Highway 22: Why Even Bother?

Why would you move to Idaho when the Tetons look so much better on this side?

Hi everyone, it’s yer gerl, back again with OPINIONS. I’ve got ‘em and in every color. And today, I want to write about Idaho.

I know, I know, you’re like, “Catherine, what could possibly provoke you to write about such a thing?”

Well, if you’ve never been emotionally smothered by the oppressive grandeur of Jackson Hole’s endless nothingness, and needed to take a sunrise meditation drive over Teton Pass while simultaneously being assaulted by an anxiety attack telling you that the road may give out from under you, congratulations! You’ve played it safe. You’ve put your adrenals in the front passenger seat, buckled them up and never broke 24mph as you’ve repeatedly circled the cul-de-sac of your insular Western Wyoming life (no offense).

For the rest of us multi-homeowners, that’s summer in Jackson Hole, baby!

Before I go any further, let’s just state the obvious: Highway 22 is a mess.

The unending bridge construction, the bumper-to-bumper iPhone sessions, the way “improvements” just cow-tow to bike path people. . . (Please. If I wanted to go for a nature walk on asphalt I would’ve bought real estate next to an inner-city botanical garden.)

Not to mention the closures! GAH! Apparently there’s yet another closure this weekend to “continue construction” on a “geological anomaly” so that, fingers-crossed, nobody “Thelma & Louise-es their Tesla off a cliff” and accidentally “plummets 400 feet into a forested abyss” and “perishes in an accidental explosion”. (WYDOT press releases have always been super weird.)

You might be asking yourself, why even bother with Highway 22 at all?

MY THOUGHTS EXACTLY!

Why would anyone live in Idaho and work in Jackson Hole? It makes no sense!

Is it for the quaintness of its cultural nightlife? The earnest authenticity of our nonprofit fundraisers? Perhaps they crave the croissants at Persephone | West? (Honestly, Persephone | Pierre’s Hole would be such a smart business move, by the way.) Or maybe they don’t want to pull themselves up by their bootstraps to afford a newly constructed 1-bedroom broom closet built by developers who were too cheap to install central air despite rising global temperatures. (Thankfully, amenities include rotating ceiling fan.)

Well, luckily for you, I have done my due diligence to answer this question.

Below, I’ll unpack what’s actually going on with Highway 22 and reveal actual quotes from real Victorians and Driggsonites who offered me their insight (for a small price).

So! Subscribe if you haven’t, pop a can of Seasonal Runoff seltzer, put on your largest oversized Gucci shades, say a prayer (or a Kundalini invocation like “om na-sha ve-da” which roughly translates to “may I not perish a fiery death"), and let’s hope the terraformed mountain supports the weight of our societal choices.