Yellowstone, Pt. 6: Old Faithful, or: True Art, A Lack Of Defiance, And Redacted Images

Part 5

We wake up the next morning to a breakfast of eggs and precooked bacon. The plan is to go see Old Faithful and the various other geysers/hot springs around Yellowstone.

The drive to the geyser area takes a little under an hour, during which time Alvin negotiations between The Chemist and me crescendo. The situation is tense. I know if I find Alvin, The Chemist will not be receiving him. The Chemist knows the same thing.

We get to Old Faithful, where I take one of the best pictures of the entire trip:

When you look at Bright Spot, you gaze into the face of God. When you gaze at this sign, it's hard not to like it.

Look at that warning sign. I don't know if I've ever seen something that so perfectly captures the ephemeral nature of human life, the terrifying eternity that awaits us all, the dangers of going off the prebuilt path. This picture is tragedy. This picture is the naivete of childhood and the grief of losing a child. This picture is the unabated, callous wrath of Mother Earth and the apathy of a stranger. This picture is art.

Prior to the trip, someone told The Chemist to hike up a hill and watch Old Faithful from there. We decide to do this, judging from the lack of crowd that we will have time to look around at the surrounding hot springs and geysers before Old Faithful erupts.

One particular geyser, called the Beehive, unpredictably erupts somewhere between ten hours and five days following its previous eruption. Old Faithful far overshadows Beehive with her regularity and size. I take many pictures of the geothermal phenomena, most of which look the same.  They are all ceaselessly churning and steaming and giving off sulphurous fumes. Here is a sample:

Going swimming in this is not recommended, because it is way too small. You could barely tread water in this thing.

After seeing a sign telling tourists not to throw coins, rocks, or other objects into a boiling pool, The Sojourner suggests we throw coins, rocks, or other objects into a boiling pool. We do not, each for different reasons. The Recycler deeply respects park rangers and does not want to anger them. In fact, The Recycler wants to be a park ranger when he grows up. The Sojourner understands the underlying chemistry behind these steam vents and the negative consequences of disrupting said chemistry. The Chemist is too afraid. As for me, my excuses total to zero. But that's something my excuses and my regrets have in common.

While we are looking at hot water, I am thinking about the live supervolcano beneath us. It is an awesome thought, by which I mean it induces awe. The volcano could erupt at any time, killing thousands of people, annihilating billions of dollars of infrastructure, and blotting out the sky with ash. Such a catastrophe might bring about a second Ice Age, an Ice Age I wouldn't get to see, being dead and all. That's fine. I've seen the Ice Age movie. Plus, if "Died in supervolcano eruption" is to be my cause of death, I have no complaints. Shoutout to all the Romans who lived in Pompeii. I've got Yellowstone here -- she says, "Vesuvius ain't got nothin' on me."*

I look around at the carefully positioned walkways, the hotel, and the other tourists, and wonder what this place looked like hundreds of years ago. I wonder how mystified I would have been if I had stumbled on this place, where water is boiling, in 1442. I wonder what explanation I would have come up with. I think about science overcoming myth.

I also think about profit overcoming the environment. I do not like the state-sponsored commercialism all around me, but it is what brought me here. The paths and hotel corrupt the scene, but without them I would not be able to enjoy it. This juxtaposition between artificial and natural will recur.

The hike is strenuous, but doable. We make it to the top without Old Faithful going off behind us. The view is fantastic. I take the following picture at the top:

After admiring the hotel's architecture, I wait with a camera. Old Faithful erupts a couple minutes later. I video it. We hike back down for lunch.

We drop inside the hotel, to look at the architecture some more. I take a picture of the large clock inside:

A paragon of timekeeping.

Back out, and our lunch has taken long enough for us to watch Old Faithful erupt again, this time much closer. While we wait, the Beehive goes off:

I am lucky to have this picture, given the rarity of the occassion.

Here is a picture of the crowd around Old Faithful:

The crowd is much, much, much larger midsummer.

I withhold actual ground-level Old Faithful images. Go there and see it yourself. I hear real life has very high definition.


