Premature evacuation, part seven.: zeroenthusiasm

zeroenthusiasm

Premature evacuation, part seven.

Sep 27, 2018 23:59

857 miles.

DAY TWENTY-SEVEN
Sunday, September 23rd

We were abruptly woken up at 8 in the goddamn fucking morning by a cop standing next to a Walmart supervisor, knocking on our car. I shouted through the elastic netted screen we kept around our windows at night, making sure to not hide my frustration, "Yes?"
We were told we had to leave and couldn't be sleeping in the parking lot. This was an inevitability sleeping in parking lots in corporate America where surplus space was hoarded by companies who would never fill them, and we were actually lucky to have strategically avoided it for the first four weeks of our trip. Nonetheless, I was furious. We'd already stayed there the night before last, along with a fucking Jeep hitched to an RV that was parked straight across seven or so spaces. Recent testimonies on the AllStays site we used also shared that they’d called and received permission to stay overnight, which was how and why we chose that location and the ones before it.

Inside, after brushing our teeth and washing our faces, we spotted the cop, standing alongside a receipt checker at the other end of the store, wearing khakis and a dramatic bulletproof vest, protecting and serving... Walmart. The supervisor who brought her to us was a blonde woman named Jacqueline. I approached Jacqueline and introduced ourselves: "Hey, we’re the people you woke up at 8 in the morning."
I then asked, "For future reference, should we show up in an RV with a Jeep hitched to it and park across several spaces at once the next time we’d like to stay over?"
She tried to tell us that wasn’t allowed, either, and I let her know we’d already slept over two nights, once along with the example I gave.
She of course resorted to saying she was "just following management’s orders", to which I told her, "That really hurts my heart to hear."
I also told her she should be ashamed of herself. She assured me she wasn't, but we knew, deep down, she had no real pride in her job, let alone those moments where she exerted authority over others for no good reason. Imagine needlessly bringing what was basically military assistance with you to kick two people out who clearly didn't have many options and were taking up one space in a vast lot of open spaces, as far back in the corner and out of sight as they could have been. I personally didn't care about what orders she was given, and I honestly didn't believe her in the first place. Blaming chain of command was a classic deflection of responsibility used by these scumbags. On our way out, we walked by guy who had brought his own Trump coffee sleeve. I reflexively laughed out loud. He excitedly turned around and exclaimed with a shit-eating grin, "Don’t like it?!" You could tell he was relishing the attention, even though he was clearly a middle-aged man. I left it at, "It’s funny."

I couldn't really tell what distinguished Boys Town the village from Boys Town the religious non-profit, because it seemed they were one and the same, but what was important was that what came from this boys orphanage and juvenile home was the world's largest ball of stamps. Ignoring how slightly gross the thought of all the boy spit required to make this happen was, we instead stood impressed at it being 600 pounds and containing 4,655,000 canceled stamps, licked and stuck together by the Boys Town Stamp Collecting Club, starting in 1953. Their gift shop was full of religious stuff, old stamps and baseball cards, and every kind of merchandising bearing the town's name that could possibly exist, even golf tees. I would later read about how Boys Town was the target of some controversy years before for its alleged involvement in the trafficking of young boys for sex by rich politicians in Nebraska and beyond. I didn't realize it at the time, but I had actually seen a notorious documentary about it, abruptly banned from being televised the week of its premier on PBS in what one could only assume was a coverup. This historical context made the concept of a big ball of young boy spit even more disgusting.

