Jackson Hole Underground

(Ed. note: This is the second in a series of posts from the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Click on photos to enlarge.)

Jackson Hole is to natural beauty what New Orleans is to soul.

Down here, we subsist on music as much as oxygen. So when I arrived sleep deprived and feeling nearly dead, I decided to head out to the Fairgrounds to catch the last few hours of the festival. Sunday service would be celebrated by the Rev. Al Green.

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Our beloved local brewery made like Bode Miller and took home a lode of medals at the World Beer Cup.

Snake River Brewing Co. won three golds and one silver at the competition in San Diego, which drew nearly 2,900 entries from 58 countries.

Winning gold were the much decorated Snake River Pale Ale and Zonker Stout from the Jackson brewery, as well as Rock Chuck Rye from the pub in Lander. On Belay IPA, also from Lander, took silver in the English-style India Pale Ale category.

Grand Teton Brewing Co. of Victor, Idaho, won a bronze for its Bitch Creek ESB.

Congrats to all the brewers, and let’s drink the spoils!

Slainte! Whether you’re tipping back coffee or a pint of Guinness, the strains of traditional Irish music will be ringing for St. Patrick’s Day. Don some color and bust out your Jonathan Papelbon dance.

Jackson’s own Celtic music troupe, Slip & the Jigs, will be performing three gigs today in a marathon test of stamina and sobriety. The smaller version of the group, The Blackthorn Trio, kicks off the festivities from 9 to 11 a.m. at Shades Cafe, where green-frosted rum raisin scones are on the menu.

Later, the full band convenes for a session at the new Fitzgerald’s Bicycles shop. The party will run from 2:30 to 5:30 p.m. before shifting next door to the Brew Pub.

This evening, the celebration o’ the green continues at the Wort Hotel, where Slip & the Jigs will perform from 7 p.m. until the wee hours, assuming the musicians are still standing.

“We’re going to loosen things up later in the day as we get a sense of how the pace is holding up,” says Jamie Reilly, the talented thespian and singer.

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I’ve pretty much stopped drinking my coffee from paper cups by hauling into Hard Drive and Pearl Street Bagels one of those stainless steel freebie belogo’d to-go mugs that roll around the floor of my car.

Were you shocked to learn that Americans trash 2.5 million plastic water bottles per hour?

Here’s a similar shocker: Starbucks alone goes through 1.9 billion paper cups per year. That’s 78,000 trees.

But I’m not here to bully. I’ll settle for a compromise. Every to-go coffee purchase also comes with what I call the “mittsfib” or MTSFIB — the McDonald’s Tort Sissy-Finger Insulator Belt. No doubt corporate lawyers came up with this ever since some poor old lady famously sued McDonald’s because her to-go coffee was apparently quite hot.

Go ahead. Use’n'toss the paper cup. But at least be tough enough to say “hold the mittsfib.”

It’s dumping out again, which means skiers and snowboarders have to eat well after a day of hard charging in the hills.

For the skids, there’s no better bargain right now than the ski bum special at the Million Dollar Cowboy Steakhouse, beneath the Cowboy Bar on the Square. $5 gets you a burger and PBR.

And this is no ordinary burger.

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