Grand Tetons: The Ho-Hum Motel and the crazy cat lady

WITH travelling you always get the good and the bad, I mean obviously from my experiences with Airbnb they can be a little all over the show. You never know what you might get. Then there are the funny stories, the ones you can laugh about for many months and years to come.

I don’t know whether it was the name of the Ho-Hum Motel in West Yellowstone that caught my attention and sparked my curiosity, or the sign that claimed, “your next stop for comfort”. So, I went into make a booking and was immediately hit with the smell of cat pee. It stunk really bad. And then this older lady appeared behind the counter. I bit my lip not to laugh, and let her take my booking for a room.

This was some years ago, of course: it might be quite different now! Anyhow, she was an interesting person; it turned out she was the mother of the town’s mayor. And didn’t care too much what people thought of her cats.

It was only $50 a night and quite clean. The crazy cat lady’s cats hadn’t left their mark beyond reception, so that was all good. It was cheap, which was great: my other option would have been a tent and that would have been far too cold.

My next stop on the list was the Grand Teton National Park, in Wyoming.

This was the opportunity of a lifetime: I had always wanted to go there.

‍

‍

Grand Teton National Park is amazing. I mean really amazing: jaw- dropping spectacular scenery with the focal point the Grand Teton Peak at 4,000 metres. It has beautiful crystal-clear lakes, framed by rugged triangular snow-covered peaks, and I fell in love with it immediately.

I did a three-hour walk and got some photos of the Native Americans who lived in the area. I didn’t spend a lot of time there unfortunately: definitely not as much as I would have liked to. So, I spent the night in the Ho-Hum Motel and then I drove the eight hours back down to Whitefish to catch my next train at 10pm that night.

‍

‍

‍

‍

I was off to Seattle, on a twelve-hour train ride, through some of the most beautiful countryside I had seen yet. It was thoroughly enjoyable, even if it was a fair chunk of time to spend getting to Seattle, only to spend about 36 hours there before moving on to the next port of call.

‍