Jackson Hole: More Than Just Hamburgers

Welcome to Wyoming!

Okay, so, if you’ve read This Time Tomorrow, you know about Jackson Hole. What I will henceforth call my Jackson Hole, the burger joint on my parents’ corner for my entire life. Some astute readers have pointed out to me that the Jackson Hole restaurant on 85th and Columbus closed a few years ago, to which I replied, yes, well, this is a time travel novel, it’s open if I want it to be open. There are several scenes in the book that take place there, both in present day and in 1996, and their phone number (212-362-5177) is one that I still know by heart.

Consider my pleasant surprise at finding myself in actual Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

A real photograph of the airport, the only one inside a National park! Them’s the Grand Tetons.

You might have guessed this, but I am not the most outdoorsy type. We are an indoor family. I took a free postcard from the Bear Spray rental and sent it to a friend of mine who likes a different sort of bears.

Nevertheless, we’re leaning in! Some of us have better hiking ensembles than others.

A souvenir for my dad, currently in the hospital with a couple of pins in his hip.

I could be showing you pictures of bison and waterfalls, but you don’t come to me for bison and waterfalls. Regional candy bars, on the other hand? Yes, please! (This one was no one’s favorite— coconut on the outside, spongy, pudding-like chocolate on the inside.)

The other 3/4 of my family, and Old Faithful.

Do you want to know how truly damaged my brain is? I looked at these alongside the route to the Grand Prismatic hot spring and thought, wow, those look just like the glass sculptures that Josh Lucas makes in underrated Reese Witherspoon film Sweet Home Alabama.

Just objectively funny.

Valley Bookstore, in downtown Jackson, was wonderful. They had This Time Tomorrow, they had All Adults Here, they had Modern Lovers, they had wonderful owner Wendy, pictured here, who literally screamed my name and then chanted ‘Books Are Magic’ over and over again. Thank you, Wendy, for making me look cool in front of my children and my in-laws.

Knives that I did not purchase for my father. (He likes knives, and the $12 one with his name on it will have to do.) Okay, but the very best part of the day—the trip? The month? The year?— was when my older child and I went for a walk last night. It had been drizzling, and we were walking up a little hill (lol, there are no little hills here, we were breathing heavily after fifteen feet), when a little black cat poked his head out and came to say hello to us.

I did pack hiking shoes. These are not them.

If you’ve read This Time Tomorrow, you know that after Jackson Hole, the star of the book is Ursula, Leonard Stern’s ancient, immortal black cat. Our ancient black cat, Killer, died a year ago, and I miss her every day. When I tell you that this black cat, who walked out of a field to sit on my lap, made me burst into tears, I am not remotely exaggerating.

I cried and cried. I cried when a ranger-type person came along and told us that the cat’s name was Jim. I cried when the cat crawled from my lap to my kid’s and back again. I cried!

Afterward, we rode up in the ski lift and just looked at pictures of black cats currently available for adoption in Brooklyn. There’s nothing like them.

Next week, it’ll be back to regularly scheduled programming, but for now, picture me in athleisure, traipsing through the brush, looking for Jim, and dreaming of my childhood hamburgers.