The great American summer adventure, coined by Lingon. Condensed into 2 days. Lingon had a conference in Park City, and since Wyoming was so close by (mild sarcasm intended), we decided to do the weekend before there.
Since there was only one United flight in, we took that one which departed late, naturally, and arrived in the evening around 9.00pm. I had heard so much about Jackson (city), or Jackson Hole (valley area including Jackson), but sadly my plane seat did not have a window and I did not get a chance to see the mountains as we landed. However, the airport setting was really beautiful - I had read an article before about the airport being one of the most scenic landings in the world, and truly, it was.
We actually changed our flight to arrive a day early, so we were supposed to be car-less. I called Enterprise, and Brian from the Jackson Enterprise helped me out and made the car rental process super easy. Thank you Brian, I will write you a review on the Enterprise site. Truly amazing customer service. On top of that, we got an upgraded, which honestly I was not that wild about since our new vehicle guzzles gas. But there it was, part of the great American summer adventure. You can see Lingon right there.
We spent 2 nights at Jackson. The first night we stayed at the Quality Inn, and the second night we stayed at the Rawhide Motel. Both were not cheap in absolute, at $209 and $174 (before tax), but seemed the cheapest tolerable option. Guess we are in a resort town, so high prices were expected. Both were rather unremarkable, but clean enough. Both had awful sagging beds, but Rawhide Motel at least had duvet covers, and seemed a little brighter and cheerier than Quality Inn. Quality Inn provided a breakfast that was rather inedible, the bananas were the best part, but otherwise the sausage terrified me, and the cheerios tasted like sawdust. Rawhide did not have any breakfast, but that was just fine by me. Wifi at Quality Inn gets zero points, while Rawhide's wifi was pretty good. In conclusion, fine for a "cheap" place to stay, you pay for what you get. Lingon was sufficiently displeased, but I suppose staying in motels can become part of the great American summer adventure. Haha. No pictures of either since they were rather unremarkable.
We took a walk around town, and found Pinky G's Pizzeria, and got a slice of pepperoni and a slice of cheese, $4 and $3.50 each. Not bad, large slices, not anything special by any means, but nice for a later night snack. They had live music, so the place was rather hip and lively, and I was glad to have seen it. What creeped me out was they put pizza boxes under the ovens on the ground. That REALLY grossed me out. I was glad we did not get our pizza from a box.
Jackson as a town was not too bad. There was a local Starbucks (haha!) that we spent a few hours in since our hotel wifi was the pits. The town square had 4 cool entrances at each corner made of antlers shed by the elk each season, picked up by boy scouts.
There were 2 places I had wanted to eat in Jackson. The first was Teton Thai, actually in Teton Village about 15 minutes outside of Jackson. They are on that Travel and Leisure list that I chase. We tried the dishes the article recommended, which were the laab, pad gar pow with crisp-skinned duck breast (rice with duck cooked with basil and some yummy sauce) and tom yum soup, and I added the duck noodle soup on top of that. We had arrived right when the restaurant opened, and were shocked to be told that our wait for food may be up to an hour, since there was a group of 20 who had arrived early. The place definitely filled up. All the food was very good, especially for being in Jackson which I definitely do not think of as a food destination, much less Thai food destination. Our food arrived in 15 mins. Thanks for the speedy service!! :-) Randomly enough, this restaurant has another branch in Idaho. I'll save this for the next time.
The other place I preselected was the Gun Barrel Steak and Game House. I think the name pretty much sums it up. We ordered the mixed game grill - a combination of our elk steak, buffalo prime rib and a venison bratwurst. I especially loved the elk steak. We got a side of fried tomatoes which were nicely breaded, but I thought the tomatoes were a tad sour. We ended the meal with bread pudding, which was rather dense, and the sauce had a liquor taste which I did not like (but of course Lingon did). The restaurant was really superbly outfitted with stuffed animals, and had custom ironwork for a lot of the fixtures. Supposedly their gun collection was sick too, but I have no means to judge.
Back to breakfast, the most important meal. I'm always a sucker for bakeries. So when we got slightly lost around the town square, we saw a place called the Great Harvest Bread Company, I was sold. I wandered in there, got some samples of their scones and bread, and said we were going there the next morning, and we did. I got the raspberry white chocolate scone and chocolate almond scone (I think the latter had cream cheese in it which I did not love), and these scones were crispy on the outside and super moist on the inside. To die for. Loved the white chocolate they used too. Lingon got a blueberry muffin (seemed like it had some bran in it yum) and a breakfast sandwich. They were both great too. I did not realize they were a chain, but when I just googled them I found out there are many locations!
Well, that seems to be all for Jackson, which is really quite a lot for what a small town it was.
Onto part two for Grand Teton National Park!
