I wanted water so badly. Into every road trip I find myself wanting nothing but lettuce and water. And floss.
But I got to the point where I couldn't drink anymore. I'd had so much coffee and water I couldn't pee it all. I was like a sponge that no matter how hard you squeeze is still saturated. Peeting wasn't even fun anymore. So I started looking for something else. That's why the five-pound bag of saltwater taffy made sense.
I went into a truckstop with a Subway, but even Subway--and this might have had something to do with the people standing in line--looked kind of unhealthy. So I wandered around and found these big, plain bags of saltwater taffy. It's a long way from lettuce, but they seemed a nice diversion from the greasy oasis of McDonalds or Del Taco. I told the lady at the register that my pregnant wife sure would love to have some.
Aside from my alimentary canal needing a taffy pull, the road trip was pretty good. I had to go to Rock Springs, Wyoming to help some people having some computer problems. Like any road trip, you discover too much time by yourself is not good.
Pictured Above: Wyoming
Pictured Below: Wyoming
I tried to add some levity, crank some classic rock and slam some caffeine, but there's no way to make a work trip seem like a road trip. I even shouted "yeehaw" a couple of times, but by yourself with a suitcase full of paperwork you're just not road-tripping material.
I did go through the cycle of emotions. As with death's stages of grief; denial, bargaining, anger, depression and acceptance, there seem to be stages of the Wyoming trip. First, you can't believe you're driving five hours through Wyoming. You try and convince yourself it can be avoided. "No, I don't think I'll really have to drive five hours through Wyoming," you tell your wife who asks if you're really going to have to drive fiver hours through Wyoming.
Then, you're getting gas in Laramie and thinking that maybe you could find a quiet place in a park and get things done with some phone calls. But soon enough you're back in the car and madder than hell that your life has amounted to a five hour trip through Wyoming. You listen to the sad country song just to hear how dumb it is.
Soon your in a gift shop attached to a Conoco near Medicine Bow and really sad that an elk lost its leg for a lamp. What have we become? you ask yourself. Later, a dead cat on the interstate nearly has you in the fetal position.
Wanna wee? Better buy an elk leg lamp.
And then you find an upbeat country song and as you close in on Rock Springs, you beleive you've done the right thing. This is it, you shout with glee. I'm so important someone has paid me to drive five hours through Wyoming!
Prologue
Rawlins will never know they were the benchmark for my emotional ascent. I picked up my voice recorder and said, "I have a chain attached to a raft of rotting regret. I want to bang that thing away, chisel it off, and catch a wave leaving behind all the corpses of missed opportunity."
And then I was embarrassed and mumbled, "dumbass."
Once I got to Rock Springs I stayed in a hotel that was probably the coolest place ever in 1983. Now it just needs some new linens. I was excited about the Continental breakfast, but as per usual, "We've got bread!" shouted the morning buffet. It might have something to do with using a plastic knife to cut your waffle on a Styrofoam plate, but it's so far away from good 'ol country cooking.
I did get the computers fixed. Although one client visit was an awkward appointment in a house full of animal pelts. I'm OK with animal pelts. I don't like them hanging above my food in restaurants, but here wasn't so bad. The woman who was my Rock Springs guide refused to sit down on the bison. That made things more uncomfortable than dried bovine fur, so I sat down on the animal's epidermis. And then the guide lady left, and it was just me and the woman of the house complaining about her married life. Her daughter really likes her new husband, she said, but she's not so sure she likes him. I just kept glancing around at all the severed heads hanging on the wall and working as fast as possible on a dialup Internet connection. If you haven't heard that screeching in a while, it can be a little unsettling.
As I desperately tried to contact the outside world, I glanced out her kitchen window. There was elk's head lopped off and left to rot in the back yard.
To add to the atmosphere, the lady kept calling and telling her husband to hurry home because I wanted to hear some of his hunting stories. I kept saying that's OK, really, I needed to go. And as soon as she'd hang up she'd go into some story about how he used to cook/go on hikes/cuddle but doesn't anymore and she just might move back to Winnemucca. I wanted out before I was the hunting story.
I got things working and avoided being turned into a Davey Crocket hat. And I have to say that it's easy to make fun of Wyoming. But we're all pretty much the same everywhere, and then there's me too tired to drive fast enough for the left lane. You could be some educated wonk from Boulder, or some dude who makes home lighting accessories out of animal parts, and you'd both have some fun passing the guy in the Corolla holding an empty bottle of Diet Pepsi and crying.
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