East Meets West: Traveling in Wyoming, California, South Carolina

Jackson

Happy Friday! I hope everyone has had a good week. Mine has been pretty good! Last night, I was treated to a really nice work dinner with other employees for working through a big sale, which was awesome. The restaurant was called "Local" and I feel like they could have gotten some of their inspiration from Husk in Charleston... lots of bacon and pork accents, southern-ish stuff, nice but casual, etc. Even though there are some mixed reviews of Husk, Local didn't even come close to being as good, or really living up to their name. At Husk, there is a huge chalkboard with a list of the ingredients they are using for that menu and where they came from. None of that kind of information is given at Local, which I thought was kind of weird. A lot of the restaurants here have at least a couple of trying-to-be-southern things, which is pretty funny. I didn't know the whole country wanted to be southern so badly... there are a lot of restaurants and bands pretending/trying/wanting to be southern (and everyone loving it) and people still making fun of southerners.. It's interesting. I will say that the mint julep at Local was great, and most of my co-workers had no idea what it was.

Anyways, one of the major happenings around town these days is the smoke. Honestly, it sucks. It's also pretty much all anyone is talking about, and no one really knows when it will go away. Rain would help, but rain is really rare here... It might rain next Wednesday. Most of the smoke is actually from the wind patterns. There are a couple of contained fires in the area, but a lot of the smoke is coming from Idaho and even as far as California. I have some comparison shots to show you how bad it really is!

Taken while hiking Snow King this morning

Taken while hiking Snow King in May

Taken in the Elk Refuge the other night around 6 PM

Taken in the Elk Refuge about a month ago... I forgot how pretty it was!

As you can see, there is a huge difference in the visibility and how blue the sky looks! It is obviously not nearly as pretty right now because you can't even see many of the mountains that surround the valley. This does happen to some extent every summer, but this is supposedly pretty bad and early in the season for it to happen. It is crazy that this is a fact of life for the mountain states... Definitely something I didn't know about at all before coming! I really hadn't given much thought to wildfires in general before moving here.

I feel pretty bad for all the tourists! Not only is it hard to adjust to the elevation, but now they have to do so while breathing in smoke. It also is a bummer for those of us that live here, obviously. They don't do any air monitoring in Wyoming (they do in other surrounding states) so we are just being told to take a "common sense approach" to the smoke as far as outdoor activities go. I wish there was some kind of measurement of the air quality, just out of curiosity. Luckily, the smoke hasn't bothered me too much so far. I have been running inside on the treadmill and only doing shorter hikes that aren't too strenuous. I do hope it clears soon! I miss the mountain views and clean air.

Jackson

Idaho, Wildlife, and Produce

Aug 11, 2012

Once again, there are no crazy hikes in this post. I have just been living a (somewhat) normal life and enjoying Jackson. There are a couple more hikes I want to do before it gets too cold, but right now it is pretty hot and it almost seems better to wait until September/October. I have been trying to get some use out of the treadmill and get Sammie out for a lot of off-leash walks, which she loves. (She's not allowed on most of the "real" hikes we do.)

On Thursday, we reluctantly made our way to Idaho Falls (aka "IF") after a series of unsuccessful attempts to get things done here. First, replacing my lost passport. As we already know, the postal service in Jackson is as close to useless as it gets. This means it offers no extra services that post offices everywhere else in the country seem to offer, like passports. The town over the pass, Victor, Idaho, even offers passport services and it only has a population of 2,000. The courthouse does offer passport services, but not pictures, which have to be done elsewhere, preferably professionally. I tried to do them at home with some help from William and it was a complete failure. They are pretty picky about the measurements! Also, William had 3 checks that were just sitting around because there is no Bank of America anywhere in Wyoming. Of course, the one worth the most was handwritten, and the check-cashing services here won't cash handwritten checks. Lastly, the Prius needed an oil change. We could have had that done in town, but it would have been very overpriced. After making our way around town trying to print out pictures, get checks cashed, and complaining about how expensive an oil change would be, we just decided to head to IF.

"Scenic Idaho" as their license plates say. It has been SO smoky in this area lately from wildfires around the country. Some of the smoke is all the way from California because of some crazy wind patterns. I hope it goes away soon!

Even though that's not a good picture, it actually is a pretty scenic drive over to IF with lots of mountains and rolling hills. Much more interesting than an interstate! Luckily, the trip to IF was relatively short and successful. I feel a lot better now that we have those important things done, and that we got to eat Chick-fil-A! Sammie came along for the trip, and sadly, the employees at CFA didn't give Sammie a treat like they always have in South Carolina.

"Umm... Hello? Aren't you forgetting someone here?"

