10th May:

First of all I must right a wrong! When I wrote the blog yesterday I was very tired and although I make copious notes throughout the day so that I remember what I want to put in the blog, I forgot to mention two lovely people we met at breakfast yesterday at Daily Bread.

Matthew and Marianne were sat next to us and of course we got chatting, as you do, and they told us they had recently come back from a lovely holiday in Scotland! I was embarrassed to tell them that although we had travelled all over the U.S. we had never visited Scotland. We must put that right in the very near future.

Matthew, although not used to driving on the left-hand side of the road was okay and didn’t really find the roundabouts too difficult.

Today is a driving day to the Grand Tetons in Wyoming. Approximately 485 miles and should take us about eight hours.The day started dry but it’s raining now and is much cooler than the warm days we’ve been experiencing.

We have stayed in a lot of hotels over the years but the Grand Hyatt Denver has to be one of the best we’ve stayed in, apart from the Bellagio in Vegas of course. The suite was lovely and the shower was something else. I could have stayed in there all day. The towels were huge and fluffy, and were taller than Si and he’s 6ft tall!

We took an Uber to the Hertz Car Hire and were surprised to see how many Teslas they had for rental. Apparently they are very popular.

A couple of days ago I was checking out our rental on-line and I noticed that the one-way drop off fee had increased by $250 to $700! We spoke to a very nice young lady called Audrey who said she had never seen one that high before. Luckily, I had taken all the Hertz paperwork with me so she could see what the original quote was. She agreed that we shouldn’t have to pay more than was quoted and set about taking the extra cost off the bill. Even after she had done that the final bill was still $200 more than we were expecting. She eventually discovered the reason, it was the Colorado State tax, it was a whooping $212. 😱When you book a hire car it always says local taxes will be added and charged locally so we were expecting that but never in all our years of coming to the U.S. have we been charged a State tax that high. We’ll certainly think twice about hiring a car in Colorado in the future.

Audrey said Colorado will tax you for just about everything!

We ordered a GMC Yukon or similar and have been given a Chevrolet Tahoe which we are quite happy with. It seats seven so we have plenty of room for us and our luggage.

I have a Chevrolet Tahoe story to tell! Dot and Nat, if you are reading this you will probably remember what I’m about to say!

We were in the U.S. to see one of the Twilight movies with some of our Twilight friends so had hired a car to accommodate all of us. When I opened the door to get out I didn’t realise how high off the ground it was and promptly fell out instead!! 😂Si reminds me of this every time we hire a large SUV, as he did today. To get in the car I have to climb on the running board and then heave myself in by means of an appropriately placed grab handle. Hey ho, the perils of being vertically challenged!!! 🤷‍♀️

I’ve started writing the blog as we travel along to Jackson as I hope to make a start on our special Rocky Mountaineer post when we finally arrive at Dornan’s. The only problem is, I get rather car sick so fingers crossed that won’t hold me back!! 🤮

This was an interesting sign …. Stinker!:

Stinker!

The journey passed fairly quickly and we had sun and blue skies most of the way apart from one area where the clouds had descended so low it was like fog and we had to drive very slowly with our hazard lights on. 🌫️

It was only when we were about 40 miles from the Grand Tetons (Jackson) that we met rather a lot of snow and ended up driving through a snow storm! ❄️The temperature dropped very rapidly to 36ºF.

This video was just after the snow storm so the windscreen’s not good and it’s a little shaky!

By the time we arrived in the Tetons a lot of snow on the fields etc had disappeared but there’s still lots of snow on the Teton range. The temperature was up to 56 F.

Welcome to the Tetons!

We were surprised how quiet the roads were. We drove most of the way with just us and no-one else. As we were driving from Denver we came in a different way to the Tetons and drove on roads completely new to us so it made a change to see different scenery.

We saw lots of cows and some Pronghorns. As we entered the Tetons we saw two large elk at the side of the road who looked at us rather suspiciously and decided not to cross the road in front of us and ran off into the fields.

We arrived rather weary, again, and whilst we were checking in we both had the weird sensation of feeling very giddy. It felt as though the cabin was moving. I think it must have had something to do with all the hours we had spent in the car. Very strange!

Our cabin, Osprey, still has some snow! ❄️

Our cabin, Osprey, still with snow!

After checking in went to the store to purchase all the necessaries and then a quick dinner at the on-site restaurant. Si had beef and shrimp Gumbo while I just had tomato and basil soup. It was all rather tasty after a long drive and nothing much to eat!

Si and his Gumbo!

Sand, her soup and a Tetons Lemonade!

It will be early to bed tonight so that we are fit and raring to go for our first full day here in the Tetons.

See you tomorrow!