12. Wyoming - The Wild West

 Mile: 1,558

Cowboy land. I used to think of Texas when I thought of cowboy land, and I don’t discredit parts of Texas still being cowboy strong but I have learned that you can’t find yourself in truer cowboy land than when you enter Wyoming. It is indeed, The Wild West. 

Turning off on Hwy 504 my tires found gravel beneath them. The grin crept over my face as I felt the slight forgo of steering control that is lost when tires find gravel in contrast to asphalt. When you reach the perfect gravel driving speed your steering begins to feel a little more like driving a boat than car. Your tires drift over the gravel taking a little more time to respond to your turns allowing you to glide through turns and dips. There’s no other driving like it. Makes me think that rally car racing could possibly be hearts great hidden desire. I think back to drifting through turns out in the Ouachita National Forest On those gravel backwoods roads in my Tacoma. Pure happiness. Finding that line between total control at grampa speeds and no control at reckless speeds, that line is the line that gravel roads are meant to be driven at. To glide is to drive a gravel road correctly. But I’m in Pearl, not my Tacoma. She’s loaded down with food, water, flyfishing gear, climbing gear, hiking / backpacking gear, a refrigerator, stove, laminate flooring, cedar walls, secondary battery, bikes, shower water storage, and contact solution. She is my lively hood for the next 3 months. So she goes more grampa speeds. I’ll put up with it. For now. 

As I drove the 504 leaving Hwy 130 from Centennial to Saratoga I saw true Wild West. They say the antelope outnumber the people in Wyoming. I submit they are correct. When you pass someone on the 504 it’s exciting. It’s another person! I could talk to that person and they could talk back! It’s a strange thing to be so alone on a road, see so far, and be the only person you see. There’s a sense of freedom. A sense of peace. A sense of the need of survival that does not come when you are constantly passing gas stations, Auto Zones, Chipotles, Walmarts. Don’t screw things up out here because you can’t walk next door to use a phone or flag down the person behind you on the road. It’s you. It’s you and Pearl. Ohh and the free range cows and antelope of course. They could always relay a message for you. Maybe this feeling was magnified for me because having Cricket as my service provider I hadn’t had cell service for the last 4 days I was in Wyoming. But I believe that feeling is a good one to have. So many people have never experienced this empowering feeling of being out in the woods with no communication to the outside world where you can’t call and talk to someone in .3 seconds. Or where you can’t google maps your way home. Or where you can’t send a text saying where you are at that moment. You’re truly alone and it’s up to you to get where you’re going, take care of problems, and improvise if need be. It’s empowering. It’s crucial for a man to be in that situation. Whether in the middle of the Ozarks or in over 75% of the state of Wyoming. It’s important. 

Two days later I was driving up Hwy 351 from Rawlins to Alcova. I let off the gas and moved my foot over to the break. I looked in the rear view mirror, empty highway. Looking ahead as far as I could see, empty highway. Coming to a stop Pearl sat still in the desert quiet of Southeastern Wyoming. This was a paved highway, no backroads of desolation. A paved highway. The only life I saw as far as the horizon is a antelope buck standing at 250 yards watching me sit still in the middle of this road seemingly entertained by the sight me. It reminded me of the old man sitting on his front porch shelling and eating peanuts watching. Waiting. Not sure of what would he was waiting for but maybe something would happen that would be entertaining and so he sat and looked on. I turned the key and Pearl stopped purring. Wind was the only sound that greeted my ears. I pulled the key out of the ignition and the “KAWAAAANK!“ of my door unlock gears skipping broke the peaceful silence as I pulled my handle and my door unlocked. “Agh! I still need to fix that.” I thought with frustration. The antelope seemed to be entertained enough to remain standing, watching on. I walked forty steps away from Pearl standing in the middle of the highway. Sitting down I felt the warmth of the asphalt having been warmed by the morning sun. It was a dream. Surreal. No cars. No sounds. No movement. The wind, the road, Pearl, and me, all the while the antelope watching from afar. Wyoming. The Wild West.