6/24: The West

South Dakota to Yellowstone:  I got up at 5 (yesterday’s 6am and Sunday’s 7).  Watched the sunrise kind of unintentionally.  Hour-long shower in beautiful bathroom.  Got out and Tim was just waking up or just getting out of the tent.  Lazy.  He broke down the tent and I cooked breakfast.  Very efficient.  The whole maneuver probably took an hour tops.  Tim took a shower while I packed the car.  I took first driving shift across Black Hills to, eventually, Mt. Rushmore.  We got there and realized there was a charge to see Mt. Rushmore – or a “parking fee” which effectively meant the same.  We decided to cheat and take pictures from a couple miles away.  Same experience.  Some would call us cynical or cheap.  We call ourselves patriots.  Took off on 14W to Wyoming.  Incredible delays because of construction.  Soul-crushing stuff.  We finally passed into Wyoming, which I found to be even more beautiful than SD.  Tim pointed out that all of Wyoming seemed to be in a valley even though that wouldn’t seem physically possible.  Played a lot of the “distance game,” guessing how far we were from this or that landmark in the distance.  More often than not our guesses came within a half mile and we were very impressed with ourselves.  Towns in Wyoming were depressing.  Lots looked like junkyards.  Oil towns?  Stopped in Gillette around noon and got food supplies at Kroger and some lunch (chicken in surfeit for me, a bag of spinach, yes, seriously, for Tim).  We saw a few flags at half mast but never did find out why.  I offered that in the world of mass media one would be callous to ever hang a flag at anything BUT half mast.  Tim wasn’t impressed and maybe justifiably.  Tim took second shift driving out of Gillette and immediately hit upon Bighorn National Forest.  Up a mountain, down the other side, all the while (qualifier: we did some Fresh Air and some cowboy music beforehand) listening to a Tom Ashbrook program on maternity leave.  Somewhat a one-sided conversation but that seems to have been inevitable. Stuck behind a bus on the way down from BNF.  Gave me plenty of time to look around and get nervous about the crevasse next to us.  Emerged uninjured and got stuck in a crazy-looking thunderstorm that stretched away across both sides of 14 for miles and miles and onto the scrubby plains beyond.  Lots of lightning to be seen.  Just like in Iowa, though I’d say more dramatically, the rain itself proved impotent and our anxieties were for nothing.  Tim’s right to suggest that you want to reckon with SOME kind of life-or-death, high-stakes weather when the build up is so enormous.  Still the sensible side of me sides with my mother’s mother: Nature is the enemy.  It wants to kill us.  Why tempt it or wish it upon ourselves?  After Cody every turn of the road was a better view.  A crescendo of views.  Valleys, rivers, promontories, snow on the tops of mountains, recently fallen boulders and rocks on the road, orange clay all around, precarious rock formations centuries old.  Also notable: the river rushed with a vitally unfamiliar to us.  Tim points out that the Mississippi and Michigan were comparably “static” and I agree.  We were spoiled by the prettiness.  Hard to take in all at once.  Saw some houses and ranches out there and reflected upon the gangsterness of living effectively in Yellowstone, waking up and walking outside and surveying your land which would be not only some of the most beautiful in America but some of the most beautiful in the WORLD.  Later: $25 to enter Yellowstone; another 30 per night to camp; ten for wood and kindling; four showers granted but any additional would cost more.  "Buy more showers."  Are we not men?  Driving to campground ruminated on federal penalty for killing bison at Yellowstone.  Mutated into Bohemian Rhapsody parody about killing bison in Yellowstone and being sentenced to prison: "Nothing really matters, / Anyone can see, / Nothing really matters / Except killing that bison last weeeeeek. / Never kill a bi-sooooooon.”  General unimaginable beauty by Lake Butte for the whole time we were creating this musical monstrosity.  Forgetting so easily that we were on God’s own half-acre.  Rainstorm as soon as we found the site.  Set the tent up in record time with some urgency behind us.  Turned out fine, as usual.

Learned that Tommy would not be joining us due to a work snafu.  Big blow.  We decided we needed to re-plan the rest of our route but would save that ordeal for later.