Jackson Hole

Jackson Hole, certainly isn’t what I expected it to be, in a good way, and a bad. This is indeed the greatest tourist town I have ever seen. You know you’re in a tourist town when a misplaced Ripley’s Believe it or Not museum is off the main street. Still this doesn’t spoil the feel of Jackson. It’s got this Wild West façade thing working for it. You can’t help but love it. It’s almost like you’re in a theme park. All the buildings have that classic Wild West Saloon architecture, and even the sidewalks are made of wood to add to the authenticity.

At first I thought wow! Everyone here sure is dressed nice. No slummy looking cheap people walking around, with the exception of myself. Still as I walked about the town I couldn’t help but notice the abundance of various real-estate companies an fancy stores fronts. Then the real kicker came when I saw the Sotheby’s International! Yes, this town is indeed on par with Aspen Colorado. I was bumping elbows with the rich, and they didn’t seem to like bumping elbows with me.

After a few hours of just aimlessly meandering around I found my fabled Anvil hotel and youth hostel. I was a bit skeptical about this whole hostel thing, I had only heard about them in Europe and up until a short time ago didn’t know they existed here in the States. Still it seemed nice enough and was off the main drag.  

As I tried to book a bunk for the night, I found the man at the front desk to be rather rude. I’m thinking he doesn’t much like the hostel types. I tried to ask him a few things about the town, but he wanted no part of my conversation. He even interrupted my check in process when two people came in after me and he gave me the look that he had to deal with his, “real customers.”

The hostel itself isn’t in the hotel part, it was in the basement. It seemed like the owner of the hotel figured the basement wasn’t doing any good, so why not make a few bucks by tossing a couple bunk beds down there. The man at the front gave me my assigned bunk number 13 (a bad omen) the rundown of the rules and a code to unlock the basement door around the corner. I found the hostile to be a lot nicer then I had imagined, but then again I have nothing to compare it to. From what I understand its also a steal at $25 to sleep there when compared to the outrageous prices the local hotels and motels charge for a night.

When I entered the sleeping quarters I was a bit daunted by the maze of bunks set up. They weren’t set up in strait row fashion, instead they twisted and turned around corners creating little alcoves. I found my bunk all the way in the back corner, and noticed from items laid out on beds near mine, that I would be sleeping next to two other individuals. I looked inside the foot locker at the side of my bed and pulled out the sheets in order to get myself situated for the night, they don’t make your bed for you in hostels. With all that accomplished I decided to step out and look for something cheap to eat.

I only had to walk a few blocks from where I was till I came across a tiny burger joint tucked off to the side in a rather posh restaurant. It was Billy’s Giant Burgers, don’t let the cramped quarters of the inside fool you. They had some bigg-ass burgers. When I entered the place you had to slide around the outside of the tight counter in order to make your way to one of the stools that surrounded it. I was caught off guard by the rather eccentric and very outgoing cook/waiter, who happened to resemble a young David Ledderman. He screamed out at me in a rather effeminate tone, before I could even take a seat at the messy counter, “H-A-A-A-A-A-Y” and then assaulted my sense’s with a barrage of questions and asking me to do strange things. “I KNOW WHAT YOU WANT, A GIANT CHEASEBURGER WITH MAYONAISE LETTICE TOMATO AND A PICLE!” I felt so on the spot with him yelling this at me in front of the crowd of people gathered around the counter that I responded with “ah yeah sure…..?” To which he fired back with a “YOU GOT TO GIVE ME SOME AIR GUITAR BEFORE I CAN SERVE YOU, A-Y-EAH!” I was confused what the hell was he asking me to do and why? He must have seen my befuddled look on my face so he quickly responded with “YOU KNOW MAN, SOME AIR GUITAR!” To which he raised his right hand high in the air and brought it down as if to strike a mighty power cord, letting out a “ A-Y-EAH!”  I was completely perplexed and I had no idea what I had gotten myself into. I blushed and tried to brush the foolish action aside, as I attempted to sit down. This guy meant business though, “YA GOT TO GIVE ME SOME GUITAR MAN, OR YOU CAN’T SIT AT MY COUNTER!”  So what the hell, when in Rome. I got up and brought forth a rather pathetic air guitar, not worthy of the guitar Gods, and promptly sat down on the stool. My attempt was good enough to appease the main man himself and he screamed out yet again “YEAHHHH!”

He then leaned over the counter and asked me in a rather light manner, “what can I get you to drink? You want a beer, I can tell, we only got two kinds of beers here, lagers and ale.” Ah if only I still drank, but no, I asked for a coke. He didn’t take well to this and yelled out “A CHOKE…..A CHOKE…DON’T YOU KNOW HOW BAD THAT IS FOR YOU, WELL YOU DON’T GET ANY ICE WITH THAT!” He then pointed to a list of rules that had been hand written on a piece of paper and taped to the wall. The list of rules were quite extensive and amounted to more then 45. I would have taken a picture of the list of rules, but there was a rule prohibiting picture taking. Now I’m sure they were all in good fun, but I didn’t want to bring anymore attention to myself.

I sat at there politely waiting for my food, and watched as the waiter ran around the bar counter shouting at people in his strange manner. He then directed any questions about his methods to the list of rules posted. Some people understood this humor, but more seemed intimidated and upset by it. I personally found it to be quite entertaining and stayed to watch him well after I finished my burger. The burger itself, was probably the best I have ever had!

After my meal I returned back to the hostel to settle in for the night. When I entered I found two people sitting in the main common area watching TV. It was a rather old woman in her late 60’s and young man probably in his late 20’s. They were having a rather odd conversation about football. I ease dropped for a wile but was cautious about adding my 2 cents since my capacity for football knowledge is very limited at best.

I waited for the right moment to interject and ask if there were natives to the Jackson. The younger man told me that he was indeed and that he was a cook by trade, but living in Jackson is costly. He was on his way out of town looking for new job in Montana, and told me that Jackson was once a great town but now it had become to (I can’t spell this) “boo-swa” and there were to many politics in town with everyone try to claw there way into the Jackson high society. The old woman didn’t have any thing to say other then she wanted to know if I wanted to move there. The thought had crossed my mind, the gentleman informed me that working in Jackson was seasonal and not a place you want to be unless you got millions.