Other Jackson stuff

We ended up doing a lot in Jackson. We hiked in the Bridger-Teton National Forest above the Virginian RV Park where we stayed and also watched the main event.

From up on the side of the mountain we could see where we were parked, and could pretty much see all of Jackson. Jackson is an all cowboy town, with wooden sidewalks, cowboy bars, and oodles of gift shops. We did manage to scare up at least one eclipse souvenir, and constantly bumped into other Eclipsters as we strolled the boardwalks.

One day we floated for a couple of hours on the famous Snake River. Interestingly, the Snake is where Evel Knievel attempted is disastrous jump over Hells Canyon back on September 8, 1974. We found that interesting as we had been to seek Evel’s grave when we were back in Butte Montana where he was born.

We took a dinner cruise on Jackson Lake, the second largest lake in Wyoming, at the base of the Grand Teton mountain range. We stopped at Elk Island and had a very nice steak and trout dinner in the shadow of the Tetons. The weather was spectacular so the cruise was quite pleasant, with magnificent views of the majestic peaks. What a way to cap off a special visit to Jackson.

An interesting effect I forgot to mention was how the trees would act as a camera obscura during the solar eclipse. The small spaces between the leaves on the trees would cast a shadow of the eclipse below. If you placed an object below any tree that was fairly dense with leaves, you got hundreds of images of the crescent of the sun partially obscured by the moon. How cool is that!

While a bit blurry, here is an idea of just how dark it got during the 2 minutes of totality. You can just make out the lights pouring through the windows of Colectiva as it if were midnight!

On a recommendation from my brother Jerry, who has spent a lot of time in Jackson managing the Boot Barn store here, we visited the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar. It was fun to “saddle up” at the bar and feel like a cowboy. The Woman said the fried pickles and mozzarella sticks weren’t very good, but the Elk burger I had was a real treat!

Talk to you soon!