We got into Lincoln in time to walk around their "Streets Alive!" day, a free event where several blocks spanning almost two miles of road were blocked off and open to the feet and bicycle wheels of the community, all in the name of promoting healthy lifestyle choices.
We walked the entire thing, stopping at tables here and there, or to watch young people perform. The first thing we did was watch some traditional Mexican dancers. The heels of our shoes were on a person's lawn, and an old woman seriously walked over to grumble that we needed to remove them. I was not in the mood for assholes by that point, but we continued and had childlike fun, anyway. We spun a wheel and answered a question about e-cigs in exchange for prizes. I got a "TOBACCO-FREE ME!" wristband and Alyssa got a "This is a smoke-free home" decal for our car. We stopped at several tables regarding children’s health that didn’t even slightly nod toward a plant-based diet, including one regarding the Food Plate where you had to match pictures of food to sections of the plate. Dairy being one of them, I said, "Well, I would argue no one needs dairy!" before compromising and saying that the picture of white liquid in a glass was almond milk. I could tell they were annoyed with us. We saw some kids dance group kill it with their choreography, and a young drum line pass by doing a sick beat. We grabbed some free bananas and oranges from a fruit table. I got a cool anti-racism button from the Common Roots booth, a local left-leaning group whose website was the very reason we even knew about the event. We even stumbled on a delicious little Mexican bistro pop-up called Pepe's that turned out to be the only 100% vegan food in Lincoln, and hence was at the event. Our nachos were perfect and his cashew crema was heavenly. Pepe joined us in groans and rolled eyes at how many health tables there were promoting things like cheese quesadillas and chicken as health food for kids. The weather was so nice and the blocks we walked were very quaint. Lincoln seemed like a cute place with strong community, and the event was more culturally diverse than anything I’d ever been to back at home.

We got to spend some time hiking around a fraction of the 668 acres and eight miles of trails that made up Pioneer Park, a sprawling space of prairie, woodlands, wetlands, and a stream, home to animals both wild and rescued who could exist there safely. Just the trails were nice, complemented by the comfortable weather. The grass stood tall and the sun made all the wetlands sparkle. We saw turkey vultures, owls, a hawk, turtles, snakes, and bison while there. All were rescues unable to return to the wild, of course. There was a barn owl, for example, who had been struck by a car, and as a result lost one of their wings along with their vision. There was also a turtle at least 70 years old who had a nub for a right arm. A snake named Frosty had been found half-alive in a restaurant freezer, and no one knew how he got there. Another turtle had been found in their parking lot even though their species was indigenous to Missouri. There were virtually no truly wild bison anymore, of course. Watching the few bison enjoy their open spaces was nice. We got to see one "wallow", which was when they rolled onto their backs to get dirt and insects off of themselves. They were so big and mythical, it was almost surreal looking at them up close and in real life.

There was a neat bridge, narrow but long, hanging over a stream. We got to walk over it as it wobbled and shook with every footstep, but not before we had to wait for another photo shoot to either finish or for the perpetrators to impatiently evacuate first. Another paid photographer, a mom, and a young girl dressed up and ready to do sexy poses on this bridge--totally appropriate, especially since it was a public bridge in a nature park where others were obviously gonna want to cross or maybe enjoy the view. We tried to wait, but they were rudely taking as long as they wanted. Fed up for the day with inconsiderate people, I walked back on anyway, making sure I shook the bridge, and told them I wanted to take in the view. An old couple joined us, probably relieved someone had the courage to interrupt their selfish photo shoot. As we all took in the view and had fun with the unsteadiness of the bridge, they paced while waiting for us to leave. Entitlement to public space, man.

We ended the day at the Sunken Gardens, another gorgeous stroll for us, packed with brightly colored flowers, ecstatic and busy pollinators, and two ponds decorated in lily pads and populated by koi fish. It was so nice being outdoors and near plants and animals so often! From there, we had another Whole Foods dinner. I got salisbury seitan, garlic herbed tofu, caramelized carrots, asparagus, and a vegetable egg roll! We stuck around until closing.

Fuck these people.

The world's largest ball of stamps, and the outside garden of cute little peppers!

Streets Alive! in Lincoln.

Pioneer Park!

The Sunken Gardens!

Free food for life from Whole Foods!

DAY TWENTY-EIGHT
Monday, September 24th

We'd suddenly received $100 from Colleen through Gmail, and another $80 from Alyssa's friend Wayde. Earlier in the week, we'd been sent $20 from Allison and Lindsey had sent us $10. Ultimately, while the assholes of the world tended to be a lot louder, they were incapable of being as impactful as the decent people who outnumbered them.

