Jackson Hole Rodeo and a trip to Idaho

11.06. / Saturday / Teton-Jackson

At 10:00 am we left our apartment and drove to Teton Village to drop off our key at the property management office. Teton Village is a complete eyesore when seen from the road, but once you're in the village, it's actually quite nice. The idea of having deep snow here is really beautiful. There are extremely upscale houses on the slope and a few smaller shops where we can wander around before continuing our drive. The weather today has decided to be a bit warmer. We have 58°F (14°C) at 10:00 am and, except for a morning shower, it stays dry.

We drive over the Teton Pass, which is 8,200 feet (2,500 meters) high, to Idaho due to the good weather, hoping to get a potato dish for lunch there. Idaho is famous for its potatoes. However, the towns we pass through are too small to have restaurants, and it's Saturday, so we can't even get a coffee. Our route takes us along the Snake River through the mountains. It is partially dammed up as a lake, but it is almost dry, which surprises us because the melting snow causes visible flooding in many places. We have seen this not only in Yellowstone, but constantly along our route. Unfortunately, there are no usable access points to the lake where we could sit down. Either there are boat ramps or campsites. They don't have pubs/restaurants/cafés by the water here. So we drive back to Jackson in a loop and check into the Cache Creek Motel.

In our travel planning, we wanted to stay in Jackson Hole today because there is a rodeo in the evening and we thought it might be within walking distance, and also because the apartment seemed too far away. However, when we now move into the worst room of our trip, we agree that it would have been much better to stay one more night in the apartment and have a 25-minute drive instead of staying here.

The room we reserved from Germany was one of the few affordable options in Jackson, but at $129, it was one of the most expensive hotels for our trip. We certainly would have gotten a better and cheaper room on-site, but we would have had to cancel 2 days in advance. Even though we looked at the hotel from the outside a few days ago, it was not clear that we would be staying in a room in the basement at the back of the building, which has windows but they lead to a wall and the parking lot behind it at a height of about 2 meters.

'View' from the hotel window of Cache Creek Motel/Jackson (Wyoming)

So we look out the window under a pick-up truck that is parked there. A real basement. Since all the other rooms in the hotel that are on the first or second floor are suites and much more expensive, we can only get upset without any chance of success.

We grab our backpacks and walk to Town Square, where we sit on a bench for 2 hours and read.

At 6:00 pm, there is a shoot-out at an adjacent intersection, similar to Deadwood.

Spectator with a unique hairstyle

Then we walk back to our basement room, put on everything we have, roll up to the car, and drive to the rodeo. The arena is smaller than in Cody, but the program is pretty much the same, including the American flag on horseback, the national anthem with standing up and praying.

What's funny here is that in addition to the rodeo riding for adults on bulls and horses, there is also (small) children's rodeo, called mutton busting, which can be roughly translated as riding on a sheep or lamb.

Mutton busting

Children under 7 years old can participate, and the procedure is the same as for the adults. Some children are really small, and the dads run alongside the sheep, holding their kids up, but often they themselves fall into the dirt before the child follows. Otherwise, there is bull riding, rope-up, and barrel riding by the queens. Some children who also compete on horses here are really small and ride like champions.

The event lasts until 10:00 pm, and we are grateful for every layer of fleece, every jacket, and thick socks as we leave. Rodeo is just awesome: www.pbr.com is the website of the Bull Riders.

We drive back to the hotel. Instead of dinner, we divide a can of beer equally into plastic cups so that we can sleep in our basement stuffy room.