Road Trip ‘21: Part 1
Salt Lake City
& Jackson Hole
Day 1
Salt Lake City
It was a cool summer morning in Jersey City. Darshan and Vatsal came to pick up Josh and I bright and early, thanks to Darshan’s family friend. There wasn’t too much traffic to JFK and soon enough we were on the 8:25AM plane to Utah.
Saugan met us there. He arrived a little earlier from Virginia so he went to pick up our huge GMC. We took a little pit stop to Taqueria 27 Downtown (awesome tacos!!) where I found out that Josh had never eaten churros before. How??? How is that even possible?!
Once I recovered from my disbelief, we did some grocery shopping at Walmart. Most stores aren’t open on Sundays, including camera stores which I was counting on for some film for the trip… I mistakenly waited to purchase some once we arrived to bypass need to ask TSA to hand check my film.
Instead I had to buy a singular disposable camera to hold me over until the next day when the camera stores would open. Mistake #2 was assuming film would be cheaper here than NYC. Oh how wrong I was…
After our successful Walmart trip, we headed 1 hour and 30 minutes towards the Bonneville Salt Flats. There was not much to see on the way, mostly plains and other trucks.
Darshan, who was sitting in the passenger seat, tried to empty his cup of water by throwing it out the window… but we were going so fast that the water went from his window into ours in the back and splashed us!
It was the first of many great sights on this trip. To be honest, I had no idea where salt came from lol.
This was probably the only bar open that Sunday night… We stopped by one more place before heading to our Airbnb which was 30 minutes away. I guess we wanted to get there before dark, cause we left halfway through their music trivia night (Methinks we actually had a shot at winning)
Day 2
Salt Lake City → Grand Tetons
We woke up refreshed (at least I did) and ready to start our day! After packing up a night’s worth of mess, we headed back to Salt Lake City for some breakfast and quick errands before the first leg of road tripping.
Our breakfast was at this cute cafe called Cafe Niche. Great food & even better service.
Saugan and I took a trip to Essential Photo Supply, where I finally got my type of groceries — 10 rolls of Fuji Superia 400. Saugan picked up a nice Canon lens. This was one of those stores I wish we had more of in Jersey. We met up with the rest of them at Trader Joes where, unbeknownst to me, I’d be picking the snacks that I’d eat as meals for the next four days…
Ah yes, the first leg of the road trip. It took us approximately 5 hours to get to the Super 6 in Jackson Hole, Wyoming – we made a few pit stops on the way.
One such pit stop was Shumway Farms, the cutest farm that made fresh ice cream! Delicious treats, yet such suspicious advertising… We had no idea this place existed until we passed a small picket sign on the road that told us ice cream was only a couple miles away… obviously extremely enticing. The short detour was well worth it!
Salt Lake City to Jackson Hole
Jackson Hole
I wish we spent more time in the town itself! It was actually super crowded this day; appeared to be a lot of families and hikers. After checking into the Super 6, we headed straight to the Tetons to grab dinner at one of the famous restaurants in the area with an incredible view.
Honestly nothing could have prepared me for the magnitude of those mountains. Definitely aptly named.
The Grand Tetons
Dornan’s Pizza Pasta Company – Hard to find seating inside since it was so busy, but thankfully it was hot enough on the roof that nobody except us wanted to get sunburnt!
Mormon Row
After dinner, we drove to Mormon Row (only 30 minutes away) to visit these huge historic buildings. Thankfully we were able to make it just a little bit before sunset. Amazing to think that the people who lived here had such an unobstructed view of the mountain range!
We took one last stop to Jackson Hole for some souvenirs and to take pictures with the grand Elk Antler Arch. Then it was back to Super 6 for a snooze before our big hike the next day. Jackson Hole, you will be missed!