We made a stop just seven miles out of Lincoln right off of I-80 to explore the abandoned ruins of Prairie Peace Park. While most of it was now long gone and consumed by tall grass, teenage trees, and thick bushes, it was still a very interesting and particularly bizarre sight. Prairie Peace Park had been one of many "peace parks" built across the country during the first half of the '90s, intent on peacefully changing the world, especially through and for children, by creating these elaborate, inspirational theme parks. This one came about in 1994 after a decade of planning. Just over another decade later, peace had clearly failed in America and they simply couldn't afford to maintain their costly dream, forcing them to sell the property to a meditation group who ultimately found no use for it. They made sure to include one caveat: that their two main sculptures--the "Dance of the Children" globe and the "World Peace Mural"--remained intact. They were in fact still there, and we tread chest-high fields to find them. There were also water barrels I could only assume were referencing oil and at one point were part of an exhibit, of which they had many.

Prairie Peace Park had very specific tenets under which they operated, and were funded by donations and volunteer work, openly disavowing government funding. This place was once far more than just the decaying house we now saw, containing over 40 features ranging from art, to a maze, to 'choose your own adventure' paths, to exhibits discussing the consequences of war. Most artifacts from these were subsequently salvaged and relocated to various museums and campuses around the state. They were very adamantly against all forms of prejudice and war, and wanted a global democratic process. The house there had been painted by children, and the World Peace Mural was a collaboration between 34 artists from around the world. Now it just sat there, slowly wasting away across the street from an abandoned gas station and campsite right at the beginning of a dirt road. In a way, it accurately represented how, in the world we lived in, peace could and would fail because capitalism just didn't place value in it. These visionaries literally couldn’t afford peace. On the other hand, perhaps this space being reclaimed by nature in such a short period of time was the best example of peace possible in our lifetimes.

We stopped in a town called York because it had a Starbucks and our gaslight had come on. They had a big rainbow water tower with their name across it. I wanted to take some time to write while there, but the Starbucks was so infested with flies that they eventually drove me out and back into the car. Everywhere in Nebraska had as many flies inside as you'd expect to be lingering over the farms on the outside.

The long drive trough Nebraska was exactly what one would expect. Endless expanses, two-lane roads with speed limits thankfully as high as 80, incalculable miles of corn fields to your left and right, only punctuated every now and then by fields of grazing cows. Traffic consisted of transport trucks stuffed with suffering animals on their way to slaughter and RVs full of rich families who were always on vacation. One transport truck full of dairy cows on their way to execution cut us off very dangerously. We entered Mountain Time at some point. Around 6:30, we pulled off the interstate to eat at a Denny’s for dinner. I got a veggie burger and Alyssa got the veggie skillet. We stole a few snacks on our way out. Those snickerdoodle Complete Cookies were everywhere and boy oh boy did I love them.

As the second half of the state became even more uninhabited and the truck stops and rural gas stations became even fewer and farther between, we suddenly were back down to empty. We had no other choice but to briefly pull off into some spooky, dark back roads toward a 24-hour gas station in Julestown, Colorado. Two feral cats were crying out as I pumped my gas. It was $2.99 a gallon and we’d officially spent $92 on gas in one day. This would not have been possible without the altruism of our friends back at home. Driving through Middle America at night all just reminded me of long, lonely rides on Greyhound buses, listening to sad music on my headphones. By 11:30, we’d made it to the Pine Bluffs rest area. It was an exceptionally maintained and beautiful rest area by my standards, and we were surrounded by mountains and trees. The wind was blowing furiously at over 20mph, almost feeling like it’d push the car right over at any second, and the temperatures dropped to an uncomfortably chilly 40 degrees. We put the windows up and snuggled close in a shared comforter cocoon.

The abandoned ruins of Prairie Peace Park!

True.

Bedtime.

DAY TWENTY-NINE
Tuesday, September 25th

When we awoke at the rest area, we walked up some steps and followed a little concrete path a sign told us would bring us to an archaeological site. It brought us to a building closed for the season, but did still offer us a beautiful view of the tree-covered, mountainous terrain that we'd eventually see even more of in Wyoming.

