderful on our tenderized rumps.
Some assorted stuff…
- Most of the horseback riding trail guides are teenagers and early twenty-somethings who come to work and live together in a dorm or camp type environment for the summer. When the cashier at Teton Village Trail found out that we were from the Atlanta area, she let us know that one of their summer guides was a young lady who lived about an hour south of Atlanta, and that she happened to be there that morning. The young lady came over to introduce herself, and told us that she lived near Griffin!
- Our cabin is in a tiny and beautiful alpine neighborhood called Granite Ridge. It is located off of a road called Granite Loop Road, which climbs higher and higher above the village. Out of curiosity, we drove up Granite Loop to take a peek. It was easy to see that the homes became exponentially more expensive and impressive as you gained altitude. Early on the riding trail that morning, as we headed up one particular hill, Jessie asked us to guess the recent selling price of one of the homes that came into view. After several guesses that weren’t even close, she revealed that the home went for a cool 30 million.
- Jessie explained that the bear scratchings on the tree were a territory marking procedure. A bear will reach as high as he can on the tree trunk and leave his claw marks, then the next bear who comes along will leave the area if he can’t reach as high on the trunk. If the newcomer leaves higher claw marks, however, the original bear that marked the tree will leave when he sees the higher marks.
- Along one particularly picturesque section of the trail, Jessie pointed out a large barn that was built at that location in the 1970s for filming the Marlboro Man television commercials. You may remember the scenes with the barn in the big open field with the snow-capped mountains in the background.
- Brin wasn’t the only one who spent our money at the western wear store. I ended up with two shirts myself.
NOTE - Click on the above photo for a larger view!
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