Part 7





*Sorry, Pompeiians. Your tragic story lives on in my heart. The readers, though, all they want is an effigy to crucify.

Yellowstone, Pt. 5: White Water, Dogmatism, And Percy Bysshe Shelly

Part 4

On the drive over to see our first Yellowstone attraction, The Chemist discovers Alvin is missing. I immediately lambast him for his negligence and boldly claim Alvin as mine if I find him. The Chemist may tell you I threatened to keep Alvin as a slave, but in that hypothetical circumstance I would exercise my Constitutional right to plead the Fifth Amendment. Molly is tucked into my coat pocket, away from all harm. She'll be safe from all the flares, although I know she doesn't care.

There is a scenic viewpoint right where we park, and a hiking trail nearby. We take the picture below and go hike. The Chemist leaves his plastic water bottle at the trail's entrance with the intention of re-getting it when we make it back out. Temporary litterer.

We discuss whitewater rafting and decide this place is too easy to be the children's introductory course, so it must be where they store the rafts before they get you started. We never make it to the observation point in the picture because we suck at tourism, unlike Macau, a place where tourism comprises over 50% of its GDP.

Notably, I was using my sister's camera, which was extremely fancy, but also conferred an inescapable touristy look as it swung below my neck. An appropriate look, but a distasteful one.

The trail goes up right next to the river:

We throw a stick into the river so we can watch it get sucked into the white water. There is a video of this, but it's a terrible video for many reasons. The stick is nearly invisible, it gets stuck before it can make it to the end, and the basic premise isn't even entertaining. That's why instead of posting the video below, I've posted a picture of a bridge. If you really want to see the video, let me know and I'll help you waste some precious seconds of your valuable time.

The constant sound of running water has a deep, calming effect on me. More on this in a future part.

The hike is pleasantly long. We quietly admire the serenity all around us until the trail hits the main road, at which point we turn back and head back to camp. The time is around 7pm.

The Chemist is eager to start a campfire and sip beverages of a very specific type around the fire. For firemaking supplies, we have self-lighting charcoal and the firewood collected earlier. The firewood is soaked through from the earlier rain/hail, but we remember how you only live once, so we put everything we have into the firepit and go for broke:

We are utterly broke at this point. We had to sell off the shoe in the picture just to have the gas money to make it back home. None of this is true. 

The charcoal catches just fine. The firewood fails to catch in spite of prolonged coaxings. It gets burnt but does not burn, an annoying non-paradox. Evidently, the secrets of combustion are unknown to such inexperienced campers. The Recycler suggests to simply buy firewood, which is close by. The Chemist and I categorically reject such a bourgeoise solution. We prefer to build our mighty fire on the mighty back of the mighty worker, like how a Mighty Duck might use a Mighty Mite and his mighty might to vacuum a mighty mite off the back of a Mighty Morphin' Power Ranger. Might makes right.

Besides, we will have plenty of time to buy firewood when we are dead from hypothermia. Firewood goes to Valhalla, and we have warrior spirits.

Dinner is hotdogs and bratwusts, which involves certain esoteric mathematical methodologies to ensure fair division, methodologies colloquially referred to as "division", complicated by the fact that The Sojouner only wants dogs and no brats, complicated slightly more by the fact that the abbreviation for "bratwurst" is the first half of "bratwurst", while the abbreviation of "hotdog" is the first half of "dogma". English makes no sense. We eventually get the math right and move on with our lives.

The Chemist wants to play the card game Mao, which I've blogged about before. Mao, unlike my opinions on Jay Z, stratifies people into two distinct groups: Lovers, and haters. (I think Jay Z is just okay.) The Chemist falls in the former category. The Recycler falls into the latter category, which wrecked the experience. We stop after one round. Nothing beside remains. Round the decay of that colossal Mao wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level night stretches far away.

I did bring a few board/card games, but none of them are playable in the dim light and awkward tent space. Outside is not an option because the wooden table is on a slope and, much like our firewood, permanently wet. As such, we go to sleep early. More time for visiting attractions the next day.