We drove on long dirt roads under the biggest sky we'd ever seen to Panorama Point--the highest point in the state of Nebraska at 5,424 feet--less than three miles from where Wyoming and Colorado met it. It gave you a truly unforgettable panoramic view of the acreage surrounding us, and we were there all by ourselves, accompanied only by the heavy breeze, distant packs of bison, and a lone antelope who triumphantly cut up a hill before stopping at the top to stare us down. It was otherworldly being so isolated in such a still and silent space. A desk was there, next to a bench. Inside was a notebook people had taken to signing. Many were sad they didn’t see any bison--we were, too. There was also a pair of open-toe high heel shoes, a shawl, a rock, a shell, and a golf ball.

An hour later, we entered Cheyenne. Upon a quick survey of the goings-on and points of interest, or lack thereof, we wound up just loitering at a grocery store the rest of the day until they closed at midnight. There just wasn’t anything to do there, a distinct detail I remembered from years prior when I spent an entire week there with a nice Christian family who took Kara and me in while we were hitchhiking through. The first thing I did was find and eat the best inarizushi I'd ever had from their little sushi booth. Then we got cozy at a table by the Starbucks. The place was as cold as an igloo for some reason. We got a lot of writing done, and also organized the itinerary for the next couple of days as we would head through Wyoming, the Grand Tetons, Yellowstone Park, Montana, and eventually Seattle. We had a loose goal of getting to Washington by the beginning of October, and at the moment it seemed we would be. We used a public microwave to prepare dinner. We had bagged microwaveable broccoli and cauliflower we topped in K-Mama Korean hot sauce and sesame seeds from a shaker loaned to us by the nice woman working the sushi booth; sweet potatoes heated up until firm and filled with green onion, hummus, and Cholula hot sauce; and a bag of Boca nuggets with Sweet Baby Ray’s barbecue sauce. We used discarded single-use sushi containers as plates, and of course always carried our own silverware. We sat there and ate a smorgasbord of mostly stolen food while a flat-screen hung from the ceiling playing live video surveillance of ourselves back to us. Their security theater was of no threat or deterrent to us!

We slept at a Walmart yet again. When we got there, an entire back lot was filled with RVs and trucks hitching campers as big as RVs. It was chilly again, below 40. I stayed up late on Reddit since I could never do that during the day. As the month came to an end, I anxiously awaited having my cellphone data and food stamps re-upped.

This rest area came with a scenic hike.

Planet Panorama Point!

Shoplifted and improvised grocery store dinner. I found out that night that Virgil's had released a stevia-based sugar-free root beer that was just as good as their regular root beer!

DAY THIRTY
Wednesday, September 26th

During our morning routine in the Walmart, I had the disturbing displeasure of hearing a woman say cheerfully in conversation, "We kill animals and their bodies are in our freezer!" Imagine living in a society where that statement, in any context, was considered normal or acceptable, or anything other than a cause for concern. After about three weeks without doing so, we decided it was finally time to shower, so we headed to a Planet Fitness. So much dead skin and dirt came off of me that I felt like I had just molted.

We didn’t spend long in Cheyenne before hitting the road, but we did stop at the free Cowgirls of the West Museum, a small collection of artifacts and historical information revealing the significance of women during and after what we now know as the notorious "Wild West". The place smelled old, an older woman with all the rural charm you'd expect greeted everyone from behind a counter, and the historical placards were charming in their Comic Sans fonts and frequent typos.
We hoped it to be more focused on the obscure bad-asses of the time, and we did manage to find a couple sprinkled around, but much of it had to do with fashion of that era, how cowgirls showed they could do the same stupid shit men could, and the men who made much of it possible for women by granting them permission. We found it neither interesting nor positive to see so much about (white) women gaining "the right" to vote and becoming more involved in the animal cruelty of the rodeo, obviously. We read about men like Fred Harvey, who essentially invented the waitress, and Levi Strauss, the founder of everyone's favorite brand of denim jeans. We read a surprisingly honest retelling of how Wyoming became the first state to give (white) women the right to vote, and how it wasn't much more than a PR stunt for the state that most male political figures regretted and even tried to unsuccessfully undo once they realized that women would actually leave their homes and try to use their newfound right.

