My Adventures Living Daily Life & Traveling the World

Our next stop was Jackson Hole, Wyoming, a cowboy town that’s supposed to be similar to Deadwood. NOT! This place can’t touch Deadwood. The atmosphere is not nearly as amazing. The only thing of interest here was the town square, as the entrance gates were made purely out of real elk antlers. Other than that, there were western style building and saloons, but the town just didn’t feel authentic. The insides were too modern. Or maybe I just look way too deep into these things!

After that, we were to cross Idaho and drive into Utah, where we’ll stay at Salt Lake City for the night. It was going to be a long drive, along with a nasty Chinese buffet in the middle. I am really sick of Chinese buffets, and this one was the worst yet. There aren’t enough seafood options, so I have to eat meat or veggies, both of which I hate compared to seafood. Also, because they always starve us before meals, I tend to eat more than usual. I’m going to be pissed if I gain weight on this trip, because the activity level is huge compared to the 30 minutes a day I get normally.

I guess it’s better than McDonald’s, although not by much. It’s also a shame we are not stopping at any place in Idaho. I’d love to visit it since I’m already here.

In every tourist area, I have a lot of fun looking at the different places all the vehicles came from. Most of them are from northern or western states. I’ve seen New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Ohio, Arizona, California, and more that I don’t recall. Almost no two vehicles next to each other are from the same state, interesting! Rejects from the south like me would rather fly instead since it’s so far, I suppose!

Colter Bay

After loading all the passengers on the bus, we headed off to our first destination – Colter Bay. On the way, we stopped at some old volcanic craters. They were not all too different from the geysers we saw just the day before, only stinkier and less grand.

Colter Bay was a beautiful as well as peaceful place. The bay surrounds magnificent snowy mountains, the same ones used by Paramount for their logo design. Cute little boats can be seen here and there on the water. What I would do to own one of these boats! I would let it drift in the water, relax, and do… stuff!

There was a long biking trail around the bay. I had no bike, but I decided to walk on it anyway. We didn’t have much time scheduled there, so I only got about 1/4th of the way through before I had to turn back. This trail was especially nice because tall pine trees lined both sides of the streets, blocking out the glaring sunlight. The water provided a nice cool breeze. I rarely say this but I think the bay was in every way, perfect. It’s definitely a place I’d go back to.

I woke up freezing my ass off in the middle of the night; I’d guess it was 4 A.M. It was probably 40 degrees outside and 55 in the cabin, which is way too cold for me. It was so cold that I was dreaming about hiking up a snowy mountain, NAKED, and getting sick along the way. That’s so weird. Plus, just the day before in Montana, the temperature was around 100 degrees. The disparity was huge and I wasn’t sure my body could adjust that fast. I guess we’ll see in a few hours if I get sick.

Anyway, I put a heavy blanket on top of the thin one I was using and went back to sleep. Two hours later I was awake again from the cold. But surprisingly, the crisp mountain air felt really nice. That is, until I had to get out of bed. We had been stupid and not noticed that there was a heater in the room. So I got up and got dressed in the freezing cold… discovered the heater, got mad at myself, and turned that thing on. For the next 30 minutes I sat next to the heater and enjoyed every moment of it.

The restaurant was expensive but actually quite good. We only ordered one salad and one entrée, but the total price came out to be over $25. The waitress was very nice, though, and let both my mom and I get some salad for the price of one. At 11:30 P.M. we finally finished dinner and got back to the cabin.

Speaking of the cabin, it’s probably the most overpriced and least acceptable hotel I’ve stayed at so far on this trip. The room had no TV, no telephone, no wireless internet, no coffee maker, the list goes on. These are quite basic amenities nowadays for even motels, and this place costs $100 per night per room! My phone also gets no signal here, not even roaming signal. It hasn’t gotten signal since about 3 P.M. this afternoon. My hatred for T-Mobile and my phone’s battery life just gets worse and worse everyday.

Basically all there is to do in this shitty cabin is to write in this journal and sleep! So since I’ve completed this entry, good night! I’m exhausted.

Watefall

Our last two stops of the day were two waterfalls. They were really majestic and scary at the same time, especially looking at one from the top. I thought they’d make great sex spots if there aren’t so many people around all the time. The air was cool, almost cold even in August, and the rumbling of water sounded like a lullaby.

After the two waterfalls we were done for the day as far as our itinerary goes. We drove up to the cabins where we are going to stay at for the night. It was freezing cold out, a huge contrast from Montana just the day before. I’d have to guess it’s about 55 to 60. I liked it better than the scorching heat until I found out our room was half a mile from the nearest restaurant. I didn’t bring any warm cloths, and walking in the windy, chilly night was not fun. But still, we had to eat since our schedule was so busy today that we didn’t get to have dinner at the normal time.