Part 6

Yellowstone, Pt. 4: Google Is God, Tent Incompetence, And Semipermeable Materials

Part 3

4 parts into a series entitled "Yellowstone", and no Yellowstone. You've waited long enough.

We drive into the south entrance of Yellowstone, passing through Grand Teton National Park and paying a $25 entrance fee. This pair of national parks is heavily commercialized, so we buy groceries before getting to the campsite. I can't imagine Teddy Roosevelt predicting the sentence "We buy groceries at the national park" would ever be used, but some of us wanted eggs to go with our precooked bacon.

The grocery store is also where we find out there is a bear named Three Ninety Nine. This name was funny at first, but now it reminds me of the vicelike anthropocentrism and commercialism endemic to our Yellowstone experience. I wish Three Ninety Nine had a different name. Less wallet-and-consumer-friendly-start-savin', more top-of-the-food-chain-magnificent-hunter-and-scavenger.

Even after getting into the park, it is a long drive to the campsite. We are camping at Bridge Bay, near Yellowstone Lake. We pass other, smaller lakes along the way. Each successive lake is the largest body of water The Chemist has ever seen. That drive broke one record several times for him.

We are driving along when, out of nowhere, Google Maps predicts an extremely high-density traffic zone. When we get to the zone, we see a large group of people pulled over, so many the parking lot is overfull. It blows my mind that Google Maps had the ability to sense and inform us of traffic like this. In fact, Google Maps did not incorrectly predict anything for the whole trip. The Sojourner is unimpressed, missing his sense of wonder just as he is missing a gem bug. Coincidence? I think not!

The people are pulled over because there are bears in the distance. They (the people, not the bears) sport binoculars and cameras with comically long telescoping lenses. We debate over whether we should stop, and end up deciding not to. The parking area is already overflowing, and setting up our tent is the first priority.

We pass more people gawking at distant animals (mostly bison), which will eventually turn out to be hilarious, because bison are everywhere. We had two bison and an elk right in our campsite. We could've gone up and touched them if we'd wanted to. But here are these crowds of shiny-eyed tourists jumping at the chance to catch sight of a tiny black dot five miles away.

Seriously, they were just right there. Here are two who happened to be in the same place we camped.

We get to the campsite and claim our reservation, choking on exhaust fumes the RV in front of us is emitting. The park worker at the booth warns us that bears are present and they can smell anything -- food, cosmetics, food wrappers, grills, boxes -- anything. I wonder why bears aren't already in the campsite, rummaging through supplies and trying to get into vehicles. Even I can smell the campfires and exhaust fumes. You'd think Three Ninety Nine would know about this place by now.

At the campsite, we split into two groups. The Chemist and The Sojourner go to the nearby forest to collect firewood, while The Recycler and I put up the tent. There is not a good tent location, as most of the ground is either sloped or very muddy. We lay down two tarps and start setting up the tent on a muddy patch. The time is a little after noon.

It starts to precipitate lightly. We have to hurry, or we will be caught tentless in the rain. Due to misunderstandings and fails, the process does not go as smoothly as possible. One fail has us putting a fiberglass pole in the wrong spot, causing the material to overbend and splinter. No worries though, we correct our mistake and it appears as though the splintered pole will be fine. That's what we tell ourselves anyway, because the rain is coming down heavily now, actually, ouch, it's coming down really heavily, and then we realize it's hailing.

Luckily, The Sojourner and The Chemist are back from their firewood expedition. We have four people to put the tent up and toss in supplies in a hailing, pressure-high situation. Fails continue. The top of the tent is just mesh; there is a cover that goes over the top of it. We fail to align the cover properly the first time, so we have to rotate it -- hang on, did we put it on upside down? Whatever, there's no time.

The temperature gets colder and we hit full-on panic mode, frantically putting in stakes that fail to find purchase in the more-water-than-dirt ground, realizing we have no time to figure out how to push out the tent windows, guessing what we will need: Sleeping bags? Toilet paper? Board games? We throw all of these and more into the tent haphazardly, muddying pillows, boots squish-squashing in the severe mud around us, making the interior of the tent filthy. Alvin is lost somewhere in the chaos.