Then we got some stories about the tenacious and independent women we were looking for. We read about Bridget "Biddy" Mason, a former slave who, upon being freed, jumped right into becoming a nurse, midwife, and later on a wealthy landowner and businesswoman who dedicated her life and resources to philanthropy. We read about Dell Burke who, after deciding life as a wife wasn't for her, traveled around the country, never allowing herself to become bogged down by any man while she gradually invested in oil and other business ventures that allowed her to save a lot of money, eventually leading her to buy and run a prominent brothel in Lusk, the town she bailed out with her own money and later threatened to shut down if they didn't stop sending the cops to bother her and her ladies at the Yellow Hotel. She quite literally held the town hostage, and despite a reputation as a whore, was still highly respected for how fiercely independent and altruistic she was. Her years as an entrepreneur left her with a million-dollar estate by the time her brothel closed in the '80s and she died of old age. We also read about Etta Place, the mysterious partner and rumored wife of the Sundance Kid and accomplice in bank robberies and other crimes with The Wild Bunch gang. Only two pictures of her existed. They would send banks they'd robbed pictures of themselves with a 'thank you' note. No one knows what happened to her.

The woman working suggested we take a ride around town on the free horse-drawn tour, which we obviously would not. A man sharing lunch with her at one point said in passing, "I'm boring. I like what I like and I'm afraid of change."

The downtown area was spotless and dull, with plenty of commercial space, some for sale and some filled, mostly with more boring western museums, antique and thrift stores, and bars. They had uniquely decorated cowboy boot statues taller than me everywhere.

Somewhere along I-25 near the town of Chugwater, we saw the metallic silhouette of a cowboy on horseback with a dog looking up at them, on top of a small mountain overlooking traffic. Since this was the desolate Wild West and there didn't seem to be cops anywhere as far as the eye could see, we pulled over and decided to climb up the mountain to see them up close while taking in the incredible view around us. Driving through Wyoming had always been a chore to me, but it'd always been on a Greyhound bus or something. Driving myself and being able to pull over on a whim made this time special. We spent the day treating the state as our playground.

Wyoming was relatively more open and uninhabited than Nebraska, but instead of cornfields there were vast rolling hills of dry grass, mesas, and patchy shrubbery, grazed upon by various herd animals like cows, horses, and antelope. I don't think either of us grew tired of its spectacular beauty for a single second. It was strange to think that every square inch of land, as well as all of the cows and likely many of the other animals, were owned by someone.

Almost two hours on the road later, we stopped in Lost Springs, a town less than an acre whose road sign boasted a population of only four people, up from just a few years ago when there was only one person living there. Once a coal miners' town with a population of just over 200, the size of the residency dramatically plummeted once the mine closed around 1930, and had declined to single digits by the '60s. An isolated world all its own, they did still have a bar, a post office, an antique store, a quaint park, bathrooms, and a jail that may have just been a joke. Train tracks cut right through it and the maintained paved road ended right where the town did. There was no school because there were no children, let alone families, currently residing there. The town was 100% white, unsurprisingly.

We walked across the cushions of grass to their small playground. We spun around on the carousel while a bunny kept a watchful eye. The post office and antique store were closed. Inside seemed to be mostly ceramic animal figurines, but a big bin of small rocks were for sale outside for $2.50 a pound. An antique wagon sat on the side of the road with an RV and some trailer homes in the background. There were three different abandoned and collapsing sheds. How anyone lived there was inconceivable. We didn't really see any locals out and about, though we did briefly speak to some guy by the bathrooms who said he was there with "his buddy" (these types of men only have "buddies") to recreationally kill animals.

On our way out, I noticed a lone donkey pair. At first, I thought they were parent and child, but then realized the bigger, lighter one was trying to fuck the smaller, darker one. We pulled over to get a closer look since donkeys are one of my absolute favorite animals and they were far more curious and friendly than I had expected. The smaller one hung back while the big one approached us until we were face-to-face. I tried to give him a banana, but he wasn't interested, and he brayed as he abruptly turned back around to his partner. He tried to mount her again, but she wasn't having it.

