Adventures in Driggs, Idaho

For this exciting edition of the blog, we want to take you to Driggs, Idaho, home of the Grand Tetons. A glorious place with beautiful mountains, rivers, wildlife, and for 8 days, 165 RVs. 

But let me take you back to how we decided on this particular adventure. As you may have read, in previous blogs (which is rude if you haven’t), we belong to the Escapees RV Club. They are the ones who have helped us tremendously on our journey to becoming full time RV’ers. Within this organization, there are smaller subgroups that you can join based on any number of things you could have in common with people.

 Back in April, Jerry and I decided to join one called Xcapers. They consist of RV’res who also work full time. And back then, I had been planning to work from the road. When I decided to retire in July, we still wanted to be a part of this group. Our idea was that we would go to the Xcapers event called The Driggs Idaho Grand Tetons Convergence to meet like minded people, learn all about how they have been living and working on the road, and any tips and tricks about our RV they could give us. 

I have to set two separate scenes here when I talk about this week. First, I want to talk about the weather and RV conditions. There have been massive fires all over the north west. The smoke has been horrible and the air quality was in the red zone on my iPhone weather app. So you know it’s serious. It was such a bummer to not be able to go outside and enjoy all of the outdoor activities the Grand Tetons has to offer. Before the smoke came, we were able to kayak and see some giant moose, which was a huge highlight! 

But then, after three days of smoke, the rain started. Now this is great because we always love a rainstorm when there are fires. But the smoke was so pervasive, you could even smell it during the downpours. So first we had smoke, then we had huge thunder and lightning storms. We just couldn’t win.

On top of that, we did not have wifi during our stay in Driggs. Our Sprint SIM card did not work and we were waiting the entire time for our AT&T SIM card to be activated. We were confined to our RV due to weather and we couldn’t even be horizontal binging the latest season of Too Hot To Handle on Netflix on our gigantic television. These are real problems people. No seriously, thank god for unlimited data. We were able to use our phones and hotspot to our iPad. We also were able to go into Driggs proper and enjoyed some delicious restaurants, shops, and even a great museum. And we even reverted back into kindergarteners and became people who nap. Shocking, I know. 

Additionally, we were dry camping. This means that there are no water, electric, or dump hookups. We have a generator, but must use it sparingly. When I tried to plug in my instapot, it blew the generator. And with the rain, we couldn’t bbq, so we cooked inside on our fantastic stove and oven which uses propane. Water wise, we had to conserve conserve conserve. Think rinsing your body while in the shower, turning the water off, putting shampoo in your hair and lathering, then turning the water back on to wash it out. We couldn’t even repeat like the directions say! Honestly, with this water conservation and smoke, I felt like we never left California. 

Ok the second scene I want to paint for you is the people that are in Xcapers. There were about 250 people in total at this event. At any other campground, there are very strict quiet hours that are typically from 10pm-8am. Here, they extended the quiet hours to start at 11pm. For the party. And did these people party. Holy shit. 

Now I pride myself on being hip and with the times. I love a beverage as much as the next person. As a matter of fact, when my niece graduated from college, I walked into her favorite bar and bought an entire crowd a round of AMF’s (Adios Mother F*@*!&*S). They are blue and you can imagine how the rest of the day went. The point is, Jerry and I know how to have fun. And now that I am thinking of it, for Jerry’s 60th surprise birthday party, I got gallons of Fireball. Everyone had the time of their lives and remembers nothing. I am just saying we are a good time. 

But these people are on a whole other level. The music was awful and too loud. It was like they were competing for who could break glass with sound alone. And it wasn’t even good music. No Lady Gaga, no Lizzo, just noise. And did they abide by the quiet hours? No they did not. This shit was going on till 2 IN THE MORNING. I am all for a party, but remember when I said this group was for people who work full time? How they managed to party like that and then “work from home” is a mystery I’m not sure even Magnum P.I. could solve. I honestly think we might just be too old for this stuff. God I sound like my mother. 

On the whole though, this was a really great learning experience for us. It was our first time dry camping, which is something I am still on the fence about. We are heading to Albuquerque, New Mexico for the Balloon Fiesta in Oct which is 12 days of dry camping. Oy vey.  We probably will not be doing another event with the Xcapers Group, but look forward to the Boomer Escapees RV Group in Albuquerque.  Just their name alone is something I can relate to.  And you know what? We are still loving every single minute of this adventure. And there is no one in the world we would rather be doing this with than each other. 

Just One More… wifi connection. Please! I’m not sure how much more of this I can handle!