This is he.

.
Eventually, we manage to stabilize and get all the supplies we think we need into the tentlike thing we put up. The thing is currently sporting a splintered pole (holding steady... for now), a possibly upside down roof, and is smaller than usual because we failed to put the windows out. We huddle around, look at each other, and relish in the victory we've achieved. We made it. We showed how human-made equipment can block out nature, even when that equipment is assembled terribly.

Our mission of completely separating ourselves from nature on a camping trip is not 100% successful. It is so cold we can see our breath -- not wisps and vapors; full-on dragonbreath-steamengine-cigarsmoke style condensation. We have some superabsorbent towels, which we inevitably call ShamWows, we use to clean the tent floor. The ShamWows are highly effective and allow us to lay down, layer by layer, blankets, mats, then sleeping bags. That's six layers separating our bare skin from the cold, muddy ground: Tarp, tent floor, blanket, mat, sleeping bag, clothes. Six seems like a small number when you count it up like that. But it is enough.

The Recycler came equipped with a full raingear ensemble, or the worst Ironman suit ever: Heavy waterproof pants, heavy coat with hood, gloves, and waterproof shoes. The rest of us did not come so prepared. As such, The Recycler is the conduit between us and the outside world. Fetching supplies, fixing the tent, etc., these responsibilities all fall on his shoulders.

The Recycler looked better than what this guy tried to do, at least.

We sit back a little, consolidate. It is warm and comfortable in the sleeping bags. Someone says the tent might be semi-permeable, because they can feel water on the inside. I don't think this is the case, because (a) It took us a long time to set up, so the rooftop mesh was exposed to the rain for a long time, but, much more importantly, (b) Whoever designs a semi-permeable tent is the dumbest designer ever. That's like if I designed an unbounceable basketball, or transparent tinted windows.

After less than half an hour, the hail stops and we are ready to go see our first attraction. The Chemist has a checklist of items to view, and among them are the two waterfalls in Yellowstone.

Will we find adventure and excitement? Will we drown in the river? Will The Chemist ever recover Alvin? Find out next time.

Part 5

Yellowstone, Pt. 3: Pretty Girls, Hypothetical Rebellion, And A True Patriot

Part 2

Four guys arrive in a tiny Wyoming town. This may sound like the setup to a mediocre joke, but it isn't. It is me reusing a blog intro for comedic effect. It is more like a Shenzhen factory suicide net: Seems like joke. Isn't.

We find our hotel without issue. Across the street from it is The World's Largest Jackalope Exhibit. We are all eager to see this mythic animal, but it is too late tonight. We are all tired. It is around 9pm, and we need to find a place to eat.

The woman in charge of the hotel attempts to sell us a room $10 more expensive than the one we reserved, saying it has more room and that she'll give us a military discount. It works. We tell her we are hungry, so she calls her friend Harley's personal cell phone to check if Harley's restaurant (The Cobbler) is still open. She looks out her window to check the status of another restaurant, the Outlaw Cafe. More reminders of the size of this town.

Exhibit A: The bustling downtown scene of Dubois, Wyoming. The road you see is also an interstate. The only thing more eye-catching than the sleek, modern buildings are the endless throngs of pretty girls.

We unload some things in the room and proceed to The Cobbler, which is a little farther down the road than Outlaw Cafe. We get there just as Harley is closing down -- out of luck. Outlaw Cafe it is, then.

The portly, mustachioed man running Outlaw Cafe is the host, chef, and waiter of the place -- that's judge, jury, and executioner, in that order. When we walk through the door of Outlaw Cafe, he is in complete control of our fate. In the moment we cross that threshold between Outlaw Cafe and the rest of Dubois, a silent conversation occurs as we lock eyes:

Him: I own this place. I do everything in this place. Consequently, until you leave, each and every one of your wretched souls is mine. For these few moments, I own all of you. They say the customer is always right. Well in this place, there are no customers. You are my peasants. I am your king.

