Last night I decided to head out of Idaho Falls and drive the 65 miles to Victor, ID. I had wanted to check out Victor and a town named Driggs, both just over the Teton pass from Jackson Hole, Wyoming and about 12 miles from Grand Targhee. I arrived in Victor kind of late, somewhere around 10pm. In the morning I drove around the small town. There is the main road, SR-33 that runs north-south and connects Victor and Driggs, about eight miles apart. Victor had a population of 840 according to the 2000 census. There isn’t a whole lot off of the main street, or on the main street for that matter, but it’s a beautiful area surrounded by the Big Hole Mountains in Idaho to the west and the Teton Mountain Range in Wyoming to the east. After spending about an hour in Victor, I proceeded to drive to Driggs. Driggs was a little bit bigger than Victor, but not much. It’s population according to Wiki was 1,100.
I pulled out my phone and used an app named real estate droid to do a quick search for real estate in the area. To my surprise, there were a lot of nice homes that, in my opinion, were priced reasonably. I drove to one of the homes and was impressed enough to call the listing agent for more details. Within an hour, I was inside for a tour. I spent a few hours with the realtor looking at properties. Even though he knew I would be on my way with no chance of buying, he was more th
an willing to keep showing me houses. Apparently, Victor and Driggs have suffered substantially from the collapse of the housing bubble. There were a lot of spec houses built to take advantage of the never ending home price appreciation. Now there is a glut of new, unoccupied homes in inventory and many unemployed builders and tradesman who came and settled here to take advantage of the boom times. I didn’t want to use up the realtor’s entire day so I said that I had seen enough. 
When I left he said that he had a good feeling about me and told me if I ever decide on Driggs as a place to live, that he would probably have a place for me at his office if wanted to become a realtor. Wow, my first “unofficial” job offer! Who knows, I did really like the area but for a single person I think it might be too small of a place to meet people, but hermit life would be great here! This is truly a place for the outdoorsman. I set out for Jackson in the evening and drove over the Teton pass and across the border into Wyoming. It was getting dark by the time I arrived so I focused on a place to sleep.
Sunday, October 31st, 2010
Happy Halloween. It had rained all night and pretty much all day. There was a low cloud cover and it was foggy so it was difficult to see more than a few hundred yards up into the mountains. I grabbed my rain jacket and walked around downtown, stopping in at the different tourist and ski shops. Many of the people I talked to in the ski shops have come from the east coast. I don’t think I met anyone born and raised here. 
Most have come out just after college with the intention of spending a ski season before getting a “real” job. Twenty years later and they’re still there. I really like the town of Jackson. It would be a great place to be a ski bum but in terms of making a true living here, it’s pretty unlikely. I drove a few miles to the Jackson Hole Ski Resort and into another ski shop. I was talking to a guy there and had mentioned what I was doing and that I was eventually going to head up through Yellowstone. 
He told me that he read in the paper that the Park Service was going to close Yellowstone tomorrow. I jumped in my car and got on my way. I wanted to spend more time at Jackson Hole, but I thought this was more important. It was now 3pm so I drove quickly to take advantage of the few daylight hours left. It was almost 65 miles to the south entrance of Yellowstone from Jackson Hole. 
It was still raining and I had really wanted to do Yellowstone in better weather to have a better chance of seeing the wild animals. I arrived at the gate to get into the park. The ranger said the park would be open for another week but a misprint in the newspapers did say the park would be closing November 1st. Oh well, I rushed for nothing but I was here now. 
The ranger told me there was inclement weather ahead and that snow tires or chains were required. I told her I had neither but she let me pass as long as I knew I was on my own if I ran into any trouble. The roads were clear and it was down to a slight drizzle so I proceeded. Within the first thirty minutes, the roads were covered in white almost instantaneously. At times it was almost blizzard conditions. The snow was accumulating fast on top of icy roadways. I pulled off at the first turnout to find a general store that was closed for the season and a gas station. 
I parked my car under the gas pump awning to take cover from the snow. The temperatures were dropping fast and ice was already building on the windows. This was going to be my home for the night. I was outside cooking up some chicken noodle soup when a ranger came by and suggested I stay put and that most of the roads have been closed. He also mentioned to keep any food locked in my vehicle because there was a grizzly walking around here this morning, about 20 yards from where we were standing. I’ll be staying in the car tonight! The road plows should be out around 7am and it should be smooth sailing after that.
Mileage update: 6,640.7
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