Jackson Hole

On Friday afternoon after school got out, SJ, Joe, Ruthie and I drove to Jackson, Wyoming. It took about 9 hours between the rush hour traffic we hit coming out of Denver and the out of nowhere squall we drove through in Wyoming about 3 hours into the drive. All of the sudden snow was blowing directly at us and we couldn't see anything. Ruthie was driving though, and she got us through it. We also got pulled over for speeding by a Wyoming cop who was the nicest cop I've ever encountered and let SJ get away with a warning.
We got to Jackson at 2:30 in the morning and went to Ruthie's brother's house where we slept on couches and the floor. In the morning I walked outside to a freezing but beautiful morning. The mountains out there are absolutely breath taking. We met up with Ruthie's brother and got to the mountain around 10am. It was Ruthie and my first time skiing, so Oliver (Ruthie's brother) agreed to hang out with us and teach us while Joe went out by himself for the first part of the day. We got our rentals for free (well, for a pizza and beer for the rental guys) and our lift tickets for half off, because Ollie works at the mountain and knows everyone there. I was told that this is the ski mountain of all ski mountains in the U.S. and that if I could ski this mountain I could ski anything. That didn't make me feel too confident. Once we got all outfitted, Ollie took us to the lift line. I thought we would take baby steps and do some lift-less bunny hill, but no. Skiing was a lot easier than I thought it would be though, and I made it down the trail without falling, and it was fun! Throughout the day I probably went down 8 times, and had a blast. Joe and Ollie went off to bigger and better trails, while Ruthie and I perfected the lowest trail. At the end of the day, all four of us went up to the very top of the mountain in a tram that held 100 people. My ears were popping the whole way up (about 10,000 feet in addition to the 7,000 or so we were already at). Ollie convinced Ruthie to ski back down, but I knew it wasn't a good idea for my "level" and took the tram back down. It turned out to be a good thing, because Ruthie ended up coming down in a sled after she was too slow coming down, according to the ski patrol. I was proud of her for trying though, I was way too scared.On Saturday night we went to a local hockey game where people get really drunk and roudy. The Jackson Moose beat whoever they were playing 8-3.
On Sunday we drove around Grand Teton National Park and saw the Elk Refuge, which was really cool. We also ate at Bubba's Barbecue for breakfast, which was pretty tasty. We made it back to Denver in about 9 hours again, because we hit the worst fog I have ever seen (again while Ruthie was driving), but we persevered once again. We also saw a moose on the way home, which was one of my life goals! It was awesome. I am really glad we went...it was an incredible experience. I definitely recommend Jackson to anyone.

Here is a link to some of the pictures I took while I was there:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2028642&id=10300564&l=71d73