Me: Would you like that soul before or after you take our orders? I am pretty hungry.*

He sits us down and fetches drinks, 4 waters, then takes our orders. The Chemist is first. He orders a cheeseburger without lettuce, onion, or tomato. Outlaw Cafe God (henceforth, OCG) narrows his eyes and pauses.

Pauses.

The silence becomes uncomfortable. The atmosphere thickens. He asks a clarifying question, receives a response, laughs derisively. At long last, OCG scritch-scratches many words down on his notepad with a snort, then looks at The Sojourner for his order.

The Sojouner, now slightly intimidated, orders a Philly cheesesteak with no peppers, causing OCG's eyes bug out of his head in utter disbelief. Another clarifying question, another response, another shortform essay scrawled out onto the notepad. OCG looks at me. I keep my order simple, smoothly transitioning over to The Recycler, who orders hot wings.

"How hot you want 'em?"

"As hot as you have."

OCG cackles and stares at The Recycler. The message is clear: The temperature of these hot wings will be somewhere between hellfire and an exploding star.

"You sure?" He is eager, waiting for The Recycler to say yes, waiting to pounce on The Recycler and destroy every taste bud in his victim's body. The Recycler wipes the sweat from his brow and seizes upon the opportunity to retreat.

"Ackcherlly, give me the Sriracha instead."

OCG nods, a little disappointed, a little approving of The Recycler's conservative style. He goes into the kitchen.

There is no music in the Outlaw Cafe, only the beating of your heart reminding you of your own inescapable mortality. Lack of ambiance exacerbates the already-long wait time, during which the four of us discuss the nature of OCG. Perhaps he will serve The Chemist nothing but a slice of cheese smeared on a loaf of moldy bread and charge him a thousand dollars for the privilege. Then, when we protest, he'll call the Dubois sheriff and we'll spend the night in the town jail. I suggest, if this were to occur, that the four of us could easily overpower the sheriff, subdue him, and gain control over Dubois. That's right, officer, I am talking to myself now.

The other three do not agree with me. The sheriff is armed and dangerous, they say. He has tools to quell an uprising, they say. I ignore them, blinded by visions of power. Let's make Outlaw Cafe a real Outlaw Cafe. If the sheriff comes, we have four people -- one person suppresses each arm, nullifying weapon advantage, another one blinds the poor guy, and the fourth one can provide moral support by kissing a Dubois girl in the background. Plus, we have the element of surprise.

Sometime immediately after this hypothetical situation, one of us suggests the reason Outlaw Cafe doesn't play music is because it has hidden microphones, recording every word out of a customer's mouth. I loudly mention how I think Outlaw Cafe is the best restaurant I've ever had the pleasure to dine in, then return to planning treason.

After what seems like an unreasonable amount of time, which it probably was because he's doing everything around here, OCG exits the kitchen with our meals. Every order is 100% correct, looks good, and in large portion sizes. He generously provides the hottest hot sauce he has to offer on the side, in case The Recycler hates his own tongue. Asks us if we need anything else, we don't, he nods and leaves.

We all try the hot sauce. It isn't that hot. I mean it's kinda hot, but it's not the scorch-flesh-dead kind of hot I was expecting based on OCG's behavior. What an anticlimax.

Back to the hotel, and we finish unloading our stuff. I get the bed because everyone else wants to try out their sleeping bags.

Our room is small, but it does the job. Just like certain... other things.

We finish the night by playing card games while drinking beverages of a specific type (which will go unspecified here.)

Monday morning, and we all take turns showering. The Chemist wakes up early, showers, and goes to do things I have no knowledge of. I wake up next.

I get into the shower, turn the water on. It is scalding hot, somewhere between hellfire and an exploding star, and it's impossible to turn it colder. I stand under a dribble of water, not able to withstand the temperature, and wash myself. Later, I will found out you actually can turn the water colder. I just don't know how to operate a shower.

