Christmas 1994 in Yellowstone

December 21, 1994, Wednesday

I had been to Yellowstone in the summer of 1994 and picked up a brochure about "Winter in Yellowstone", which just sounded amazing. So I called, soon after returning to Dallas from that trip, and made reservations for this wonderful adventure.
Initially the entourage included my parents, but they became concerned about my grandmother's health and stayed behind. So the five of us packed up our gear (after numerous trips to the store to buy just the right winter ensembles, of course) and boarded MarkAir to Denver.
MarkAir is truly a no-frills aircraft -- the attendants didn't even pretend to be interested in customer service. Well, I guess that sort of thing really pays off economically, as MarkAir has gone the way of many other airlines.

After landing in Denver, we picked up the rented van, loaded it to the gills (whew! good thing the parents didn't go with us, we'd never had room to fit all the luggage in that van! We ALL had to bring at least fifteen wardrobe changes so we could be fashionable out in the winterlands), and headed to the mountains.
We took a brief sidetrip to Estes Park -- I'd looked at the map and figured that we could take a shortcut through Estes Park, and my Texan brain didn't think about the fact that those roads are CLOSED in the winter. Duhhh... But it was worth the side-jaunt for our first quick glance at snow, and to give Judy a chance to play Julie Andrews.
"The hills are alive...."

We spent the night in a Motel 6 along the way in some relatively non-descript Colorado town. Actually, we spent every night except those in Yellowstone in a Motel 6... not the greatest accomodations in the world, but affordable, and they DO keep the light on for you.

Our next day of travelling saw us finding the snow, at last. We're travelling behind an unknown Ford Bronco on some icy roads here; before we started the trip, we were a bit concerned about the possibility of encountering impassable snowy roads, but so far no real road problems that we couldn't handle.

We reach Jackson Hole, a wonderful little overpriced ski mecca town. About the same time that we were all kibbitzing under the antler arch in the town square, some really brainy individual was holding up one of the banks in town. Seems he held up the bank, then walked to his nearby hotel room, called a cab to take him to the airport, and tipped the cabbie with one of the bills from his holdup. The bill was apparently large enough that it aroused suspicion, the cabbie contacted the authorities, and our modern-day Jesse James was nabbed.

<FONT SIZE=2> <CENTER> <A HREF="./yxmas02.htm" TARGET=photo><IMG SRC="../images/forward.gif" border=0 width="31" height="31">Jackson Hole Snowmobiling</A> <A HREF="./yxmasint.htm" TARGET=photo><IMG SRC="../images/back.gif" border=0 width="31" height="31">Trip Overview</A> <BR> </CENTER>

Updated 4/6/1996 by Kathy D. Lessa

I had been to Yellowstone in the summer of 1994 and picked up a brochure about "Winter in Yellowstone", which just sounded amazing. So I called, soon after returning to Dallas from that trip, and made reservations for this wonderful adventure. Initially the entourage included my parents, but they became concerned about my grandmother's health and stayed behind. So the five of us packed up our gear (after numerous trips to the store to buy just the right winter ensembles, of course) and boarded MarkAir to Denver. MarkAir is truly a no-frills aircraft -- the attendants didn't even pretend to be interested in customer service. Well, I guess that sort of thing really pays off economically, as MarkAir has gone the way of many other airlines.
	After landing in Denver, we picked up the rented van, loaded it to the gills (whew! good thing the parents didn't go with us, we'd never had room to fit all the luggage in that van! We ALL had to bring at least fifteen wardrobe changes so we could be fashionable out in the winterlands), and headed to the mountains. We took a brief sidetrip to Estes Park -- I'd looked at the map and figured that we could take a shortcut through Estes Park, and my Texan brain didn't think about the fact that those roads are CLOSED in the winter. Duhhh... But it was worth the side-jaunt for our first quick glance at snow, and to give Judy a chance to play Julie Andrews. "The hills are alive...."
	We spent the night in a Motel 6 along the way in some relatively non-descript Colorado town. Actually, we spent every night except those in Yellowstone in a Motel 6... not the greatest accomodations in the world, but affordable, and they DO keep the light on for you.
	Our next day of travelling saw us finding the snow, at last. We're travelling behind an unknown Ford Bronco on some icy roads here; before we started the trip, we were a bit concerned about the possibility of encountering impassable snowy roads, but so far no real road problems that we couldn't handle.
	We reach Jackson Hole, a wonderful little overpriced ski mecca town. About the same time that we were all kibbitzing under the antler arch in the town square, some really brainy individual was holding up one of the banks in town. Seems he held up the bank, then walked to his nearby hotel room, called a cab to take him to the airport, and tipped the cabbie with one of the bills from his holdup. The bill was apparently large enough that it aroused suspicion, the cabbie contacted the authorities, and our modern-day Jesse James was nabbed.