Wyoming

October 6, 2020

Smoke pours up the west coast, a golden-hued blanket settling over Seattle, then creeping east, the by-product of raging, late summer wildfires. It seems like a good time to get out of town, try to outrun the gritty toxic air.

Steve and I head east, destination Wyoming, still enveloped in the foul, sun-diluting air. Still, it is a pretty drive across Washington, northern Idaho, and Montana.

Washington offers ripened fields, orchards and vineyards, Idaho lush forests and white-water rivers, Montana the Rockies. And in the time it takes to cross the border, we enter Wyoming: a flat, windy, vast emptiness. We’ve managed to leave some of the smoke behind in exchange for the open prairie.

Wyoming breeds interesting characters. Everyone drives a pickup, gun rack in the back window, a liberal coating of local dust and mud on the tires.

At a gas station two hunters stop to fill up, dressed in full camo, beards of stubble, weary satisfaction on their faces, deer antlers sitting akimbo in the back bed. The hunt was successful and they have the trophy to prove it. Inside, the gas station sells camo baseball caps and I buy Steve one so he fits in, pretending to belong.

Our first stop is Powell where his sister lives. 

Although I was born in Oklahoma, my family began a northward migration when I was little. We landed in Powell when I was about two and my very first memories are there. Dad ran a parts store for oil wells and we lived in an apartment above the store.

Through Steve’s sister we tracked down the building, found it still existed and, amazingly, the apartment is still being rented out. His nephew, Scott drove us around on a tour. As I looked at the first home I remember, it seemed smaller but perfect for the real estate office it now contained. I wished my dad were still alive; he would have gotten such a kick out of the picture of me standing in front of it.

Next on the tour was Tommy’s Garage, the car mechanic working on Scott’s truck. Tommy is a larger-than-life character, a modern day Grizzly Adams, wild head of hair and beard, greasy bib overalls over an ample belly, soft authoritative voice. The hidden mystery is that Tommy’s mom left him millions but he chooses to live under the hood of a defunct vehicle, puzzling out its own mysteries. Tommy’s wife does the oil changes and has the fingernails to prove it.

The shop is disorganized chaos.  Piles of rusty parts fill the yard and every corner of the garage. Only a small pathway allows him passage through the mess to find just the right piece only he knows is hidden there. He bought a lift once, then a 1969 Ford Ranchero, intending to restore it. The Ranchero was lifted up fifteen years ago and languishes there today, neither one doing much of anything else.

Tommy is a great storyteller and begins to tell us about Anna, parking ticket menace and dogcatcher for Powell. When she is not gleefully issuing parking tickets and towing cars away, she is terrorizing the local animal community, kidnapping her neighbors’ pets for ransom. 

Once Tommy ran into the street and snatched the little terrier of the business a few doors down from her arms. Anna hissed at him but backed down; you don’t mess with Tommy. Not surprisingly, Anna has few allies in the town of 6,000.

One unfortunate day Anna wandered into Tommy’s shop looking for parts for her pickup. In his customarily salty language he quietly told her to “get the f…. out of my place.” Somehow, it just seemed right coming out of that mouth buried beneath all that salt and pepper fur.

Anna’s missteps continue when she is stopped for DUI. The Powell Tribune ran the story with her picture for the whole town to relish. Tommy clipped the story and taped it to his bulletin board in the lobby of his office for everyone’s viewing pleasure. What goes around comes around.

The rest of our tour took us out of town to the Shoshone National Forest. This ancient land in the Absaroka Beartooth Mountains of the Rockies is Scott’s stomping ground for hunting and camping. It is filled with deer, elk and the largest herd of bighorn sheep in the country. Lodgepole pine, aspen and Rocky Mountain juniper scatter throughout the hills. We bump along for hours on gravel roads, up, up, up to over 8,000 feet, watching our ascent on an altitude app on my phone. Sunshine warms the day, glittering off the aspen leaves in the high, thin air. At the summit we stop for a picnic lunch and view the vast expanse below and the Upper Sunshine Reservoir. I imagine Native American tribes spending their summers hunting and roaming through the plentiful slopes.

When it is time to resume our travels through Wyoming we head south. We’re towing a camper and seek out sites to rest for the night. Jackson Hole fills us with the promise of a trendy ski town. Campers and trailers don’t quite fit into the upscale décor so we trek south to Alpine. From there we can slip back into Jackson and take in the sites and flavors. 

