teton country.

we arrived in jackson, wyoming three days ago, after what felt like a million hour long drive. in reality, it took six & a half hours. sure, that's not THAT long a drive but the first four hours of it nearly bored me to tears. it was field after field with a town or two peppered in. then there were factories & farms & closed down gas stations. until finally we started to see mountains in the distance. that piqued our interest. then the mountains were on top of us. we were driving through them, around them, a roaring river snaking alongside us for company. & next thing we knew we were pulling into jackson.

upon arrival we made our way to a local brewery. we deserved a cold one after that drive. & we hadn't had or heard of any wyoming beer, so, we had to check it out, you know? & we're glad we did because the bartender pointed us to a campground just twenty minutes from the brewery.

we weren't sure we'd be able to find a spot in the campground because it was getting close to 8 o'clock but we decided to give it a shot, agreeing that we'd find a stealth parking spot in town if we weren't successful [ peeing on the side of the road isn't ideal BUT if i have to, i have to ].

as we pulled onto the main road to the campground our breath was taken from us. the snow capped mountains, the big sky. & there was a bison grazing in the field. our first bison.

we stopped at the site check in &, as we did, realized that we were too late. check in was closed & the only way to pay for a site was with cash. & we didn't have cash. but then a ranger approached. i explained our situation & he said that we could take a site & pay by credit card on the way out! [ thank you mr. ranger, sir ], so that's what we did.

we'd camped a couple of nights over the trip so are old hands at pitching the tent - we had it up, had gathered dead wood for a campfire & had the coleman out within minutes. i chopped the veggies & set up the bed while luke cooked. we had black bean tacos [ not sure if i told you but we're eating mainly vegan after watching 'what the health' on netflix ], drank a crowler of beer we were gifted a few days ago & sat in front of the fire until we were so tired our eyes started to get heavy. we then crawled into the tent & watched a movie we'd downloaded from netflix. ah, 2017.

luke slept fairly well but i froze my butt off. jogging pants & a sweatshirt don't cut it up here at 6,237 feet.

that next morning we were off to explore grand teton national park. we hiked to a mountain lake which we waded out into [ we walked juuuust in front of a couple so we weren't alone with the bears. & when they were out of sight i sang 'the hills are aliiiiiive with the sound of muuuusiiiic'... & luke banged his stick on something ], did the highlight drive [ popping out of the car every five minutes or so because EVERYTHING was worth a look ], ate lunch alfresco [ a sandwich standing next to the van ], & we found ourselves a campsite [ the last campsite in the park. it was late afternoon by the time we found it & it was one of only three sites left in the campground. we were so relieved - our other option was to drive back down through the park to Jackson & hope there was room in the campground we'd stayed in the night before ].

this campsite had a fire ring, fresh water, SHOWERS [ we hadn't showered in three days by this point ], a bear box [ which meant we could store our food there & sleep in the van ], a couple of torontonians [ i know, it's a pro & a con, really ] & we were given a fresh baked chocolate chip cookie when we arrived.

we cooked burgers for dinner, sat by the fire, sipped cocktails [ bourbon, gingerbeer & lime ], made friends with the torontonians [ he showed up again later that evening - with stolen wood - once she had gone to bed ], watched part of a documentary [ chasing coral ] & were asleep by midnight.

follow our journey at www.instagram.com/openheartsopenroad