See here for part 2 of this trip in Grand Teton National Park, and part 3 in Yellowstone National Park.
Since there was only one United flight in, we took that one which departed late, naturally, and arrived in the evening around 9.00pm. I had heard so much about Jackson (city), or Jackson Hole (valley area including Jackson), but sadly my plane seat did not have a window and I did not get a chance to see the mountains as we landed. However, the airport setting was really beautiful - I had read an article before about the airport being one of the most scenic landings in the world, and truly, it was.
We actually changed our flight to arrive a day early, so we were supposed to be car-less. I called Enterprise, and Brian from the Jackson Enterprise helped me out and made the car rental process super easy. Thank you Brian, I will write you a review on the Enterprise site. Truly amazing customer service. On top of that, we got an upgraded, which honestly I was not that wild about since our new vehicle guzzles gas. But there it was, part of the great American summer adventure. You can see Lingon right there.
We spent 2 nights at Jackson. The first night we stayed at the Quality Inn, and the second night we stayed at the Rawhide Motel. Both were not cheap in absolute, at $209 and $174 (before tax), but seemed the cheapest tolerable option. Guess we are in a resort town, so high prices were expected. Both were rather unremarkable, but clean enough. Both had awful sagging beds, but Rawhide Motel at least had duvet covers, and seemed a little brighter and cheerier than Quality Inn. Quality Inn provided a breakfast that was rather inedible, the bananas were the best part, but otherwise the sausage terrified me, and the cheerios tasted like sawdust. Rawhide did not have any breakfast, but that was just fine by me. Wifi at Quality Inn gets zero points, while Rawhide's wifi was pretty good. In conclusion, fine for a "cheap" place to stay, you pay for what you get. Lingon was sufficiently displeased, but I suppose staying in motels can become part of the great American summer adventure. Haha. No pictures of either since they were rather unremarkable.
We took a walk around town, and found Pinky G's Pizzeria, and got a slice of pepperoni and a slice of cheese, $4 and $3.50 each. Not bad, large slices, not anything special by any means, but nice for a later night snack. They had live music, so the place was rather hip and lively, and I was glad to have seen it. What creeped me out was they put pizza boxes under the ovens on the ground. That REALLY grossed me out. I was glad we did not get our pizza from a box.
Jackson as a town was not too bad. There was a local Starbucks (haha!) that we spent a few hours in since our hotel wifi was the pits. The town square had 4 cool entrances at each corner made of antlers shed by the elk each season, picked up by boy scouts.
There were 2 places I had wanted to eat in Jackson. The first was Teton Thai, actually in Teton Village about 15 minutes outside of Jackson. They are on that Travel and Leisure list that I chase. We tried the dishes the article recommended, which were the laab, pad gar pow with crisp-skinned duck breast (rice with duck cooked with basil and some yummy sauce) and tom yum soup, and I added the duck noodle soup on top of that. We had arrived right when the restaurant opened, and were shocked to be told that our wait for food may be up to an hour, since there was a group of 20 who had arrived early. The place definitely filled up. All the food was very good, especially for being in Jackson which I definitely do not think of as a food destination, much less Thai food destination. Our food arrived in 15 mins. Thanks for the speedy service!! :-) Randomly enough, this restaurant has another branch in Idaho. I'll save this for the next time.
The other place I preselected was the Gun Barrel Steak and Game House. I think the name pretty much sums it up. We ordered the mixed game grill - a combination of our elk steak, buffalo prime rib and a venison bratwurst. I especially loved the elk steak. We got a side of fried tomatoes which were nicely breaded, but I thought the tomatoes were a tad sour. We ended the meal with bread pudding, which was rather dense, and the sauce had a liquor taste which I did not like (but of course Lingon did). The restaurant was really superbly outfitted with stuffed animals, and had custom ironwork for a lot of the fixtures. Supposedly their gun collection was sick too, but I have no means to judge.
Back to breakfast, the most important meal. I'm always a sucker for bakeries. So when we got slightly lost around the town square, we saw a place called the Great Harvest Bread Company, I was sold. I wandered in there, got some samples of their scones and bread, and said we were going there the next morning, and we did. I got the raspberry white chocolate scone and chocolate almond scone (I think the latter had cream cheese in it which I did not love), and these scones were crispy on the outside and super moist on the inside. To die for. Loved the white chocolate they used too. Lingon got a blueberry muffin (seemed like it had some bran in it yum) and a breakfast sandwich. They were both great too. I did not realize they were a chain, but when I just googled them I found out there are many locations!
Well, that seems to be all for Jackson, which is really quite a lot for what a small town it was.
Onto part two for Grand Teton National Park!
See here for part 2 of this trip in Grand Teton National Park, and part 3 in Yellowstone National Park.
