Day Seven, Looked Like Heaven

As I had hoped, today was an easy day. We were able to take our time and just enjoy the drive and time together since there were no major sights to see and no hurry to get to our end destination of Jackson, Wyoming. Plus, I was able to relax a bit during today's journey now that my dad is here and we are taking turns driving by switching every couple of hours. As you can see, I'm very happy to finally be able to enjoy the scenery and not have to take pictures while driving with my knees, although I have become quite talented at that if I do say so myself!

Actually, we did have a destination of sorts along the way. My dad's dad grew up in Ogden, Utah which is pretty much on the way to Jackson, so we decided to stop there and see if we could find his old house which he lived in over 75 years ago! I don't know much about my dad's side of the family because we have just always been closer to my mother's side of the family so I was looking forward to seeing a bit of my Shannon roots for a change. Unfortunately, all we found was an empty lot where the house used to be. My dad said it was and old house that probably either burned down or was condemned and fell down as old houses often do. It was a bummer. It would have been a cool sight to see on this journey of mine, but we tried and sometimes that's all you can do.

While in Ogden, we decided my car needed a hosing down so we stopped in one of those car washes where you pay quarters to use their hoses and soap to wash your car yourself. I'd never been to one of those, but for some reason have always wanted to try it so now seemed like the perfect opportunity. However, by the end, it felt like Dad got more water on me than on the car by the end as he followed me around in a circle with the power hose washing away the soap I was brushing onto the car with a giant broom-like tool. It was an amusing pit stop for sure!

Though I haven't posted them all on the blog, I've been taking photos at every state welcome sign after I cross the border into a new state. It seemed like a good way to keep track of every state I've been in on the road trip and serves as proof that I indeed went to all these places. Plus, it's sort of the thing to do on a road trip. I often haven't been the only one doing it as so many people traveling the scenic highways I've been taking are clearly tourists on road trips as well. My brother is attending Boise State in the fall and so I thought it would be fitting to wear my new Boise State T-shirt as I crossed the Idaho state border this afternoon. I thought it would make a great photo and it did!
We were only in Idaho for a short time on today's drive, mainly because we were so close and I'd never been there before so I figured that since we weren't in a hurry to get anywhere today, now would be as good a time as any to cross Idaho off my list of states left to visit in my lifetime. And for the occasion, I made sure to wear my new Boise State shirt, courtesy of my brother who will start there in the fall!

Another state I was able to cross off that list was Wyoming. I loved the amazing colors of the red cliffs at the Grand Canyon in Arizona and and the orange rocks at Arches National Park in Utah. However, I equally loved today's awe-inspiring scenery of the Grand Teton mountain range in Wyoming. The beautiful evergreens, rich green grass-covered hills, and fields of multi-colored flowers were breathtaking, especially against the amazing backdrop of the bright blue sky full of puffy white clouds. I might have been more intrigued by the multitude of clouds than the forests of trees mainly because weather in California usually consists of clear blue skies, smoggy, hazy skies, or foggy skies. I loved watching the giant, puffy, bright white clouds gracefully float by out the passenger window. It was my favorite activity of the day I think, another great reason I'm grateful my dad is here with me for a bit - so I can cloud-gaze while he drives the car!Isn't Wyoming so beautiful? I used to see Wyoming on the map and wonder why anyone would ever go there, even with the attraction of Yellowstone, but now I completely understand the draw and am so glad I made the trip up here to witness the beauty in person. I know I keep using a lot of the same words to describe these places, beautiful, amazing, awe-inspiring, breath-taking, and I'm trying to come up with more synonyms for them, but to be honest I just don't know how else to describe them. They are so breathtaking that they often leave me speechless and I try to snap tons of extra pictures each day so that the images can hopefully speak for themselves when I am unable to do so on their behalf.
One stretch of the windy, mountain, scenic highway today was under construction and instead of asphault, we had to drive on gravel. It seemed a bit wierd at first, but then we saw a sign that made it all make sense...

Wyoming officials must have wanted the tourists driving down the scenic routes to get the full effect on their road trips and so they graveled a section of the road to make it seem like we were truly driving down the original Oregon Trail! If only we had hitched our covered wagon to the back of my Honda, then we really could have been traveling in style down the Oregon Trail. Ok, so that's not really the truth, the two pictures are merely coincidences, but I couldn't resist spinning the story to make it a bit more interesting! It was so cool to know I have now driven on the Oregon Trail. It was my favorite computer game in elementary school, back in the days of green and black computer screens! Ah, the good ole days! And I didn't die of dysentary this time, yay!

Today's journey was also full of many animal sightings. We saw horses, cows, bulls, and llamas in enclosed pastures and farms. My dad saw a deer but I missed it! Hopefully, we'll see more along the way, maybe in Yellowstone tomorrow! We also saw a duck...well, sort of...

And we saw a whole group of sheep grazing in the open pastures! That was by far the coolest animal sighting of the day, knowing that they were in the wild. I actually couldn't believe they weren't in a fenced-in area, I'm so used to seeing animals in some sort of captivity that I often forget that wild animals still do exist. I guess that's what happens when you live such a sheltered life in the big city like I have for so many years.

It's important to get in touch with nature every once in a while and remember that life, nature, and beauty does really exist outside the concrete jungles of the world, even though it often has to be found further away than the tv screen we often mistake for a window, even further than the touch of the remote or click of the mouse, as well. It's hard to get off our butts sometimes to see the world outside "the great indoors" as John Mayer calls it, but totally worth it. I know I've said it many times already, but I'll keep saying it not only to remind you all, but to remind myself after this trip is over and done. Even if I can't take this kind of time off again anytime in the near future, I know how easy it is now to take a weekend getaway to seemingly far off places that really aren't that far from home. If I want to have some peace and quiet away from the noise of the big city, I know lots of places now where I can go to get those things that are just a few hours drive or a flight away!

After what seemed like a long day of driving, but was in actuality only 6 and a half hours of driving, we finally made it to Jackson, Wyoming, which is roughly 30 minutes from tomorrow's initial destination of Grand Teton National Park after which we'll head into Yellowstone National Park for the remainder of the day. We ate dinner at a place called Sidewinders and my adventure today was having an authentic Buffalo burger, which was pretty good I must say. I could hardly tell the difference between the Buffalo burger and a regular burger, although I don't think Buffalo meat is quite as juicy as regular hamburger meat, it's a little drier, but other than that it was pretty tasty. Hopefully, having a Buffalo burger isn't in poor taste after just discussing all the cool animals I'd seen on the drive today, if it is, I apologize. I just tell it like it happened, and this just so happened to be the order of events of the day.

After arriving back at our hotel after dinner, we got a taste of the friendly natives of Jackson right in the parking. They're so friendly they just come right up to your room window to greet you hello and ask you to come out and play! Who knows who, or what, we'll meet tomorrow in Grand Teton and Yellowstone, but I'm hoping for some more unique animal sightings throughout the day, hopefully while I'm inside the car taking pictures! I swear I'm not a scaredy cat, I'm just not crazy enough to get too close to the natives while saying hello as I've heard their customs are a little different from ours. For example, putting your hand out for a firm handshake in greeting often indicates to the natives that you want to invite yourself to dinner, or more to the point, invite yourself to be dinner! My policy is better safe than sorry, so I'll just remain in the car should I see any animals, keeping my hands and arms inside the vehicle at all times! I'm sure I'll be just fine! Wish me luck!