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“This year we’re going to a dude ranch with the whole family," Modern Family dad Phil Dunphy told viewers at the beginning of the Emmy-winning comedy’s season three premiere last week. Fans of the show or not, your own modern family has a chance to win a summer vacation at Lost Creek Ranch Lodge & Spa in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the very ranch where the Modern Family brood stayed and filmed on location this past summer.
Situated between Grand Teton National Park and the Bridger-Teton National Forest, the ranch has lush scenery with pricing to match. During high season (Memorial Day to Labor Day) half duplex cabins for one to three people are $6300 per week per cabin and living room cabins sleeping up to eight are $13,500. Kids six and under stay free, and all meals as well as your own horse for the week are among the inclusions. If this packs appeal, one strategy might be to start saving now and, for good measure, entering Wyoming Tourism’s Modern Family sweepstakes, whose winner will get a package for four including five nights at the ranch and another two in Yellowstone, as well round-trip airfare and a rental car. The sweeps window opened last week and closes a second before midnight this Friday, September 30. Another winner will get a skiing-oriented winter escape elsewhere in Jackson Hole.
The sweeps entry form suggests that you share your favorite Wyoming memory or photo but neither is necessary to enter; only your basic contact info is required. The sweeps drawing will be held on or about October 15.
Separately, Lost Creek Ranch is running a sweeps on its website, and should your family consist of a party of two, you could win a week at the ranch – specifically the week of June 3-10 – and you need only provide your name and email address to enter. The drawing for that sweeps will be held October 14.
Once again, you don’t need to be a fan of Modern Family or the dude ranch episode to appreciate Lost Creek’s offerings (or this post) but had you caught even, say, ten seconds of the episode teaser, you could rest assured that like the characters you’ll not only be on horseback, but you’ll also have the opportunity to shoot skeet and book a spa treatment. Boat rides and fly fishing on the Snake River are also popular diversions.
Given that Modern Family has put Lost Creek on the national map, it’s sort of ironic that the ranch’s cabins have no TVs. Then again, you’d be in Wyoming, and according to the dude ranch episode's cowboy Hank (who manages a prophetic statement or two when he’s not hitting on Sofia Vergara’s character), “You’re gonna see a sky so full of stars it’ll put your city lights to shame.” Hank may be fictitious, but what he says about Wyoming’s night sky is not, and that's something you and your family ought to see for yourselves.
For general trip-planning information, see our Jackson Hole Travel Guide, then use our Travel Search price comparison tool to find the lowest rates and travel deals on hotels, flights, vacation packages, and more.