Summer Hitchhike to Wyoming for a Wedding

My Spring of travels went from Phoenix to Wyoming by way of Nevada, Salt Lake, and a couple days on the river in Idaho.

Starting from Phoenix, I hitchhiked to Laughlin, Nevada - a small casino town on the Colorado River that serves as the border to Arizona. While fairly uneventful, I hatched a plan to hitchhike to Vegas where I figured I'd film a fun beer-related video for my Hopping channel and catch one of those budget flights to Salt Lake for a boost.

Hitchhiking to Vegas took only one ride to Henderson where I hit up some breweries on arrival before the last leg to the strip where I had another comped casino hotel room waiting for me. Why do I get these free rooms? Because occasionally they catch me slipping, like on this very first night where I blew the last hundred bucks I had trying to get myself a little more beer money. Backfired.

So, a plan I'd made to try and visit as many breweries in a single day by walking, was now no longer financially viable. I still took a walk the next day, hitting up Able Baker and a couple of other breweries with the little money I had left.

One of those breweries was fairly new, Neon Desert, and I wound up featuring them in this episode you can watch here.

And so, a couple days later I was on the plane just up to Salt Lake where I caught up with a good friend of mine, and as luck would have it, he was going on a fishing trip in Idaho the next day. I joined in with him and some of his friends at the cabin they had up there and had a couple of great days floating the river with them.

He dropped me off in Idaho Falls on his way back to Salt Lake, and although it was rainy and close to sunset, I somehow hitched two rides to get to Alpine, Wyoming before having to camp out anywhere. Instead, I had a nice bed to sleep in at the house my mom had been living in.

My mom, however, was an hour or so up the road outside of Jackson where she was a camp host during the summer with her fiance. And that "fiance" title was about to become "husband," and the wedding was a reason I was up there.

Waiting for the wedding, I wrapped myself up in days of video editing to complete the second season of my show "Hopping: The Backpacking Beer Adventure." During this time I made plenty of trips back and forth to Jackson, hiking around and drinking beers, and even filming new videos. You can watch one where I hitchhike up to Snake River Brewing, and all the other Jackson breweries.

The wedding came with the backdrop of the Tetons and more family like my sister coming to town, and altogether I enjoyed the hell out of that part of Wyoming like I always do. With the editing for my Hopping show complete and summer now peaking, I was eager to keep making some moves.

Zane Lamprey, a comedian who's had some successful drinking shows himself, had an upcoming gig in Reno. I got in touch with him about getting him on my podcast, and so a new direction and destination arose. Next post: on to Reno and California.

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