Star Valley Wyoming

We continue east thru southern Idaho, thru Pocatello and Idaho Falls. As we go east, we have been, more or less, following the path of the Snake River. Once we get thru Idaho Falls, we turn onto Hwy 26 and head southeast thru the Swan Valley. The closer we get to Wyoming, the greener it seems to get.

Star Valley is about 60 miles south of Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Some people would think it's in a remote location; nothing could be further from the truth! It's right in between Etna (Pop. 160) and Thayne (Pop. 366). If that isn't enough for you, you could head down to the BIG city of Afton (which boast a pop. of almost 2000). What more could you need? At Star Valley Ranch, most of the residents are owners (of their rv lots) and spend the majority of the warmer months there. It is cold enough in the winter, though, that everyone bugs out for warmer climes. The time we spent there, though, the weather was perfect.

Star Valley Ranch has been on my list of places to visit since I made an acquaintance at Park Sierra in Coarsegold CA. He told me this is where he spends the summer and urged us to check it out. Once I took a look at it and found out it had BOTH pickleball and golf, it was just a matter of when, not if!

They had a pickleball club, eight courts and a number of tournament rated intermediate and advanced players. We arrived on Friday afternoon, so I was on the court first thing Saturday morning... and most every opportunity I had! The play was so good, we extended our stay another week!




It's a good thing that we had planned a longer stay as our RV woes continued when we arrived. What had initially been problems with our hydraulic leveling jacks had now extended to include the slideouts. The living room slide out extended with no problem, but the bedroom slideout only extended about 6". When the RV park handyman showed up to look at the problem, we found out that we could retract neither the living room nor bedroom slides. Unfortunately, he didn't know how to fix the problem and left on vacation a couple of days later!

After being is Star Valley for a week, we decided to go do some mountain exploring. Some of the locals had told us about sightseeing along Grey's River Road. Well suh, you can jus as easy git on it out of the town of Alpine or jus down pas Smoot. Uptayuu. If'n y'all aren from round these parts, you meisjusaswell look for FS road 10072 an foller it till you git to FS road 10138. If ya stay on that a pret fir piece, you'll end up in Alpine - slick as a whistle! Sos that's jus wat we did!

We stopped in Afton and got some Subway sandwiches then had ourselves a picnic at Sheep Pass (so named because at one time about 100,000 head of sheep grazed the range and nearly destroyed the land).

Did we mention it was a dirt and gravel road?

We met some locals headed home for supper

It was a scenic but very long drive (over 3 hours). Getting back to the RV, I noticed that my leg, which had been bothering me for a few days, is swollen. After numerous, useless calls to our medical insurance, we head to the nearest emergency room in Afton. (Amazing experiences in non-California ERs, no crowds!) After an ultrasound, the diagnosis is a DVT (deep vein thrombosis) in my leg. Wendy was sure they were going to hospitalize me, but, new guidelines are to prescribe blood thinners, keep the leg elevated whenever possible, use compression and let the clot dissolve on its own over a period of 3 to 6 months. Sadly, doctors orders are no pickleball for a at least a week!

We leave the ER at around 11:30. I haven't eaten, and I'm hungry. Figure we'll hit Burger King (the only fast food joint in town) on the way home. Well, no such luck. Burger King, like everything else in Afton, Thayne, and Etna closes by 8:00 pm. I was looking forward to  that burger too!

The next day, I take Wendy to Jackson in Jackson Hole for a shopping day. It's her birthday, and I hope she'll find her own present...

Elk antlers shed every year, so no elk were harmed for the making of this picture

First stop, the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar for a beer to ease the pain...of shopping. 

Birthday dinner is at The Kitchen, weather was great, so we opted for seating on the deck underneath aspen trees. Vegetable summer rolls to start, (and maybe an adult beverage or two) then Ribeye with bonito roasted fingerling potatoes and baby turnip for Tom and Thai Breakfast (rice noodles, scrambled egg, sugar snap peas, bok choy, and carrots) for Wendy.

Finally, it's the day of reckoning...time to get the slides back in, so we can move. The living room slide has to be hand cranked back in. This is an arduous task,  cranking each side of the slide a few turns with a socket wrench (imagine how many turns it would take to tighten a 3 foot long bolt). Fortunately, we had the good fortune a couple of days earlier of meeting neighbors, Tony and Pam. Tony is a very helpful sort, so he came over and cranked one side and I cranked the other. Getting the slide in called for a celebration, so we took a couple of bottles of wine over to Tony and Pam's converted bus and had a nice last evening.

That's Tony and Pam's conversion bus in the middle

So, on July 5th, we are on the road again, heading back to Idaho. Our RV parts are in, so our plan is to be back in Boise on the 10th.