#epicroadtrip Day 6

Day 6: Real long drive from Pine, CO to Star Valley Ranch, WY

On our way out of Colorado we stopped in Bolder to visit Steinke's cousin Adam and his awesome wife Denise and their precious baby Owen. We had donuts and coffee at their place and just chatted, it was so nice. Then off to Fort Collins to hit up this brewery we had wanted to go to. Steinke and I both got a flight, soooo nomzzzz. Then on the road again! This drive was quite long, we were kind of loosing our minds. We also saw like a million billboards for "Little America." It seemed like a gas station or rest stop or something and we needed gas/ needed to stop and walk around so we thought, what the heck why not. It was the weirdest rest stop/town/place I've ever been to. Welcome to Wyoming, I guess. Anyways, we people watched, got 75 cent ice cream, took a pic with a huge plastic dinosaur, and headed on our way. We made it to Star Valley Wyoming by about 8ish. Here we stayed with Mary Vandel Young, my teacher from this past year as a fellow, her parents. THEY WERE SO AMAZING!!!! Judy and Jim are for real the bomb! We had kinda snacked/skipped dinner and so Judy fed us and her and Jim helped us plan our two days in the National Parks. Gosh, we had the best time with them. Plus they had ice cream bars for us. What. It's like they knew our greatest love and they had never even met us. Anyways, so we got there that night and the next morning we were up early and headed to the Grand Tetons National Park to hike and explore. We decided to hike Amphitheater Lake which ended up being the most absurd hike I have ever done. It was a total of 10 miles and crazy crazy quick elevation climb. Oh and the last half mile was for real snow capped mountains. As in there were zero trails because it was covered in 6-8 feet of snow, so all you could see was random foot print tracks up the mountain. We considered turning around, but we had made it so dang far. So we hiked, crawled, whined, laughed, wanted to cry, and trudged along. After what felt like hours, we finally made it to the first lake: Surprise Lake which was breath-taking. Honestly, such a neat thing to be able to see, but man was it freezing up there at the top of the freakin Grand Teton mountain. Yep, that's right. We later figured out we hiked up a trail of the "Grand Teton." Like there is South Teton and Middle Teton and somehow we managed to choose this absurd hike up to Surprise Lake. Anyways, we stayed there for a bit and then made the trek back down. We were cut up, frozen, wet, hungry, sweaty, half delusional, but alive!! After the death hike we drove to Jenny Lake which was just beautiful and dipping our feet in that cold lake was just what I needed to feel refreshed. We then ventured up to Coltar Bay and Leets Marina. We stopped at this little pizza place at Leets Marina and went ham on some pizza. Gosh, there isn't much better than good food after a long hike. Next on the list was Jackson Hole for a stop at a brewery and to walk around. It was getting pretty late and we had an hour or so drive back to the ranch so we headed on.