When we got to Pinedale, it was raining a bit, but starting to clear up some. Pinedale is one of those typical Wyoming one-street towns, where everything is on one main stretch, which is actually the highway that runs through it. There's nothing like a chain restaurant or anything...there's no McDonalds, or really any fast food at all. There's a grocery store, and a gas station, and a few hotels, but it's mostly mom-and-pop type places....family owned by people who have lived there for generations. Pinedale is pretty much the only thing between like....Rock Springs and Jackson. There are some TINY little places where you won't even find a grocery store, but nothing of any size. My ex came from a town in between there, and the population was under 300 and the bigger town next to them where he went to school was like...500 people. So Pinedale, with its 2000 people, is the "big" town in the area. It IS, however, in a beautful area, surrounded by mountains.
The sun was starting to come back out from behind the clouds as the storm cleared.
Forgive me, this will be text heavy, but requires a bit of background. This trip was a long time coming. We were planning to go last year, but then covid happened and there was no overseas travel, so we had to put it off. When flights resumed in November, I had to throw everything together in a short span relatively quickly. I had a list of the places we wanted to visit, but hadn't settled on where to go first, etc. My best friend lives in Denver, and I have friends and family all over in Wyoming who I wanted to see, naturally.
I have a cousin who, when he and his wife first married, got jobs in Montana. They are from Illinois, but they are very outdoorsy people, very active....hiking, mountain biking, skiing, river rafting. Montana/Wyoming was kind of their dream location. They were both teachers, so they both got jobs somewhere in Montana. Moving day arrived, the truck is in the driveway all packed up and ready to pull out when my aunt (his mom) pulled up and told him she didn't want him to go. So they unloaded the truck and gave up their jobs. The Montana school was NOT happy and told them they'd make sure they never got a teaching job anywhere in Montana, so not to try to come back later. They had kids and raised them, going to Wyoming quite often in Summer vacations to go hiking and camping and such. They visited us a couple of times on their way, and every year, their Christmas card was a picture from one of their trips. When they retired, they moved to Pinedale, which is the ONLY reason I included Pinedale as a stop on our trip. I had not seen this cousin since 1998 when one of my choirs was singing in Carnegie Hall and we stopped in Illinois on the drive to New York and visited the family.
In 2018, this cousin had a mountain biking accident in Jackson and broke his spine. He's lucky to have lived through it, but he is wheelchair bound now, and for a guy who was so active, it's been torture for him to not be independent and not be able to walk or move much. He lives in a care facility in Pinedale. He was diagnosed with cancer a couple of years ago, and it didn't bother him because he was depressed after the accident. He made a decision to stop treatment because he just didn't really care anymore. In February, I got a message from his niece, who I am pretty close with, saying that his cancer had spread, and the doctors were giving him 36-72 hours to live. I was upset because I had really been wanting to see him on our trip since it had been such a long time. It looked like he wouldn't make it that long. Then I heard nothing....radio silence for a week or 2. It turned out that the doctor had misdiagnosed him. He got some sort of infection and it skewed the blood tests. Every day they expected him not to wake up, but he'd be awake and lucid and just not showing the symptoms they thought he'd exhibit. They had given him antibiotics for something and then discovered that he was NOT going to die imminently. His brother (if you look at my 2019 Disney trip report, we met up with them in Epcot one day and had a dinner all together with his kids and grandkids. We also went to South Dakota together in 2016 with him, his wife, and his daughter and granddaughter) was devastated when he was told his brother was dying. They had wanted to head out immediately, but the care facility told him not to bother because covid restrictions would keep them from getting in, and he probably wouldn't make it in time anyway. Now they found out he was not going to die, they were angry with the doctors, but also really wanting to make a trip to see him. And since we were planning on being there this summer, we decided to coordinate so we could all be together at the same time.
When overseas travel opened back up, I was scrambling to get everything coordinated, and of course there were people whom I hadn't seen in a while and really wanted to make sure I saw them while we were there. My best friend was one, and these cousins were another. So I made I don't know HOW many itineraries with different routes and schedules...if we go to this place first and go this direction, or should we go the opposite direction, or should we go here first and do this other thing last? Should we spend a week in Laramie first to visit my brother, or save that for our way back? And how can we avoid all the crowds from National High School Finals Rodeo, Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, Cheyenne Frontier Days? Then when we went to book flights, the price decreased SOOOOO much if you went on Monday rather than Saturday. So then I had to redo all the itineraries again, now with a start date of July 11th instead of 9th. The kids' last day of school was July 8th. I couldn't book hotels until I knew which itinerary we were going to use, and I couldn't choose an itinerary until I knew what everyone else's plans were. My cousin's son is a teacher, and of course all the grandkids are school aged, so we had to take their summer vacation schedule into account....when do they have to be back home? And my best friend had some trips planned and wouldn't be home at certain times....so which itinerary worked for EVERYONE?
