Now I have to take back a lot of what I said yesterday. I said Victor doesn’t have any Internet — but in fact there’s a lot of free wi-fi all over town. I’m in the public library now, which has the fastest public Internet I’ve ever experienced. And everyone in the downtown area has an open wireless network, so there’s plenty to borrow. Rich C asked around and nobody seems to worry about it.

I also put my blog entry in the category of “Places to Avoid”, but I was really thinking of the Teton Pass. Avoid that with a trailer. But Victor ID, and the nearby town of Driggs, are really wonderful places to visit. We are in the midst of a huge valley, on the west side of the Tetons. Here the jagged peaks of the Tetons are mostly hidden behind rounder green foothills. The view is vast and gorgeous, with dry clear air and lovely sunsets over the low mountains to the west.

The people are friendly, there are no mosquitoes, and there seems to be little pollen this time of year. Eleanor and Rich C are loving it. Emma likes the swimming pool and the foosball table (we all had a foosball tournament last night.) So we’ve decided to stay a few more days to catch up on work and enjoy the fine weather.

But everywhere there are the subtle signs of a place with a real estate boom ready to happen. There’s a Sotheby’s Real Estate office in both Victor and Driggs. The highway has been widened in the towns. New development is happening everywhere, with large parcels of land already sprouting golf courses and huge “rustic-style” log homes. The tourist atmosphere of Jackson seems ready to spread to this side of the mountains.

We’d consider buying some land here if it were a place with a warm winter, but they get plenty of snow here and snow no longer interests me. This won’t be a place we settle down, but it is a peaceful spot to hang out in the summer. I hope Victor and Driggs can remain quiet little western towns for a long time, but I think the folks at the Highway Department, Sotheby’s, and the two log home companies on Rt 33, are all working to change that.

Last night, after I finished working in Jackson at the music/tattoo/Internet/cafe, we drove around the Victor/Driggs area to explore. One of our “finds” was the local Spud Drive-In Movie Theater, with the biggest potato we’ve ever seen.

I also dropped in our neighbors who work-camp here. Spencer was a lawyer for 40 years in Minneapolis, but retired and re-trained as a barber. Once he had his Master Barber’s License, he and his wife Ingrid hit the road in their fifth wheel. They spend every winter in Mazatlan Mexico, and summers here in Victor. Ingrid works in the office and Spencer does other duties, in addition to providing good haircuts for $10. It was a unique experience for me to get a haircut under the awning of an RV on a warm summer afternoon, and chatting with Spencer about his winters in Mexico made it even better.