On the Road to the Tetons (June 12-14)

You know that description of weather where the clouds appear to lay over the land like a blanket? I've used that phrase many a time, and now I understand that I didn't know what I was talking about. For the drive up to Cheyenne, the clouds were laying on the surface of the earth, and it did feel like a blanket, the suffocating kind. Talk about feeling depressed. We'd just left Rocky Mountain and were headed towards my least favorite corner of Wyoming. I couldn't even work up a smile about going to Sierra Trading Post, but we stopped at the discount outfitter anyway.

I had been a tad chilly the last two nights of camping, and I thought it might be a good idea to buy a liner for my sixteen year old sleeping bag. After realizing that all camping gear was an additional thirty percent off, I decided to fully upgrade and buy a whole new bag. I didn't know at that moment, but this was a very wise choice. Turns out, in our haste to pack the van at Morraine Park, my old bag fell out of the van, never to be seen again. I wouldn't know it was gone for another twenty four hours when we arrived in Lander and unpacked all of our wet gear.

But first we had to find a place to crash in Cheyenne (with a pool), so the girls would stop complaining. I don't think they liked the weather either. After a decent night's sleep we woke to even worse weather and drove towards Laramie in a mix of sleet and snow. This didn't let up until we got to Rawlins, one of the least attractive towns in Wyoming, but it was still bitter cold. The sky finally started to lighten as we approached Lander. Our destination was the Silver Spur, a motel recommended for its cleanliness.



Although the place was clean, I don't recommend it. I could hardly breathe because the cleanser fumes were so strong. It was during this stay that Julia leaned the difference between a hotel and a motel, and for the rest of our trip she would beg, "no motel, no motel!" and squeal with delight when we pulled into a hotel. On the good side, the Silver Spur had no problem with us cooking our dinner on a camp stove outside the room door. We weren't the first. We wouldn't be the last. As I said before, we were also finally able to dry our wet gear.



Given the last 72 hours, Craig and I were starting to worry about our camping accommodations in the Tetons. In addition, the forecast called for a high of 52 and a low of 26 for the next several days (okay for Craig and me, not-so-much for Grace and Julia). After some searching on the internet (thanks, Silver Spur, you came through with good wi-fi) we found out that there were "Tent-Cabins" available at the Colter Bay Campground. Of course, the website kept crashing all night, so we were never able to make a reservation (combine the worry over reservations and the Silver Spur's horrible bed, and there was very little sleep to be had).

In the end, all was well. We woke to sunshine, and Craig got through to the tent-cabins and secured our reservation. The sky was crisp and clear, and the drive, with all it's jaw dropping beauty, put me back in good spirits. We started to see a lot of snow as we climbed in elevation, and at one point Julia exclaimed, "look, Mommy, it's Christmastime!"



Here's the entire set from our drive. No pictures from Cheyenne, which is a unfortunate because outside our hotel there was a sign that read, "Sutherland's: buy one, get one free with your purchase" (which is funny to Sarah and Talli, whom each bought one, and got two with their purchase).