After everyone showers, The Sojourner leaves the shower on its hottest setting in an attempt to steam up the bathroom in an attempt to iron his pants. Needless to say, this worked perfectly and resulted in the smoothest pair of pants I've ever laid eyes on. (Just kidding, I have no idea why you would believe that. If anything, his pants came out more wrinkled than before.)

We break our fast at The Cobbler, which is a biker gang hotspot. Most of the bikers are fat and bearded, wearing jeans under assless chaps. The Sojourner laughs at one biker's fashion choice before we realize all of them are dressed the same way, and they surround us. Plus, jeans under assless chaps is probably the most practical way for a biker to dress. None of us would know.


I don't understand the appeal of being in a biker gang at the time, but after reading the Wikipedia article on them, I have a better grasp over the interesting aspects of counterculture and belonging inherent to the outlaw motorcycle club dynamic. I wonder if there are any law-abiding motorcycle clubs. I wonder if Harley, the owner of The Cobbler, had a biker gang father named who named her after his motorcycle. It seems likely. The Cobbler is extremely biker gang friendly.

The food is pretty good, large portion sizes. Lots of bikers to feed. The four of us stand out dramatically, but thankfully are not harassed.

We decide to check out The World's Largest Jackalope exhibit in Dubois, Wyoming. The large, plastic Jackalope replica outside has an extremely humble man sitting on it:

We take a picture of him and move on.

Inside is the real Jackalope:

Pictured: A true patriot.

The mythic beast is not impressive to us, probably because Bright Spot took all the glory. Separating it more from Bright Spot is the fact that we do get souvenirs at this place. The Recycler, The Chemist, and I all purchase gem bugs -- rocks with googly eyes and feisty personalities. Our gem bugs are named Izzy, Alvin, and Molly, respectively. These gem bugs will be our companions and dear friends for the trip, and we will spend much time discussing their status. Some of us will take care of our gem bugs. Some of us will be negligent owners. A hostage situation may or may not develop. Stay tuned.

Molly Moonstone has had a very sheltered life.

The Sojourner gets a shot glass. I have nothing to say about this purchase.

Dubois is done with. Next stop, Yellowstone.

Part 4





*This silent conversation never occurred and I've fabricated the entire exchange. If the man in charge of Outlaw Cafe is reading, I sincerely apologize. You are a smart man making an honest living, and I admire that. The readers are vicious, though. Like jackals. They just want a corpse to feed on.

Yellowstone, Pt. 2: False Prophets, Aliens, And W. E. Dubois

There is a single image in this post which I did not take (shoutout to Google Images). I assure you, there will be at least one self-taken picture in the next part of the story.

________________________________________________________________________________

Part 1

Four guys are in the middle of a Wyoming oil field, about to run out of gas. This sounds like the setup to a mediocre joke, and it is, but it is also the situation I find myself in after I mixed poor planning with a pinch of hubris.

To recap: The Recycler is driving. The fuel light is on, and The Sojourner tells us on most vehicles, this means there are 3 gallons of gas left -- around 60 miles' worth. The nearest town where we think we can get gas was Moneta, around 80 miles away.

As it turns out, neither of these things was true. The fuel light, as we discovered later, meant we had only a single gallon of gas left. And Moneta had no gas station.

We remain cruising without cruise control at 65 mph, suppressing panic. I am looking up the phone number of Triple A, but having no success due to bad Internet coverage. As I am doing so, we enter into another diminutive Wyoming town. Hope surges into us as we see a large sign proudly declaring GAS -- FOOD -- LODGING ahead. The Recycler brakes, ready to pull in. We examine the building behind the sign.

I notice that, curiously, the windows of this particular establishment have been boarded up. I look closer and notice a real estate sign, signifying that the property is for sale. Tumbleweeds roll by in cliché fashion. Frustration rises as we realize this place has been closed for a very long time. It was nothing more than a mirage in the desert, a false prophet, a bait into nothing. Worse, our detour has caused The Recycler to brake, and hence, cost us fuel. We grit our teeth and set back out onto the road, our souls a bit more jaded than before. Talking has become infrequent.



