It’s 4 in the morning.
I’m outside in the snow wearing Crocs, looking for dog poop. The wind – which shook the trailer and woke me up at 1:30am – feels arctic, and whistles as it blows through my PJ’s.
Elvis happily rolls around in the crunchy remnants of yesterday’s snow as I scan the ground.
“Where’s your poop?”
Jackpot!
I try not to enjoy the warmth on my icy fingers through the bag too much, as I gingerly make my way back across the slick surface and deposit it in the trash.
“Don’t put yourself out,” Chad had told Mike on the phone earlier that day. “We can always get a hotel for the weekend.” Mike owns the RV park we’re planning on staying at on a month-by-month basis in Northern Wyoming, and promised he’d do his best to have a spot dug out for us.
At 8:30 we’re packed up and back on the road.
It’s gorgeous. When the sun hits the surface of the snow, it bursts into millions of glittering diamonds. Their impermanence making them more valuable; to claim them is to destroy them.
Two hours in, snow falls heavy and steady. Everything’s white except the slick charcoal colored surface of the road.
Then with just three and a half hours left to go, things grind to a halt. The road over the pass is closed. We stop in a line of traffic, and wait.
“Three semis are on their side,” a bearded man yells up to Chad from a tiny matte black Honda. “It’s snowing heavily on the pass, the road’s probably going to be closed for a while.”
“Our bands got a show,” says a ragtag group of three who have abandoned their vehicle and are walking down the middle of the road. Judging by how they’re dressed, I imagine they’re inspired by The Lumineers, with a dash of Dylan. Floppy hats, highwater cutoffs, well-oiled leather boots, and a mop of curly hair. “I don’t know what to do,” says the woman of the group, pushing her thick rimmed glasses up the bridge of her nose.
Thankfully, we have a plan. Chad calls his buddy who works for Bureau of Land Management in Pinedale, an hour in the opposite direction. We get permission to spend the night in their back parking area, and wait for things to open up again.
By the time we arrive, the temps are in the 20s.
Now, it doesn’t take much to kick me into ‘survival mode.’ Hunger, fatigue, and cold can easily send me spiraling into dramatics. As we settle in, this time’s no different.
I’ve put on my two down jackets, and am curled into a fetal position on the bed, barking orders at Chad as I try and conserve heat.
“What’s the temp in here?”
“Forty degrees.”
“I’m hungry…”
Chad runs a thick bright yellow extension cord to the outlet 20 yards away, and before long it’s toasty inside.
We pick the closest spot to have dinner, a place that’s made of wood – every kind – called The Wrangler. It has cool vintage paintings on the wall, pictures that the regulars probably don’t see as cool or vintage.
There are stickers everywhere – something about not being able to call in sick to work, so calling in dead instead, and another about the difference between a friend who bails you out of jail and a friend who lands themselves in the cell with you.
The restroom area is marked by slatted swinging saloon-style doors. I know which one to use thanks to ‘WOMAN’ carved in blocky caps on a chunk of wood.
There’s a grey-haired man in a cowboy hat by himself, slowly chewing his burger. Whatever he was drinking’s been reduced to ice cubes.
I order a Cobb salad and hey, why not a sample platter too?
I sit there all zipped up in my two coats as a man enters in jeans and a t-shirt.
The food arrives, and onion rings and mozzarella sticks are dunked into ranch. Some drips on the cuff of my outer layer.
At 4am we’re shook awake by a snow plough. Chad leaps out of bed to unplug the extension cord, and coils it up in the brisk 8-degree temps.
A half hour later we hear a “beep,” and the power light illuminates – the plough operator plugged us back in.
“I love Wyoming,” says Chad, “what a nice dude.”
Today’s plan is to let the sun thaw the icy snowy roads, and pick back up where we left off. You know what they say about plans though. Hopefully, today we’ll make it home.
TRAVEL & ADVENTURE 