Pat Gallagher's Blog

Before I start this installment, Fred was reading the last blog and told me it was boring! So what do I do? Lie! Not every day is exciting. Life can be boring! Anyway....

Day 7 is A bit cooler 80°, but sunny. We are enjoying our spacious accommodations with a REAL BATHROOM and LARGE SHOWER,  Kitchen, Living Room and Balcony. While enjoying all of this, we're starting to feel a little bit funny.  We are both experiencing altitude sickness because of the elevations. My problem, I was drinking seltzer not plain water, I was getting exploding headaches. No one told us that you're not supposed to drink anything carbonated. I found that after we got home!  A lot of help that info did me.

If you've never been to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, it's very much a cowboy town. There are no streets, there are no sidewalks, just like cowboy movies. Wooden planks like a boardwalk everywhere.  Lots of shops, lots of cool western stores and lots of people. Today we are doing white water rafting.....We get to the location of the outfitters, we don't need wetsuits, nice weather, we're good. It takes us a half an hour to get to our location by bus, We find our guide and head down to the boat. Now the boat is a large inflatable, it accommodates six people plus the guide. Fred and I have both been canoeing and kayaking, so we have the rhythm down. The people that are in the lead seats have never been canoeing or kayaking and don't have a clue, we realize this may be a problem. They don't want to switch seats, they want to be up front. OK! Our guide starts to give some instructions about life jackets, survival training, what happens when you fall out of the boat. Not if, when. Now mind you were already out in the water and someone asked our guide "how many people fall out in a day"?  he said "at least one or two people on each trip every day".  Yikes, now I'm scared. I didn't think we needed any survival training. 

Off we go eight miles of white water rafting on the Snake River. Our lead rowers hitting each other with their oars! We are doomed! The water temperature is 50 degrees, the sun is gone and I am seriously rethinking why we didn't get the wetsuit!  The guide proceeds to tell us about the many large rocks, gully's and holes we will be going over. Then SLAM, we hit the first one and our lead rowers almost fall out. They are arguing and NOW want to switch seats.... Tooooo late for that honey! SLAM AND DROP again. We are now totally soaked after 3 minutes. Only 1 hour and 57 minutes to til we hit land again.  We are rising and dropping every few minutes.  It is cold, scary, exciting, exhilarating and fun at the same time.  I have been whitewater rafting once before on the Delaware Water Gap in Pennsylvania.  There is NO comparison whatsoever. After 3 hours of whitewater rafting, we are freezing and exhausted, very grateful to see our exit point to land.  We depart the boat and get ready to find our bus, our guide tells us it is right up the hill.  They neglected to tell us it was 1 mile uphill through the woods.  I was ready to cry.  Everyone is crying and cursing at the same time.  We finally get to the top and the bus driver said "the bathrooms (a portable potty) are over there if you wanted to get out of our wet clothes.  We look and it is half a mile away from the bus.  Hell No! Everyone got on the bus soaking wet and cold.  We arrive back at the outfitters frozen and hungry. the Last picture of this Blog is me after the whole White Water Raft Trip....

We are too traumatized to make a decision about dinner so we repeat last nights fabulous meal at the Gun Barrell.  

We fall into bed in our fabulous room and I dream of our horseback riding adventure in the Tetons.  No Art Today!

So we wake up yet again in another state. Day 6 of Fred's Western Adventure. Today we explore the city of Soda Springs, Idaho. Do you know that Idaho is not just famous for potatoes but for gems? It is really known as the Gem State, not the potato state. India and Idaho produce the highest amounts on Star Garnets in the world. Just another fun fact to tuck away in that warehouse of useless information. As our adventure continues, today we will learn about geysers. Idaho Springs is famous for the hot springs in and around the area. As we're waiting for the hourly geyser to erupt, we had a great breakfast, one of the best so far on the trip. After breakfast, we head on over to the Geyser and wait! Every hour on the hour, we are told, the geyser erupts. So we wait and precisely at 10 o'clock The Soda Spring geyser erupts. What a sight to behold! Not sure how they get it to erupt every hour on the hour, 24 hours a day, but we enjoyed it. We then toured the Soda Springs museum, found Soda Springs Historic Hotel/ B&B, which we did not find in any tour book, travel site, internet or AAA travel guide. That’s why we got to stay in another Norman Bates hotel, the previous night!

We are having a leisurely day today because we were heading north to the Grand Tetons and a real hotel/Lodge in Jackson Hole Wyoming. My excitement is building as I dream not of the Grand Tetons but a REAL bed in a real Lodge, in a real town, with normal people, and we are staying in one place for 3 whole nights! Heaven......
We drive through the Grand Tetons first, check into our Lodge and then head back to the city of Jackson Hole. We spend the afternoon there go back to the lodge shower in a real shower not a midget shower and relax looking out over the Grand Tetons what a gorgeous site. We dress for dinner and find a steakhouse to satisfy Fred's desire for a big steak. We find a restaurant called the gun barrel. Dinner was great restaurant was cool, food was fabulous. Yum Yum Yum. We have a big day planned tomorrow, checking out fly fishing, going on a whitewater raft adventure, and then Monday going horseback riding in the Grand Tetons along the snake river.  No Art Today!

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