George told us that all the shops and restaurants are open 24 hours. But he was a damn liar, as we barely made the 10 P.M. closing cutoff of the only restaurant that stayed open. Some unfortunate folks who came after us didn’t even get to eat, as the place was closing, and we hadn’t had lunch since one or so. Everyone was pretty pissed at him. I expect interesting drama tomorrow morning on the bus.

Agricultural Museum

After lunch and the trip to Wal-Mart, we got to the agricultural museum. It wasn’t really a museum, just a bunch of old buildings German settlers left behind in the early 1900’s. There were houses, slave cabins, railroads, coal mine, church, and some other old-fashioned buildings. They were interesting, and some of the houses felt like they were haunted. Not having air conditioners inside was a big minus though. I think if I stayed in there for more than five minutes, I may have fainted from overheating. The entire tour group decided that it was way hot to stay any longer after only 20 or so minutes, so we left early.

We arrived in Montana after another hour of driving. Wow, this state is SO INCREDIBLY HOT. And I mean temperature wise. It is right below Canada, so technically it is located north enough to have cool temperatures. But no, it was almost worse than Houston, I thought. Not only was it scorching hot, but the sun was also in the sky with no clouds all day. It felt like an oven to me. Even at 9 P.M. it was over 95 degrees out. It might as well have been a desert.

Tomorrow should be the most fun day with lots of trails in the national park. George did tell us that there would be a lot of mosquitoes, which scares me quite a bit. I already have about ten bites that refuse to heal and itch like mad!

Traveling with a tour group is so physically exhausting. I feel like I’m having sex 12 hours straight everyday, only much less exciting…

Anyway, first, Devil’s Tower. It was another one of those monuments, like Crazy Horse and Mount Rushmore, except this one is naturally occurring. I guess it wouldn’t be called a monument! It was basically a huge piece of rock jutting out from the ground. It actually looked pretty cool, and I could see at least 10 people rock climbing on the sides. There was a long trail here, yay! About two miles, I heard. I love trails, and so of course I got on it immediately, taking pictures on the way. Around the trail, I could also see the countryside of whatever state we were in at the time. I believe it was still South Dakota. It consisted of hills with little houses scattered here and there, very beautiful scenery that couldn’t be accurately captured by my camera.

I wish my mom would shut up for once and let me enjoy the walk in silence. But she always talks and asks me unrelated questions. She also walks way too fast. Walking slowly and taking my time is part of the fun. Oh well!

Happy August! Today was mostly a traveling day, as explained by George, the tour guide. We only had one real destination, and that was Devil’s Tower. Our other two scheduled destinations were Wal-Mart and some agriculture museum.

Yes, that’s right. I said Wal-Mart. So apparently a lot of the tourists were unhappy with the food selections and prices on the way, and they wanted to shop for food at Wal-Mart. We’re stopping there for one whole hour. I wasn’t too pleased with the food choices, either. Nothing but shitty Chinese buffets, McDonald’s, and overpriced local no name restaurants. Although honestly, this is what I would expect if I’m traveling to places I haven’t been to before. It’s much better to just experience what it’s like in each of these places than rush to the nearest place we’re comfortable with. In this case, it’s Wal-Mart.

It’s a shame that we only had one hour here to look around. Damn tour groups! The weather was really nice for taking a walk, so my mom and I took a stroll down Main Street, occasionally peeking into a shop or two. We hadn’t had dinner, and we found Oyster Bay amidst the millions of steakhouses, and that was our pick.

Oyster Bay turned out to be a bar as well as a restaurant, which was just fine with me. I ordered some crab cakes, and they were simply amazing. They were way better than what I’d expect from a little restaurant in a tiny Midwestern town. At the bar sat some bikers who looked like they were having a lot of fun, so I joined them. They all looked to be at least 35 years old, but they acted more immature and wild than me, if that’s possible. I loved the topic at hand – poker, and shared some of my insights with them. My mom didn’t like them, and got mad at me for talking to them. I even turned them down when they offered me a drink, so go figure.

My only gripe was that we had to leave soon afterwards and I didn’t get a chance to gamble. I kept eyeing the poker tables as I pass each cute little casino. Vegas may be grand, but this place had its own endearing charm.

Today was much more fun than yesterday, except for being sick on the five hour long bus ride with the sun in my face all day, of course.

The walk on the Presidential Trail was extremely relaxing and comforting. I really needed the time alone to think and jot down sceneries in case I was going to use them for a novel or short story in the future. The Trail was a great setting for an intimate or mysterious scene, or perhaps both. It was shorter than I expected, however, so I took another walk around seeing that I had ample time left over before we were to depart again.

For our last destination, we arrived at a small town named Deadwood. Now this place was really worth my time. With a population of 1,000, it seemed way livelier than it should be. The streets were filled with bikers and pedestrians, revving engines, music and laughter. Each side of the road had many hotels, saloons, shops, and even casinos, all Western style. I felt like I was in a Texan Las Vegas, if that makes any sense.