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The characters are as follows:
The Chemist
The Recycler
The Sojourner
Me
I apologize for the lack of pictures in this section of the story. I assure you, they will come in future sections.
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It is the day before the drive to Yellowstone. Myself, The Chemist, and The Recycler convene for lunch and to buy groceries. The Sojourner is flying into Denver International Airport at 9 pm, and we are to pick him up at that time.
We shop at King Sooper's because of its regal name and low prices, purchasing hot dog supplies, condiments, and water. The water we purchase comes in two varieties: Bottled Arrowhead, and a gallon of El Dorado. The El Dorado water costs two more cents than a generic gallon of water, but The Chemist and The Recycler go for it in spite of my mild protest. Apparently labeling your water El Dorado is worth two extra cents in their eyes. This is not the case in my eyes, which at the time I was rolling.
I can neither confirm nor deny the purchase of alcohol of any sort. I will, however, testify that The Chemist purchased a bottle opener on a separate day. Why did he do this? I leave it to the reader to decide.
There is a lot of time to kill before we must arrive at the airport. We spend this time playing catch and various card games at The Recycler's house. Nothing of note happens during this time and I will probably remove this entire paragraph during editing.
I drive all of us to Denver to pick up The Sojourner. There is not much conversation during the 90 minute drive, a bad omen for the 8+ hour drive we have ahead of us. We arrive at the Denver airport through a toll-free route on the highway and wait at The Cell Phone Parking Lot to avoid paying for parking. We are careful to keep one person on their cell phone at all times to maintain the integrity of the lot. We notice other people around us not using their cell phones and realize the futility of our efforts. Note to all journalists: The integrity of the DIA Cell Phone Parking Lot has been compromised. I expect a front page Gazette article on this by tomorrow morning.
A theory emerges among us: If we had a brightly-colored vest, such as one an elementary school crossing guard might have, we could go up to people and compel them to use their cell phones. This theory goes sadly untested, as we are unable to obtain such a garment.
I am most definitely not wearing a hat during this time.
We pick up The Sojourner, who regales us with tales of his travels. One person he met at the airport referred to Colorado Springs as her "stomping grounds". Subsequently, the phrase "stomping grounds" is relentlessly overused throughout the trip. Relentless overuse of a phrase was not unique in this respect.
We spend the night at The Recycler's house, going to bed early to hit the road as soon as possible the next day. The plan for tomorrow is to first show The Sojourner Colorado Springs' Garden of the Gods, then drive to the city of Cody, Wyoming, an 8+ hour endeavor. We have made reservations for an inn in Wyoming, elegantly named A Wyoming Inn. Earlier, offscreen, I printed out the folio for the reservation. This will be unimportant later.
We wake up early, have breakfast, and go to Garden of the Gods. All the good parking spots are full, so we have no choice but to drive past them and go to a less crowded but much less exciting view. Also, sadly, Pike's Peak is covered in fog, so The Sojourner does not get a good view of it.
We hike around the park and take some good pictures. I, unbeknownst to the other three, put my hand in some bird shit and have to wipe it off on the rocks. I manage to get it pretty, but not fully, clean. Can't smell anything. We are anxious to get going, as we don't want to get to our hotel too late.
We fill up our gas near Mecca, where I also get the opportunity to clean my hands off completely. Then, we hit the road.
If you search "road trip games" on Google, you will find some of the least exciting and inane activites humankind has ever devised. Among these suggestions are Rock, Paper, Scissors, I Spy, and just playing poker on your phone. It is both disheartening and savage. We play the alphabet game, Ghost, and one instance of counting. I won't describe any of these games in this narrative, which is one of the best decisions I will ever make, trust me.
I've always had a rather romanticized vision of road trips in my head -- probably due to the John Green novel Paper Towns -- that turned out to be highly inaccurate. Still, the drive wasn't all that bad. We drive in 2 hour shifts, and the time passes by pretty quickly. And yes, officer, I'd like to confirm that we never exceeded the speed limit at any time.
Wyoming's population is roughly equal to the population of my college dorm. Once, we pass a sign boldly declaring "Population: 44", which is the lowest town population I've ever seen. We see cattle ranches, cattle ranches, and the road ahead. Power lines stretch out on either side, far off into the distance, connecting to nothing. I'd like to say more about the landscape, to paint a vivid and visceral picture in your head, but if you picture grass and power lines, you've pretty much got it. Throw some cows in there every once in a while. Go crazy.
Slight digression: Wyoming has a single congresswoman representing them in the House of Representatives (shoutout to Cynthia Lummis!). For comparison, California has 53 representatives, which is more than the population of the aforementioned Wyoming town.
It is somewhere between 4 and 6 hours into the drive, which I know because The Recycler is driving, and he has the third shift. Someone notices we are running out of gas.
I look and notice, Wow, we are really running out of gas.
The fuel light is on. The Sojourner says on most cars, this means you have 3 gallons left. The van gets roughly 20 miles per gallon. 60 miles left, we math. We pass many small villages, but none of them have gas. I look at my phone. The nearest town likely to have a gas station, Moneta, is 80 miles away. All of us realize it, but none of us say it: We are screwed.
Quiet panic sets in as we plan contingencies. I tell The Recycler to use the gas pedal as little as possible. We turn off the radio, the air conditioning, unplug our charging cell phones. Do any of these car functions use gas? I don't know, but I figure it is better to be safe than stranded in Nowhere, Wyoming. It is suggested to turn back -- but nope, the last city (Casper) with gas is about as far away as Moneta. It is suggested to call Triple A, paying them an exorbitant fee to bail us out of this predicament. It is suggested to hitchhike to a gas station. It is suggested to set up camp right by the side of the road, in some cattle ranch, and see what we can do in the morning. I do not know who suggested these things -- I might have been responsible for some of them -- but none of them sound appealing. The car continues traveling forward at 65 miles per hour.
The best part of all this is that we are, at the moment, driving through a Wyoming oil field. Oil rigs are churning all around us, tirelessly extracting crude from the ground. There is something deliciously poetic about driving through an oil field as you are running out of gas, but damned if I know what the poem is. The Chemist says he does not know how to refine crude oil into gasoline; he does, however, know how to distill ethanol (alcohol) into gasoline. Why did he bring this up? I leave it to the reader to decide.
The Chemist admits that if we were to try to distill ethanol into gasoline, we would likely fail and destroy the van. I imagine us trying to do this chemistry, and even that imagination does not go well.
But there is nothing else we can do.
