Before we dive head first into the new adventures of Dani and Jill head West, I want to take this time to clear up a few naming discrepancies that we ran into during our travels.
Jackson vs. Jackson Hole: Jackson, Wyoming is the town located outside of the south entrance to Grand Teton National Park. Jackson Hole is the name for the entire valley in which Grand Teton, Jackson, Teton Village (the famed skiing village), and all surrounding areas are located. Its name originates from the fact that it’s a flat valley floor completely surrounded by mountains.
Buffalo vs. Bison: “Bison” is the scientific word for what’s considered the “American Buffalo”. While many use them both (including me!), the buffalo we see here in North America is actually bison. We can thank the Lewis and Clark expedition for this confusion, who saw bison for the first time and thought they looked similar to the Water or Cape Buffalo that is prevalent in Asia, Africa, and Southern Europe. But for all intents and purposes, I will be using them interchangeably here!
Onto the adventures! While Jackson Hole has the only commercial airport located within a national park, we opted to fly into Salt Lake City. After a 2 hour delay of sitting on the tarmac (and watching the greatest Pixar movie ever made for probably the 100th time WALL-E), we finally made it out west and in our SLC hotel room by midnight MDT.
The next day we were up bright and early filled with excitement to get to Jackson, WY and into the park. But first, the airport rental car pickup. It felt like it took hours to decide on which standard SUV would be the ‘right’ one for this trip, even though there were only 4 available because of the rental car shortage right now – we landed on a white GMC Terrain, which has turned out to be a fantastic road-tripping car!
Because we flew this year instead of driving cross-country, we had a list of essentials we couldn’t (or didn’t want to) fly with, so technically our first stop on our adventure was none other than Walmart! Then, we were truly off. As we traveled up HWY 89, we drove through Logan Canyon, following the Logan River through the Cache National Forest, on our way to our first ‘official’ stop – Bear Lake in Garden City.
After all of my research, this seemed like a great first stop – to try La Beau’s ‘famous raspberry shake.’ And let me tell you, it was delicious! You could taste the freshness of the berries, and the shake was creamy and silky smooth – 10/10 recommend if you ever find yourself in Garden City, UT. Bear Lake was a beautiful view to take in while enjoying it, too.
Our next stop was to visit the Fossil Butte National Monument. It was only about an hour detour, so we thought why not? While it did have some interesting fossil exhibits in the visitor center, that was about the only thing it had going for it. We pulled off on the ‘scenic’ drive to have a quick lunch, and then we were back on the road.
After a quick detour to Auburn, WY (we had to do it for the name!!), the Snake River came into view and we followed the winding waters into Jackson.
Had to visit Auburn! 
The road goes through Idaho for about 2 minutes, so we had to take a picture 
While the city has that ‘small town appeal’, it was bustling! The streets were filled with eager vacationers all trying to find a bite to eat, the perfect souvenir, and the quintessential Elk antler arch photo. We decided to try out Liberty Burger, and it did not disappoint!
The view from dinner 
The view of dinner 
Downtown Jackson 
They have these Elk antler arches at each of the four entrances to this park downtown
We headed back to our hotel – The Wyoming Inn – for the next two nights to rest up before the real adventure began. The hotel definitely had that grandiose western feeling to the lobby, and the best part, we picked up another traveler – Buffy the Bison (who you’ll see in later photos)!
MILES DRIVEN: 333
BUFFALO SEEN: 1 stuffed animal (Buffy!)