My husband, though he wasn't doing any of the planning, was getting frustrated that I hadn't booked things yet. I kept telling him I COULDN'T book yet because I didn't know what everyone's plans were, and he said just to let it go, it was OUR vacation and if it worked out to see them, it worked out, but not to take them into account and plan around them. Sometimes I think he forgets that I moved across an ocean to be with him, and while I'm content here and we have a good life, that doesn't mean that I didn't have to make sacrifices for it that he didn't have to make. He can drive 45 minutes to see his family whenever he wants to, and he doesn't really have a best friend that is like a brother. There's no one that he hasn't seen in decades if he wanted to see them. For me, this vacation wasn't just about seeing PLACES, it was also about seeing PEOPLE. I hadn't seen my best friend in 9 years. We talk all the time, but I haven't gotten to hug her or see her daughter since she came out to see me when I went home in 2013 because my dad wasn't doing well. I was alone on that trip, so she had never met my children, who call her auntie Shasta....she's family for all intents and purposes, and I hadn't seen her in almost a decade. I wasn't going to miss seeing her just so I could book hotels right away. And with the death scare for my cousin, I wanted to take this opportunity to visit him, and if his brother was going to come out there anyway, it would be a shame to miss them! I'm not sure I did a good job of explaining it to my husband, but I refused to back down....I was waiting on everyone else's schedules.
It all came together in the end, though my cousins' kids and grandkids were not able to make it. But my Cousin and his wife drove out from Tennessee. They moved there recently and are still getting their home in order, but made the drive out to visit while we were there. They got a room at the same hotel with us and we all went to dinner together. It looks like my cousin's wife has the picture from dinner. I know we took one before we left, but I don't have it, so it must be on their phones. I do have some horrible pictures of our food!
My daughter's Tortilla soup, which she fell in love with.
The cousins' wives both ordered the shrimp tacos.
I think this was my daughter's as well? It was a chicken pasta thing, and I think it was really good.
My Cousin's chicken fried steak
Wait....I think the chicken pasta thing was maybe mine and I shared with E because our stomachs were still on European time and not ready for a heavy meal at that point. So we shared a lot. The steak was my husband's, and he shared his fries with A, who wouldn't eat anything on the menu. My other cousin just got potato skins off the appetizer menu and made that his meal, but he was sitting at the end of the table and I couldn't get a picture.
The sun was starting to come back out from behind the clouds as the storm cleared.
Forgive me, this will be text heavy, but requires a bit of background. This trip was a long time coming. We were planning to go last year, but then covid happened and there was no overseas travel, so we had to put it off. When flights resumed in November, I had to throw everything together in a short span relatively quickly. I had a list of the places we wanted to visit, but hadn't settled on where to go first, etc. My best friend lives in Denver, and I have friends and family all over in Wyoming who I wanted to see, naturally.
I have a cousin who, when he and his wife first married, got jobs in Montana. They are from Illinois, but they are very outdoorsy people, very active....hiking, mountain biking, skiing, river rafting. Montana/Wyoming was kind of their dream location. They were both teachers, so they both got jobs somewhere in Montana. Moving day arrived, the truck is in the driveway all packed up and ready to pull out when my aunt (his mom) pulled up and told him she didn't want him to go. So they unloaded the truck and gave up their jobs. The Montana school was NOT happy and told them they'd make sure they never got a teaching job anywhere in Montana, so not to try to come back later. They had kids and raised them, going to Wyoming quite often in Summer vacations to go hiking and camping and such. They visited us a couple of times on their way, and every year, their Christmas card was a picture from one of their trips. When they retired, they moved to Pinedale, which is the ONLY reason I included Pinedale as a stop on our trip. I had not seen this cousin since 1998 when one of my choirs was singing in Carnegie Hall and we stopped in Illinois on the drive to New York and visited the family.