A new hope emerges like a Skywalker on Tattooine: There is a place, according to Google Maps, called Gas Hills, and it is within 5 miles of us. We relax. If we make it to Gas Hills...

We make it to Gas Hills. It is a simple dirt road leading to what appears to be a tiny trailer park. There is a building or something at the end of the dirt road, but none of us care. There is no gas, which is the only thing we care about.

Of course, it is reasonable to name a place Gas Hills if it is in the middle of an oil field, but it did not seem so to us at the time. If we had become seduced by that name, if we had been overcome by the promise of that sweet gasoline nectar, if we had let our guard down even just a drop, we would have gone off the main highway, even more out of our way, lost even more momentum slowing down and stopping, lost even more gas for no reason, lost even more hope realizing our mistake, had our souls become even more jaded, and probably would have resorted to eating each other alive in a frenzy of panic and desparation. One thing in that last sentence isn't true.

If the aforementioned boarded-up gas station had been a false prophet, then Gas Hills was the Antichrist himself, alight in Satanic power. Luckily, we do not succumb to the siren's call. We plug our ears and forge on, stoically despairing. I estimate we have less than 10 miles in the tank, and the nearest gas is over 70 miles away. I do not say anything out loud. Silence blossoms.



Now there is serendipity, and there is miracle. The place called Bright Spot falls squarely into the latter category.

We did not take any pictures of Bright Spot. We did not get any souvenirs. There is no evidence of its existence but in our memories. Bright Spot, to us, is a Shangri-La, an Atlantis, an El Dorado. It is mythic, and I kind of like it that way. Perhaps Bright Spot was a group dream. Perhaps it was a hallucination, brought about by stress. Perhaps we should have bought a lottery ticket, and pushed our luck even further. The specifics do not matter. What matters is this: When you look at Bright Spot, you gaze into the face of God.

My phone labels Bright Spot with the words GAS -- FOOD -- LODGING, and my jaded soul immediately narrows its eyes in suspicion. Another siren's call, luring us to lose more fuel, I think. Still, I let the other three know about the existence of another potential false prophet. They are as wary as I am.

Now in some versions of the story, we roll into Bright Spot just as the last drop of fuel in our tank is being converted into axle-turning and exhaust fumes. In another version, we have to push the van a few hundred feet to make it to the pump. In a third version, the Yellowstone Supervolcano explodes -- somehow behind us -- and we have to race the lava on less than half a gallon of gas, bouncing comically along the suddenly undulating highway like we are in a Saturday morning cartoon. In this version, when the van inevitably runs out of gas, we call Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and he lifts the last of us into his helicopter just before the lava kisses our toes. I leave it to the reader to decide which version they prefer. (The third version does not have Bright Spot in it, so it sucks.)

Bright Spot is composed of two buildings: A small convenience store and a smaller motel. The pull-in is dirt and tumbleweeds. The gas pump does not have a digital display or a credit card reader; it relies on turnstiles and trust instead. This is almost exactly what it looked like:

Note the PAY BEFORE YOU PUMP sign in lieu of a credit card reader and the analog display.

An elderly Hawaiian woman emerges from the store half of Bright Spot and asks, "Do you need gas?".

Never before has a question been so incisive, yet so simple. Here was a woman just doing her job, performing a routine she had doubtless performed countless times before, yet to us, she was a messiah. In the moment she asks her question, we know we are saved, the lion lies down with the lamb, and all is good in the world.

She fuels us up, operating the pump with arthritic joints and atrophying muscles. I talk to her as she does it, learning of her Hawaiian heritage and her job working in the oil fields. I go inside to pay. I regret not leaving a tip, or some token of appreciation, even though this would somewhat degrade the mythic nature of Bright Spot. The other three do not understand why I would want to tip someone for simply doing her job. They do not fully appreciate the nuance of subjective perception -- how her doing her job means the world to us, in that moment -- but, then again, they also do not understand how melodramatic I can be in blog posts.