Next was Douglas, the home of the jackalope, a jackrabbit with a head of antlers that entered the universe of cryptozoology after some residents began selling real taxiderm jackrabbits with antlers attached to them. The town was clearly very proud of their cryptid mascot, as the cute creature was on their town sign, their water tower, at the ends of their benches, and standing proud in a park in the form of an 8-foot-tall statue in the aptly named Jackalope Square. The statue was formerly the largest jackalope sculpture in the world, but had since been replaced by another one just outside of town overlooking the interstate. In Douglas, you could legally hunt jackalope for a single two-hour period once a year.

For dinner once we got into Casper, we sought out shitty Chinese food since it'd been far too long. I got a big plate of Szechuan tofu. We'd ordered some vegetable spring rolls to start with, but when Alyssa bit into hers it was full of beef. When I brought it up to our waiter and told him to remove it from our bill, he told us they didn't have vegetarian vegetable spring rolls. Later when we paid our bill, he had the nerve to say something to me in broken English about next time informing them of being vegetarian before ordering the food. I suggested they describe what's in their food on the menu. He laughed nervously and said, "Most vegetarian don't have temper."

Cowgirls of the West Museum!

Downtown Cheyenne.

The mountain we climbed off the interstate to see the cowboy and dog.

The ghost town of Lost Springs.

Our donkey friends.

Jackalope Country.

One of many beautiful Wyoming sunsets.

Szechuan tofu!

DAY THIRTY-ONE
Thursday, September 27th

As prosperous as Casper was, being the second largest city in the state of Wyoming, there again wasn't much to see. There was a long drag of every corporate chain you could imagine, which our Walmart for the night had been located on, and then residential area. That was it. Like the rest of Wyoming, what it really had to offer was outdoors and far from the actual city.

Before we got to that actual stuff, a mile away was this small local chain called Sanford's Grub & Pub. This particular location for some reason had an elaborate outdoor collection of what was basically every roadside gimmick balled into one: Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck statues as tall as the restaurant itself, plenty of dinosaurs, a Great White shark hanging upside down, some antique cars. It wasn't nice--the raptor's hands were torn off, a tyrannosaurus rex's head sat there with the top smashed in, the triceratop's eye had a glaring crack in it, and the numerous cars surrounding the place were all rusted and filled with rocks; it looked more like the front-yard hoarding of an eccentric neighbor. It was still pretty amusing, though, albeit not enough to get us inside their place.

We drove from there to the outskirts of town where the local college was, in search of another dinosaur, this one made of bronze and titled "Essence of Rex". It was made to match the actual size of a t-rex, and one half of it was covered in scales and the other was just the skeleton. It was pretty neat. Alyssa didn't give a fuck about dinosaurs, but my childlike love of them would never die. The view of the outer Casper limits was panoramic and straight out of a postcard. Houses were becoming more spread apart.

And then, once again, Wyoming unveiled another trick up its sleeve: suddenly, a fucking forest, resting atop a mountain towering over the otherwise flat and arid landscape. Very nice homes sat looking new like display models at the bottom, and the Rotary Club boasted credit for all of the amenities and improvements they'd contributed to Casper Mountain. The hike from where we parked to the Garden Creek Falls we were hoping to see was a short one, barely half a mile. To be suddenly walking a trail amidst dark green trees was a pleasant surprise. We climbed up some rocky trails 200 feet up to a newly installed observation deck. The view was magnificent, and we could see the crest of the tiny fall. Back at the bottom, a woman we walked in on taking a selfie confirmed the falls were in fact normally that dry. We sat on a bench for a few minutes, just taking in the refreshing atmosphere and the soothing white noise, then got back on the road, driving through more fields of deer and antelope.

