Climbing Cliffs and Jumping Off

Grand Teton, Day Two.

It's Sept. 12, but we're losing track of dates and days of the week, and beginning to measure time by places and activities. We won't remember today as Sept. 12, but rather as the day we hiked up into the Tetons and cliff jump into crystal-blue Jenny Lake.

We take the Cascade Canyon Trail, which loops around Jenny Lake before climbing about 5 miles to Hidden Falls, and then another steep mile past the falls to Inspiration Point, elevation 7,200 feet. We're speedy on the uphill trip (Patrick race-hikes), scaling rocks to pass foreign tourists and small children with walking sticks, eliciting comments from an older Southern couple sitting on a log: "You're fast now, but we'll see what you look like on the downhill."

What we look like on the downhill: Stripped down to our skivvies and soaking wet. But first we find Inspiration: A bottle of beer, alpine smells and turquoise waters hundreds of feet below.

On the hike up to Inspiration Point, we realize what we've been missing: Cliff jumping. And then we see her: a massive boulder, as close to a foothill as we've seen in the Tetons, rising about 15 feet above Jenny Lake. It's a hot, dry day and the lake calls to us. Once we see the rock, we know where we'll be stopping on the hike back down to our campsite.

We both jump and dive off the rock into Jenny Lake and the glacier-fed water instantly soothes our hot skin and refreshes us. Fellow hikers cheer and laugh at the crazy kids swimming in their underwear in the icy lake.

While we're sunning on top of the rock, we see a monstrous rainbow trout swimming in the lake, lazily hunting for flies on top of the water, not the least bit worried about landing on someone's dinner plate (yes, we do wish we'd brought a fishing pole).

It's the perfect day and the perfect place, from the cozy, RV-free campsite at Jenny Lake to the 12-mile roundtrip hike, to swimming in clear, cold waters—and, at least for me, it's made even more perfect by the promise of a bed and a shower, which will be our first in a week, at the end of the day. We plan to stay in Jackson, and I've got visions of plush pillows, claw-foot tubs and clean hair dancing in my head. We'll have a night out on the town, dine and drink at a cowboy bar, and I'll wear makeup for the first time in a month and my sole dress that I brought to last four months on the road. It's past Labor Day so we figure tourist season ha ended, so we don't make hotel reservations.

Big mistake.

There is no vacancy is Jackson, and I'm melting down. My scalp itches and my hair is matted and forming dreads. Patrick stinks, the dog stinks, I stink and, from the three of us sitting and sweating in it all day, the truck especially stinks.

Patrick tries to make me feel better by blaming our poor planning on Harrison Ford, who owns a ranch in Jackson.

"Damn Harrison. We'd be able to find a room if didn't rent out the entire town to accommodate his out-of-town guests."

This doesn't stop my tears. Jackson's south of where we're headed (Wind Cave), so we decide to drive north east, and we'll try to find a available room in some Wyoming city. We drive back through Grand Teton and Yellowstone, passing herds of buffalo and the sun setting over Yellowstone Lake.