The only way this story could have been more perfect is if there had been a total solar eclipse, thereby making Bright Spot a literal bright spot out in the middle of Nowhere, Wyoming. In some versions of the story, there was a total eclipse, plus the four of us heard the voice of the angel Gabriel coming from the heavens and are now devout Christians. In another version, we heard Mohammed and are currently on our Hajj. I leave it to the reader to decide which version they prefer.

We leave Bright Spot with smooth, clean souls. Back onto Highway 26.



It is somewhere between 6 and 8 hours into the drive, which I know because I was driving and I had the last shift. We are all tired and anxious to arrive at our hotel in Cody, Wyoming. The folio for the reservation I printed offscreen is ready to deploy.

Highway 26 diverges in the town of Shoshoni, Wyoming. Cody is to the north, along Highway 20. We drive into Shoshoni, slowing to comply with the city speed limit. Shoshoni is a thousand times larger than Bright Spot and a thousand times less bright. It is all motels, convenience stores, and boarded up windows. We prepare to drive onto Highway 20.

The large procession of cars preceding the highway indicates something is wrong. The large, flashing sign saying ROAD CLOSED -- HEAD BACK TO SHOSHONI indicates the road is closed, and we should head back to Shoshoni. We pull off to the side of the road. I exit the van to ask someone about the situation. Hi, sir. Do you know why the road is closed? (No, but we saw a bulldozer driving in, so we suspect it may have been falling rock.)  How long do you think it will be closed? (We have no clue. It could be 20 minutes. It could be 5 hours. It might not reopen until tomorrow morning.) Is there another route to Yellowstone? (You can go through the southern entrance, which is mountainous. We are not so lucky. This highway is the only way back to our home.)

I return to the van to discuss. Apparently, while I was gone, an SUV flew past the line of pulled-over cars, far exceeding the speed limit, irreverent of the flashing road sign. I get back in time to see that same SUV flying back out the other way. This confirms the fact that we cannot roll the dice and ignore the sign -- not that such a thought ever crossed our minds, officer.

We decide to first take a bathroom break at the nearest convenience store, weigh options, get out of the van for a little bit. There are condoms for sale in the bathroom. 75 cents. We do not buy any.

We could try to wait it out. We could try the alternate route to Yellowstone -- but wait, we have to get to a hotel tonight. Either way, we are not making it to A Wyoming Inn. Later, I will cancel the reservation, thereby making the folio I had printed out offscreen totally useless. It is a sad moment.

We return to Highway 20, wanting to be ready in case it reopens. We sit for a short while when the sheriff drives out from the highway. I roll down our window. He rolls down his window and elucidates us.

"The road'll be closed for 3, 4, 5 hours at least. They're talkin' 'bout not opening it until tomorrow morning."

Crestfallen, we reevaluate. Smartphones roll out like autobots. The Recycler finds another town, another possibility: Dubois, Wyoming. It is to the west, not the north, and we can make it there tonight. For some reason, Dubois sounds familiar to me. Much later, I will realize this is because it reminded me of civil rights activist and prolific author W. E. Dubois, a cofounder of the NAACP.

We decide to go for Dubois. I turn the van around and set out toward the west, an agent of our own kind of Manifest Destiny. The Sojourner looks up inns in Dubois, finds one, calls it, makes a reservation. Our plans have rapidly changed, but the profound synergies of our group have made the major adjustment painless and smooth. We are back in business.

En route to Dubois, we speculate as to why the road was closed, as we never got to see the source of the blockage. It could have been falling rocks, but it also could have been an alien invasion the US government efficiently suppressed. This theory sticks immediately, becoming a sort of conversational stomping grounds. As we drive westward, we imagine a full-out scorched-Earth war taking place between the aliens and the US military, hidden just out of our view by the hills to the north. I imagine the US troops becoming overwhelmed and retreating to none other than Bright Spot Wyoming, where under the strategic genius of that Hawaiian woman, they commit to one glorious last stand. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is among them, for some reason.

We arrive in Dubois. The population is under a thousand.

Next time: Cowboys, outlaws, and the world's largest Jackalope exhibit!

Part 3