A little over an hour from Casper was another unexpected, otherworldly view, this one of Hell's Half Acre: 320 acres 120-feet-deep of cavernous rocks that looked as though they'd been melted and deformed, striped in a rainbow of rock's most vibrant colors, all the end result of ravines that once cut through it and natural erosion. It looked nothing like anything around it. While clearly a hellish landscape where no discernible signs of life remained, the name actually came about by accident and coincidence, when it was "discovered" by a lost cowhand who thought he'd reached another part of Wyoming already called Hell's Half Acre. Before him, indigenous people used it as a buffalo jump, where they cornered the animals into leaping or falling off the edge so they could then more easily slaughter them. I, however, recognized the place as Klendathu, the planet of the insects in Starship Troopers. Ever since the hotel and restaurant was abandoned next to it, the federal government put a fence up and didn't care for or about it. We crawled underneath the fence and took in the best cliff-side views.

Right where routes 20 and 26 intersected in the small town of Shoshoni, we pulled in to fill back up on gas, and ended up spending $52 and some change. We took a break there at their busy little gas station. Being at that intersection kept them busy in a town of just over 200 people. As I sometimes did since it was always mind-boggling to me that people actually lived out in these towns, I took a look at their bulletin board by the bathrooms. It was completely filled, but with a Missing Persons poster for Jose "Pepe" Pereda, two sex offender posters (one of an old man and the other of an old woman, both convicted of sexual abuse of a minor in the 3rd degree), a collector's poster seeking "cowboy gear", a raffle for an AR-15, and a homemade ad for a local handyman who went by the business name Old Fart with a Tractor. Ultimately, none of these things were particularly surprising. I sat down and enjoyed two unlikely snacks: a bottle of Bundaberg root beer, which was imported from Australia, and a big bag of locally made caramel corn that happened to be vegan. After figuring out where the nearest Walmart was for provisions and doing some further research into the town of Thermopolis, we decided to add a stop to the itinerary and go about 45 minutes out of the way. Thermopolis was home to the world's largest hot springs, and it was all free to enjoy. We decided we had to experience it.

Driving north from there, Wyoming's horizon line was suddenly a painted backdrop of mountains I thought only existed in the Pacific Northwest. The more we drove through Wyoming, the less real everything looked. The surroundings were stuff most of us only saw in National Geographic or on computer desktop wallpaper. I kept thinking about how everyone goes on and on about how beautiful driving through Colorado is--Wyoming needed more credit, as I believed it compared, if not rivaled, it.

Further out, there were then big bodies of blue water, in stark contrast to the dry land and dark red clay mountains they cut through. We technically entered a reservation and Boysen State Park just before we zoomed along the winding roads that traced the Wind River Canyon, following ancient train tracks and the Bighorn River. We had no idea the sights we were about to be struck with, and I was surprised I didn't crash the car from how distracted I was by everything around me; giant walls of canyon blocking out the sun from both sides, a greenish blue river with unexpectedly strong rapids flowing between both lush green patches of grass and muted browns and yellows of dryer plant life. Trees kept distances between each other along the tops of the mountains. We went through three consecutive tunnels built right through the canyon itself, right across the river from where the train tracks did the same. All of the pull-off spots were on the other side, so we made plans to pull over every chance we got the next day.

First entering Thermopolis, it was clearly another small town in Wyoming, adapting to incoming trends while maintaining its outdated roots. We were very hungry, so we stopped at a Thai restaurant we'd read about in passing on TripAdvisor called Bangkok Thai. 'Neither of us had eaten Thai food on this trip, so why not do so in central Wyoming, of all places?' we thought. They had a garden growing gourds right outside. The food was excellent; perfectly prepared tofu for my pad-saw-eww and Alyssa's fried eggplant dish. We made up for the previous night's accidental beef spring rolls with their vegetable ones. We split a bowl of edamame. A group of old people at a table next to us had your typical old white man whining about how he doesn't watch award shows anymore because the comedians are "mean" and "only make jokes about conservatives". He also described eating chicken for dinner three days out of the week.

We loitered at a McDonald's to use their free WiFi for a few hours before pulling over on a side street between a 24-hour Maverick gas station and a motel we couldn't afford. Sleep was particularly good that night.