ID this location!

[Pilgrim]

So, let's see who can ID the location of this shot from seeing the photo.  If you've been there, it should be easy.

Once someone gets it, I'll tell the story.

[the mojo hobo]

Jackson Wyoming, Million Dollar Cowboy Bar



No, I haven't been there.

[Pilgrim]

Dang, that didn't take long.

For those of you short on western US history, the bar is in Jackson Wyoming, the site of Jackson's Hole where the mountain men used to over-winter in the Rocky Mountains back in the mid-1800's.

Today it's a big tourist town and an entry point to the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone national parks.

The bar is the west side of the town square, which is notable for having an arch made of deer antlers over each of the four entrances to the square - on the corners.  



The bar is a huge tourist attraction, and it's not unusual to find a row of 20 Harleys parked in front of it on any weekend evening during the summer.  Most of them are ridden by lawyers and professionals who take a long weekend to wear leather and look manly.  

On the south side of the square is a photographer's studio which does "old time" photos, meaning you dress up in costumes from the Old West and they take a photo of the person or group.  We have photos of our family over about a 15-year period, taking one each time we drove through Jackson on our way to eastern Washington.  It's just an 1100 mile drive from here to there.

On one trip, my youngest daughter found one of those odd things that we do best in the US....like the legendary Jackalope. In this case, it was a stuffed squirrel standing at attention, holding a rifle and wearing an orange vest (safe hunting practice, y'know).  It was in some wacky curio/tourist shop, I dunno which one.  But she did.

Yes, I know, this is a Very Odd Thing.  But it got her attention and tickled her funny bone, so she took a photo of it and that photo has been the home screen on her cell phone for the past 5 years.

Well, this summer she decided that she just HAD to have that squirrel, or one just like it.  So she borrowed our Nissan Murano, and she and a friend left on Friday evening to drive to Jackson on a squirrel hunt. It's about 450 miles one way...just a weekend drive in the western US.

They arrived in the wee hours Saturday AM, slept in the Murano, found and bought ($100!!) a squirrel on Saturday AM, then kicked around town.  They got the Cowboy Bar photo Saturday night and slept in the Murano again, then drove back on Sunday, arriving late afternoon.  Elapsed time, about 44 hours; elapsed mileage, 900 miles.

So, my daughter is a little nuts, but she's a really nice kid with a 3.5 GPA in college while taking classes in organic chemistry and physiology.  I'm gonna claim her....and maybe even the squirrel.

And....here's her photo.  For reasons known only to her, she has named it Mitch Edgington.

[Freuds_Cat]

very nice story Al. I can relate to those distances and worryingly the reasons for travelling them 

[Highlander]

(mumblings from the UK)

[uwe]

Tell me that that squirrel is not giving furlatio to another mammal several times its size?!!!

Darn foreskin nibblers. I prefer'em with guns.

[Highlander]

(sometimes, you worry me, Herr Hornung... )