A sign at Grey’s River Cove RV Park, Saloon, and Grill boasts of “your best camping host.” As we pull in a bear of a man with long hair and beard lumbers into our path, then turning to face us, waves us frantically to the left. We’re obedient, we do as we’re told, we’re law-abiding citizens, but to our surprise, the man charges us like an enraged buffalo. I roll down my window as he approaches.

“What are you doing?” he bellows. “Can’t you read the signs? You can’t go that way! There’s only one way in, one way out! You go down there and you’ll have to back all the way out! Can’t you read the signs?”

The Best Camping Host is red-turning-plum in the face, sweat gathering around and into his stringy hair and beard. His eyes bulge as we stare, stunned and mute. 

Rather than heaping hot coals onto our faux pas, we stop and await further commands. Best Host orders us to his “office” for check-in. The office turns out to be a caboose, long-since retired, now painted a cheery yellow with red trim. Steep little steps lead to a narrow door. One cannot really enter the office as Host has stationed his desk to bar all COVID-infested vermin from his space.

While trying to register for a peaceful night of rest, Host continues to bark orders. Every other statement is followed by, “Can’t you read the signs?” We search frantically for the directives that might preempt another tongue-lashing.

With shaking hands, we fill out the necessary paperwork, as Host’s wife enters. Stomping across the dusty yard, she barges in. A tiny, shriveled woman, pinch-faced, her anger whitens her countenance like an evil little specter. She carries a Styrofoam container that holds dinner. Host is in hot water because he has ordered the wrong meal and she tosses the unwanted grub at him. “I TOLD you what I wanted! I don’t want this; take it; its yours now!”

How brave of her to take on the angry giant she shares a cramped trailer home with. She must be able to hold her own as he sits silently. “Can’t you read the signs!” is of no help now.

The furious little twister spins on her heel and fumes back to her miserable life. In the grassless yard an old dog is tied up with a rope, resigned to life with these two burning firebrands. I wonder how often he has been kicked to ease their rage.

Once we’ve completed the registration we slink away, like kicked dogs ourselves, to our designated spot. We move silently about our campsite and scurry to a hiding place every time we see the man we’ve now dubbed the Nazi Host.

As we drive out the next day we fall into fits of laughter at the sign out front, big as you please, shouting to the traffic passing by that the Grey’s River Cove has the “best camping host.” Was that sign there when Nazi Host took over management or did he dream that up himself? The words from Hotel California echo in my brain, “You can checkout any time you like, but you can never leave.” We vow never to trespass there again.

Ten days into our trip this city girl decides her manicure needs to be freshened up. Any salon will do; it’s not rocket science. I settle on the nearest hair salon with a manicurist. I will call her Buffy; it just seems to fit. In her early 20’s, Buffy leads me to a back room with a card table, turned manicure station. She proudly announces she graduated from manicure school in February but is just now able to practice because of the pandemic. She loves to hunt.

I reassure myself, it’s just a manicure, ANYONE can do it. Right?  I quickly realize all manicures are not created equal.

Removing the old polish should take about 10 minutes. I sweat beneath my mask through 45 minutes of chiseling and scraping. At home I would be on my way out the door by now. The “manicure” part consists of her cutting my nails. Her hands shake as she clips and nicks her way through. I resist the temptation to snatch the clippers from her, “Here, let me do it.” By now my nails are rough, ragged and uneven. 

Over the filing dust she begins to apply the polish. I want to surrender and bolt for the door but I endure the two hours it takes her to finish the unfortunate mess. I toy with telling the owner she’s made a hiring mistake, grimly pay $10 more than I usually do, even giving Buffy an unearned tip. On my way out I tell myself what I do after a bad haircut, It’ll grow out, it’s just hair…they’re just nails.

Our Wyoming days come to an end as we cross over into Idaho on our way home. We follow the Snake River, enthralled with gorgeous fall foliage and miles and miles of white water rapids. Professional photographers station themselves at every lookout point to capture the glorious scene. Rains have washed away the smoke, leaving the air pristine.

Our last great adventure takes place along Paradise Lake in the Sawtooth Mountains of southern Idaho. For three days we enjoy the sparkling lake, dinners in the fresh air and brilliant stars by night. It was the perfect ending.

Fifteen days after our trip began we reenter Washington and autumn has arrived here, too. We left behind a smoky bleakness and return to refreshed air with renewed spirits. We begin to make plans to return to Wyoming next year, where to go, where NOT to go, and characters to avoid.