In 2018, this cousin had a mountain biking accident in Jackson and broke his spine. He's lucky to have lived through it, but he is wheelchair bound now, and for a guy who was so active, it's been torture for him to not be independent and not be able to walk or move much. He lives in a care facility in Pinedale. He was diagnosed with cancer a couple of years ago, and it didn't bother him because he was depressed after the accident. He made a decision to stop treatment because he just didn't really care anymore. In February, I got a message from his niece, who I am pretty close with, saying that his cancer had spread, and the doctors were giving him 36-72 hours to live. I was upset because I had really been wanting to see him on our trip since it had been such a long time. It looked like he wouldn't make it that long. Then I heard nothing....radio silence for a week or 2. It turned out that the doctor had misdiagnosed him. He got some sort of infection and it skewed the blood tests. Every day they expected him not to wake up, but he'd be awake and lucid and just not showing the symptoms they thought he'd exhibit. They had given him antibiotics for something and then discovered that he was NOT going to die imminently. His brother (if you look at my 2019 Disney trip report, we met up with them in Epcot one day and had a dinner all together with his kids and grandkids. We also went to South Dakota together in 2016 with him, his wife, and his daughter and granddaughter) was devastated when he was told his brother was dying. They had wanted to head out immediately, but the care facility told him not to bother because covid restrictions would keep them from getting in, and he probably wouldn't make it in time anyway. Now they found out he was not going to die, they were angry with the doctors, but also really wanting to make a trip to see him. And since we were planning on being there this summer, we decided to coordinate so we could all be together at the same time.
When overseas travel opened back up, I was scrambling to get everything coordinated, and of course there were people whom I hadn't seen in a while and really wanted to make sure I saw them while we were there. My best friend was one, and these cousins were another. So I made I don't know HOW many itineraries with different routes and schedules...if we go to this place first and go this direction, or should we go the opposite direction, or should we go here first and do this other thing last? Should we spend a week in Laramie first to visit my brother, or save that for our way back? And how can we avoid all the crowds from National High School Finals Rodeo, Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, Cheyenne Frontier Days? Then when we went to book flights, the price decreased SOOOOO much if you went on Monday rather than Saturday. So then I had to redo all the itineraries again, now with a start date of July 11th instead of 9th. The kids' last day of school was July 8th. I couldn't book hotels until I knew which itinerary we were going to use, and I couldn't choose an itinerary until I knew what everyone else's plans were. My cousin's son is a teacher, and of course all the grandkids are school aged, so we had to take their summer vacation schedule into account....when do they have to be back home? And my best friend had some trips planned and wouldn't be home at certain times....so which itinerary worked for EVERYONE?
My husband, though he wasn't doing any of the planning, was getting frustrated that I hadn't booked things yet. I kept telling him I COULDN'T book yet because I didn't know what everyone's plans were, and he said just to let it go, it was OUR vacation and if it worked out to see them, it worked out, but not to take them into account and plan around them. Sometimes I think he forgets that I moved across an ocean to be with him, and while I'm content here and we have a good life, that doesn't mean that I didn't have to make sacrifices for it that he didn't have to make. He can drive 45 minutes to see his family whenever he wants to, and he doesn't really have a best friend that is like a brother. There's no one that he hasn't seen in decades if he wanted to see them. For me, this vacation wasn't just about seeing PLACES, it was also about seeing PEOPLE. I hadn't seen my best friend in 9 years. We talk all the time, but I haven't gotten to hug her or see her daughter since she came out to see me when I went home in 2013 because my dad wasn't doing well. I was alone on that trip, so she had never met my children, who call her auntie Shasta....she's family for all intents and purposes, and I hadn't seen her in almost a decade. I wasn't going to miss seeing her just so I could book hotels right away. And with the death scare for my cousin, I wanted to take this opportunity to visit him, and if his brother was going to come out there anyway, it would be a shame to miss them! I'm not sure I did a good job of explaining it to my husband, but I refused to back down....I was waiting on everyone else's schedules.
It all came together in the end, though my cousins' kids and grandkids were not able to make it. But my Cousin and his wife drove out from Tennessee. They moved there recently and are still getting their home in order, but made the drive out to visit while we were there. They got a room at the same hotel with us and we all went to dinner together. It looks like my cousin's wife has the picture from dinner. I know we took one before we left, but I don't have it, so it must be on their phones. I do have some horrible pictures of our food!
My daughter's Tortilla soup, which she fell in love with.
The cousins' wives both ordered the shrimp tacos.
I think this was my daughter's as well? It was a chicken pasta thing, and I think it was really good.
My Cousin's chicken fried steak
Wait....I think the chicken pasta thing was maybe mine and I shared with E because our stomachs were still on European time and not ready for a heavy meal at that point. So we shared a lot. The steak was my husband's, and he shared his fries with A, who wouldn't eat anything on the menu. My other cousin just got potato skins off the appetizer menu and made that his meal, but he was sitting at the end of the table and I couldn't get a picture.
(it usually can’t be found in Switzerland either).
The pictures around the lake are stunning. I kind of want to hop in my car and drive 1,500 miles 
