We only had to accost three people before finding Molly, who was on a bike herself. She said she owed some trail angel service and invited us to follow her and camp in her yard. It was a beautiful yard, shared between her and two other housing units, with a creek flowing through it and some outdoor power outlets to charge our gadgets. Molly had a cool hat, played upright bass, and would be gone to a girls' jam that night. She'd also be leaving at 4:30 AM to mountain bike "around the rock", going 143 miles completely circling the Grand Tetons. Basically, she was much cooler than me. She even left her place unlocked for us to use the kitchen, laundry, or bathroom while she was gone.
We set up camp and took the free city shuttle downtown to see the hip, young, outdoorsy crowd I'd heard about. Instead, we found tourist families herding unimpressed children through Wild-West-themed shops and eateries. We spent a couple hours wandering indecisively between different spots, including the Cowboy Bar. I thought it was a little on-the-nose to just directly state their goal and destroy the illusion of authenticity like that, but they managed to fill the place while charging a $5 cover, so I guess they knew their audience.
I asked the bouncer where we might find a younger crowd, and he recommended The Rose, which was near empty when we arrived. I had an uninteresting conversation with prematurely drunk man who couldn't believe that cycling was enjoyable. The bartender said a local DJ would be playing that night, though, and assured us that it'd be hopping around 10:30 once food service workers got off. He was right; come 10:30, our spots at the bar were highly coveted.
We'd had a few drinks at this point to justify our continued existence at the bar, and I was enjoying the Brits' attempts to use American accents and say American things. I then got the idea to ask someone if they wanted to teach my British friends how to be American. Tess, ski instructor, professional skier, and donut shop proprietor, said she'd take that proposition back to her friends. They were interested. She essentially dragged the Brits over to her table and they became very popular very quickly.
Meanwhile, I spoke with Monique, an ex-reporter for NBC who had decided to quit her job and travel to Svalbard on a whim. Like biking across the country, or riding 143 miles of dirt to circle some mountains in a single day, this was apparently par for the course in Jackson. She was very impressed, and I was very surprised, by the fact that I knew that Svalbard is the northernmost town in Norway, within the Arctic Circle. It quickly became too packed and too loud to have a conversation, and the rest of the night was spent drinking, bumping into people (dancing?), and occasionally finding Hamish who repeatedly declared, happily, that he had "no idea what's going on".
I paid a random person a random amount of cash to drive us to a Lucky's, which I knew was in the general vicinity of Molly's place. After arguing that yes, I already gave him $12 (it was true, I did), we got out of the car several blocks from Lucky's and wandered back to Molly's yard. We fell asleep very quickly.
Here's the yard:
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