A Long Drive East

7/1:

It was going to my first real night time drive of the trip and it was going to be a doozey.  I left Columbia Falls MT at about 8:30pm and headed south east toward Yellowstone.  My Friend Kimberley was out there and I thought why not take a quick detour to add another park to the adventure.  This drive was wild, but peaceful.  Taking stops in clearings to stare up at the sky, unpolluted by city lights or obstructed by trees, was both awe inspiring and terrifying in the middle of the night.   I arrived in Yellowstone at 5:30am and crashed out.  A couple hours later I shared a breakfast with Kimberley and we headed out to try and catch Old Faithful.   I had come out to the park in July of 2020 and remember a ranger telling me that Old Faithful (named so for it’s regularly time erruptions for decades) had become less “faithful” year after year.  I still went last year just to check out the area.  National parks are tourists areas, but Old Faithful is a real tourist spot.  Surrounded with concrete and benchs, shops and a hotel it’s the least natural looking of ally the gysers in the park.  Anyway, in 2020 I hung out through the 15 minute grace period listed on the signage and headed to the parking lot and just as I hit the exit, there she blew.  I was still kicking myself from this experience a year before so this time I gave it about 20minutes past the hour before I headed to the car and at least I got to see it spouting up over the old faithful lodge a bit before I started to drive. 

After dropping Kimberely back off at her campground I headed toward the east entrance.   A drive I had not done on my first visit.  Beyond being the largest of national parks Yellowstone is really one of the most diverse when it comes to wild life and natural features.  You could be passing through an old growth forest and then hit a geyser field and then a meadow with grazing bison and then a water fall on the same road.  If you go to this park in a car that is capable of a bit of gravel, take the unpaved road routes when you can.  They are wonderful routes leading to really cool spots, beautiful vistas and isolated geysers.  Plus they are a great get away from the highly populated park.   Anyway the drive to the east entrance was really interesting.  After following the northern sulfur wreaking edge of Yellowstone lake you wind your ways through sharp desolate shale cliffsides then through pine woods and out into the plains of Wyoming.  Very few people were on this side of the park so it was very peaceful. I didn’t make any stops as I was Trying to reach Black hills national park the next day, but this is definitely part of Yellowstone I will return to for exploration.

The next several hours of drive would prove to be difficult.  Wyoming was not really on my list for the trip at all, but audibles lead me to driving through the hilly land of ranches.  The highlights scenically were the thunderstorms of in the distance and the beauty of the bighorn National Forest, which I really wanted to hunker down in.  The downsides were the isolated feel of every passing mile.  I drove through a “city” (at least the sign on the freeway running through it was blue indicated city based on interstate signage types) with a population of 326 people.  I drove as quickly as speed limit signs could allow.  I realized that even if I got to the black hills in a single go it would be late and I would be unlikely to get a camping spot so I decided to get a room for the night.  My friend Jason had told me that there was a place called Buffalo Wyoming which had been the bases for the Longmire novels which he had read and I have yet to open the first book in the series that he gave me.  So I pulled into Buffalo to have a look around.

I navigated to what appeared to be the main drag for the town and found a spot in front of a bar.  I got out and shuffled my clothes around a bit.  I had a feeling that I would be an outsider and after driving nearly 24 hours straight I didn’t want to offend by smell if I could help it.  I walked into the packed bar and absolutely loved the feel and style of the edifice itself.  It was cowboy saloon to the max and their was a group of people have a song circle (different musicians stepping up to jam) of country tunes.  I wanted nothing more than to join, but I really didn’t feel as though my presence was welcome in the bar let alone as part of the band.  I know that there is a very good possibility that this was all in my head.  That I was projecting my own insecurities or fears on to people just living their lives in a small town.  I know that me even feeling this way is prejudicial on it’s own, but after not seeing another person with dark skin for a while you’re defenses start to go up a bit.  I had a quick beer in a corner, booked a last minute hotel in the nearby town of gillet because it was cheaper than buffalo and headed out. 

When I got gillet I stopped for one more nightcap at a seedy little bar called The Otherside Bar & Grill which had a drive thru.  A feature that I while I know it is far from safe for the road, I do find charming in a way.  I walked in and sat down.   There were 4 patrons in the bar.  Two woman at slot machines, an old man nearly keeping his head up an a large bald fellow.  I sat in the middle part with 3 or so seats between me an the two men and after a few minutes of waiting the bartender grabbed me a drink.  She had a bit of a cold demeanor but late night quite bar shifts with drunks is not really a joy inducing career.  It was about 3 sips into my budwiser when the very large bald man to my right began to rotate his barstool around toward me and my spine stiffened slightly.  When he reached his 90 degree turn he leaned in slightly and said “So, where you from?”.  In these situations there are several groupings of words that one may expect to hear and this is certainly one of them.  And the tone had just as much menace as one might expect when trying to plan a head for such situations.  But, I don’t want to live that way and after a long day I simply turned to face him and said “California, how about you? Are you from around here”.  “Born and Raised” he replied, “not much out here, but the hills are pretty and I loved the big horn mountain area”.   I could see the compliment of his home state softened him a bit and he asked “what brings you out here?” and I explained my journey.   Like everyone I’ve met on the road he was curious about how I was able to take such a trip and I explained how I had saved up and lost me job and the timing felt right.  “cool,  I been all over the place.  You planning on going to the south”, “thinking about it” I said.  Which led to his warning about the moonshine how the “rednecks” (it’s ok he let me know that he was a redneck so he could use the term) down in northern Louisiana produced was the craziest he’d ever had.  This was an interesting moment, because it was a fun story that was also clearly a warning to stay away from the area for other reasons as well.  I asked him why he came back to Wyoming and he said it was because he loved thunderstorms and natural disasters the topic de jour for the next hour.  Eventually even old father time to my left perked up and tried to join our conversation.  I was being nice and trying to indulge the old man who had clearly passed his own personal last call a century ago, but see my thunderstorm loving neighbor next to me rolling his eyes and trying to get me to cut off my politeness toward the town drunk and back to our conversation.   Eventually I had to go, so I shook hands with my chatty new acquaintance and headed to the hotel.  It’s fascinating how easily you can be surprised, as I’m sure both he an I were by simply letting your guard down and being open to communication.  If more people could do this just think how fun our lives could be.

Tomorrow, we are off the Black Hills…