Snippets from the Brodies: Jackson, Wyoming

From the Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado we headed towards the town of Jackson, Wyoming – but as it was a fair way, we stopped after 6-7 hours for a night at the town of Boulder, Wyoming: population 75. As per usual by this stage of the trip, it took us a fair while to get going after a fantastic sleep, especially knowing we didn’t have too far to go that day, so we took our time then drove to Jackson, Wyoming. We stopped at McDonalds to use the internet and Lawrie had a sleep in the car, then we rang some friends in town and arranged to sleep in their driveway that night which was great!

After heading to their place soon after, we met Keith & Melinda, their 3 very cute little boys (Tyler, Boyd & Monty) and their darling baby sister Kendra! After chatting for a bit we headed into town to have a look around, and saw the antler arches at each corner of the town square – the 4 arches are made from the antlers of the many bull elk that shed their antlers in one winter at the nearby elk refuge area (where the elk come to each winter). There are up to 8000 elk there each year, including up to about 3000 bull elk which shed their antlers each year.

Sunset at Boulder, Wyoming

Jackson Hole ski field, right behind half of the houses in town, including Keith & Melinda's!

Antler arch in the Jackson town square

Ex-bull moose in one of the shops in town

We were in town at the right time to see the nightly ‘shootout’ show too, which I vaguely remembered hearing about, but we had no idea it was on. This is basically a small town shootout with real guns and blanks instead of bullets (duh! But still loud enough bangs!), and there were so many people there! It seems Jackson gets quite a few tourists in summer…

The 'town mayor' in the Jackson shootout show

The 'town sherriff' in the shootout show

The next morning we had the Sunday meeting and we all stayed for lunch at Keith & Melinda’s place. We had decided by then that instead of rushing off to the nearby Grand Teton National Park that afternoon, we would have a more relaxing afternoon, spend another night in Jackson and hopefully catch up with Wes & Lianna (Aussie & Kiwi from our Six Flags park visit) as they came through that night! Rather than sleeping the afternoon away though, we walked up to the top of the very nearby Jackson Hole ski field, Snow King, with Keith as well as 3 others from their meeting (Janell, Donna and Eric), then ran back down some of the ski runs in the pouring rain – a 6 mile (9.5km-ish) round trip wasn’t bad for a Sunday afternoon!

Kendra :)

Terrible photo, but Boyd, Monty & Tyler

Lawrie, Eric, Nicole, Donna, Keith & Janell

Looking down on the Elk Refuge & the (Invisible) Teton mountains from the top of Snow King

Keith, Nicole & Janell

Janell, Nicole & Keith back near the bottom, after running down in the rain...

After warming up slightly and getting dried off, and seeing as the county fair was right next door to the house, we headed over to see the evening show – Figure 8 Demolition Derby style racing! This is pretty much exactly what it sounds like… Different from a demolition derby in that it’s actually a race of 15 laps around the Figure 8 shaped track for each heat, and the winner completes the laps first rather than being the only car to survive. But there are definitely a lot of demolition derby parts mixed in! So Lawrie & I had a great night with Keith, Eric & Janell, watching many cars race until they bombed out or just couldn't go any further J