Speaking of Sammie, we did take her to a new area of the river to walk along yesterday. It was really nice! It is part of the South Park Wildlife Management Area. There is more to it, but by the time we had walked for a while, we were ready to go home. We might check out some other areas of it today. It is basically just an area owned by the government that protects waterfowl and other wildlife. There are some different trails and ponds and it runs between a creek and river.

Even though I wouldn't call Sammie a completely normal dog, she has conquered some of her fears in the past 2 years while living near the beach and mountains. One of the biggest things has been water! When I first got her, and for pretty much the whole time we lived in Columbia, she HATED the rain and jumped over puddles so she wouldn't have to step in them. She is still a little scared of big waves at the beach, but overall, she has really started to love water. When she sees a place that she can easily enter a river or creek on a walk, she goes for it.

A little freaked out that there were some rocks sticking out of the water...

"See? I'm a normal dog!"

The pink spot on my iPhone camera lens is a new development... I actually ordered a new one through Amazon (which is always shipped FedEx or UPS) and got a confirmation email saying it would be shipped USPS to my physical address. Obviously, because of the lack of postal service here, the lens is never coming. I will have to order a new one soon.

On a more exciting note, I found a program that is only offered in the western states called "Bountiful Baskets." I am probably more excited about this than anyone reading, but I thought it was amazing. It is a non-profit, volunteer-run organization that basically just rounds up a bunch of cheap produce and sells it to people. They negotiate with both farmers and grocery stores and get awesome deals on great produce. It isn't damaged or old or anything like that. Every week, you sign up for a basket ($15 for conventional, $25 for organic, plus some other random options like 10 loaves of homemade bread for $15) and then pick it up at the designated time and place. I got the $15 basket and was really impressed. After figuring the typical prices I would pay at the store, I think this would have been over $30. It filled up a pretty large box and had tons of stuff! Now the challenge will just be eating it.

That's all for now! I hope everyone has a great weekend.

Jackson

Huckleberry Picking on the Teton Pass

Aug 4, 2012

Today, we were planning on doing some type of hike along the Teton Pass, where we did Ski Lake. We were thinking about doing the "History Trail," which is supposed to be some old wagon road with some historic things along the trail. We kind of started doing it, but had forgotten the bear spray and started to get a little worried, so we decided to go on a different trail that seemed less wooded and had some more people on it. Once we were there, we noticed people standing a few feet off the trail and realized they were picking huckleberries! Huckleberries are kind of a big deal here in the summer. There are lots of cocktails featuring them, as well as syrups, jams, steak sauce, milkshakes and more. They are not commercially farmed at all- you have to go out and pick them! We decided to forget the hike and pick them, too. We ventured a little further up the trail and also off the trail.

Huckleberry bush along the trail... hard to spot if you aren't looking for it!

Huckleberries are pretty hard to find. I think we picked for at least an hour and produced about a cup and a half- maybe a little more. They are very small (some smaller than others) and sometimes one bush would only have 3-4 berries on it. A lot of the berries had been dried by the sun or picked by a bug. We ended up finding a few good spots with lots of berries, but it was a pretty time-consuming activity. I think if they were sold like regular berries, they would be very expensive... if it were me, I'd charge $50 or more a pound just for the labor! Apparently, one reason they aren't farmed like other fruits is because a huckleberry plant takes 10-15 years to mature enough to produce fruit.

Huckleberries

Since we had a good amount, I decided to make a cobbler with them. I did get a pint of blueberries to supplement the huckleberries just in case it wasn't enough. (We ended up having berries left over, of course.) Huckleberries are actually very similar to blueberries, but a lot smaller, so this substitution should work in any recipe.

Blueberry from the store vs. Wild huckleberry

The cobbler

The cobbler was pretty good! The berries were the best part. Of course, immediately after I ate a piece I started researching whether or not huckleberries could be poisonous... I didn't really find anything saying they would be. They are supposed to be extremely healthy, though, and actually lower your blood sugar, unlike other fruits. Apparently they are great for diabetics and have some other crazy health properties. I'm not really sure that baking them with butter, flour and sugar brings out the best in their health qualities, but it was a delicious way to eat them! I don't know how long huckleberry season lasts, but hopefully we will be able to do another picking session before it's over.

On another note, William and I did a free photography class at Teton Village the other day that was sponsored by Canon. They go around to a bunch of the different National Parks to do these free classes. It is amazing how much better the DSLR cameras are. It was also nice to learn about them before purchasing one. Canon had a good idea by sponsoring these free sessions... I think you will be seeing some much better pictures on the blog very soon!

Slide Lake and Phelps Lake

Smoke in the Valley

Idaho, Wildlife, and Produce

Huckleberry Picking on the Teton Pass

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