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(Taking a break and having a chill day this Saturday.  My own pics to come… I didn’t bring my camera cord to download pics!)

Everyone else had arrived (or attempted to arrive) in Jackson on Monday 1/5.  As for me, I flew in on Wed. 1/7.  There had been a huge snowstorm on Mon/Tue and so Jess, Leila, and Leland’s flights were diverted.  Long story short, their travel ordeal involved a 12-hour wait at the Denver airport while the Jackson airport authorities decided whether or not it was safe to land a plane there.  They ended up renting a car and driving 9+ hours from Denver to Jackson in the middle of the still-blowing snowstorm!  Needless to say, not an auspicious start to the vacation.

The good news is everyone eventually arrived safe and sound.  I finally got there at about 4:30pm on Wed. after my flight too was diverted and I had to be bussed in from Idaho Falls.  What an experience!

We are staying in amazing condos that are part of the Snow King resort - it’s called Love Ridge Lodge.  our place has 2 bedrooms, a den, and 3 1/2 bathrooms.  It’s about 2000 square feet and very well-appointed with beautiful tile flooring and granite countertops.  And it was cheap!  (for what we are used to paying in say Mammoth & Vail…)  So after arriving, didn’t do much of anything my first night except head down to the “Shady Lady” saloon that was part of our resort.  I had a burger and a beer and ended up meeting these fun English guys who had an even longer travel ordeal than my friends.   We had some drinks and fun conversation which involved exchanging local slang - I learned that the word for a hot English guy or girl is called a “top tottie.”  I might have to use that one!

After an early-ish night we got up on Thursday, made breakfast, and headed over to Jackson Hole.  It’s about a 20-min drive from our condos to the actual mountain.  We were lucky to have a fairly sunny day - it became more overcast by the end of the afternoon though.  We did not attempt to make it up the tram that first day, as the wind and cloudy conditions would have made it hard to see and enjoy.

Due to warmer temperatures, they also closed a lot of the chairlifts because the melting heavy snow created higher avalanche danger.  So we started off the day with a few runs on the Teewinot chairlift to warm up then hit the gondola.  Because so many of the chairs were closed, we mostly stayed around the gondola and on the Thunder Quad chair area.  We did a lot of runs and stayed out til the mountain closed but still did not get to see as much of the mountain as I would have liked.

That night after cleaning up we headed to the Gun Barrel restaurant.  Real old-west style food - they served all sorts of local game and definitely strayed from the “usual” restaurant fare of beef and chicken.  The menu offered such meats as bison, buffalo (um, wait, are those the same?), venison, wild boar, and elk.  Gracie, Leila, and I split the sampler platter which had buffalo prime rib, elk chops, and some venison bratwurst.  Delicious!  We pigged out on all those meats and had some wine and fresh baked bread.

After that we headed to the Town Square Tavern, which was pretty fun and picked up after a while.  The dj played some reggae/dub to warm up and as more folks started coming in he picked up the tempo with more r&b, hip hop, and classic dance favorites such as “Groove is in the Heart.”  We were having so much fun that we ended up staying out much longer than planned and did not get home till after 1.  Drank lots of water to prepare ourselves for the next day!