---September 21st 2013-
Alone in the Wood with Two Naked Men
When we arrived in Jackson, Joe dropped me at the mission. He then told me to come meet him again at the Silver Dollar Bar at around 5pm. At the mission, they gave me supper and a place to stay overnight. I went for a walk through town and ended up at the bar where Joe was snacking. I ordered a few drink and we went toward the Grand Teton. Unfortunately, it was starting to be too dark to fully enjoy the scenery. Not having much to do on the next day, Joe offered to come pick me up at 6am at the mission for a day of exploration.
The next morning, I as was waiting for the mission to open their kitchen, a guy fully dressed in black with long blond hair came talking to me. Being in a mission, I thought he was a homeless, but it turned out he too was a hitchhiker. I told him I had a ride to explore the park and that if he wanted, and if Joe wanted, he could tag along. And fare enough, Joe didn’t mind, and so we left toward Mormon Row. We got there by dusk, and it was magical. The sharp peaks of the Teton Mountain range were contrasting the pale orange of the sky. Hanging with the mountains, the quasi-full moon had yet to go disappear. Finally, to accompany the unrealistic scenery, an old barn lonely in the field in tumbleweed made a perfect addition to the picture perfect sight.
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| Mormon Row |
We explored the park for a little while and finally Joe offered to go check out a hot spring in the region. Very rarely saying no to any proposition, I accepted. And just like that, we got to the end of the road and started trekking. Having all my stuff with me, I had my bathing suit, but my two newly known friends didn’t so one at location, they both stripped down, and off into the natural bath we went. Despite being alone in the woods taking a bath with two naked men, the moment was peaceful. The water temperature was great, but the white capped mountain we could see in the not too far distance made the otherwise normal surrounding stand out. And through the field, we could see the snaking river steaming from the local spring feeding its water.
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| Hot Spring |
After our swim, we went for a walk along another boiling hot creek, and finally headed back toward Jackson. Our plan was to go for an afternoon hike, but due to a massive accident down the road (which was a dead end), blocked our passage for over two hours.
Once we got back to Jackson, Neon (the other hitchhiker) and I went back to the mission. When I tried to register, they told me I couldn’t since I wasn’t a real homeless, but only a cheap traveller, I only had the right to one night. We still had the right for the free food in exchange for one hour of work, so we ate, and left to find a place to sleep. Thanks to one of the local police officer, he told us how to hide from his coworkers, since it is fully illegal to camp in Jackson. We went to the church described, and down the outside stairs. I pulled out my tent, and we went to sleep. Not long after, two drunken homeless came wanting to fight for “their spot”. Obviously, We probably could of argued the right for their spot, but I didn’t want trouble, plus, I did have money by choice, whereas they were true homeless. So we undid the tent, and got up the stairs, only to “hide” behind a tree. The tree wasn’t really hiding us, but the dark of the night was, so as long as we wake up early, we were going to be fine. Before going back to bed, Neon noticed another homeless he had talked with the night before, so we went toward him and hung out for a little while. He knew the tricks not to get caught by the police, and so, in the morning, he came and knocked on our tent to tell us to wake up before the morning mess.
In the morning, I went to the library to put my pictures on Facebook, but instead, accidently deleted all my pictures from Idaho to the Grand Teton. I ran all over town and all day to try to find a way to get them back, but nothing. Fortunately, Neon told me that when you delete a photo, it doesn’t disappear, but just tells the camera it can write over it. So, as long as I didn’t take more pictures with that SD card, I could re-download them. I had to wait 7 month before I could get them again, but I did.
With all the time wasted trying to get my pictures back, it was too late to head toward Yellowstone, so we decided to stay for another night in Jackson. But you can see me coming, where could we camp; the mission won’t accept us, the church is hobo’s territory, and the rest of city is overlooked by policemen. As we tried everything trick from our book, but nothing seemed to work (now that I look back at it, I realised we didn’t tried the easiest, walk out of town). So we eventually pulled over a cop car, to use sympathy, it almost always works. Using our peaty eyes, we tell the police officer we just got in town and don’t have enough money for a motel room. Not having enough time to head out, we are stuck in town for the night, but don’t want to break the law, and finally, ask if he knows what to do. So far, I’ve never being disappointed with this trick. The sheriff told us there was a mess form 6 to 7pm at another church, and we could maybe talk with the priest. We walked toward the church, and talked with him. Being a little intimidated by two young men asking for a night alone in his church, he refused, but I used my learnt skills to get ourselves the right to sleep down the outside stairs for a night, as long as we were up and gone by 7am. That was perfect. We got back to the mission for the usual work/feast, and later in the evening, we went ahead and put up our tent down the stairs. The floor may have being the ever so uncomfortable solid concrete, but at least we won’t be bothered for the night.
Thumbs Up in the Snow
Neon and I took three days to explore the western half of Yellowstone. We met Edyta, a German girl that I kept contact with, and who hosted me later in that year, saw the Old Faithfull gradually build up until the geyser reached his usual 80 feet high water tower, a few basins including the famous Grand Prismatic, and the Mammoth Spring, where we split up. He needed to meet a friend that day at the other end of the park, whereas I wanted to take the time to keep on exploring.
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| Edyta & Neon |
Even though I still hadn’t seen the rain since I had cross the border, the thick black cloud moving in didn’t inspire me to trust it. So once at Tower Fall, I took the time to put up my tent, and add an additional tarp over it for extra waterproofness, and to facilitate packing my tent without having it all wet in the morning.
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| Tower Fall |
The next day, I woke up frigid as I would hear the rain fall on the tarp. I stayed in bed for quite a while before I found the courage to tackle the cold. The worst part was definitely putting on your “room” temperature clothes, sucking out all your body heat. I put my rain gear on, packed my bag while being extra careful to avoid getting anything wet, and out through the freezing rain, I started walking along the road. Due to the cold weather, I thought it would be better to walk, thus producing heat, and having a better change at fighting the freezing morning. Finally, I noticed there was a small piece of dry asphalt protected one of the trees. Preferring to shiver as to get wet, I chose to stay under it. The traffic was surprising low for the main road of a national park, so I stayed in place for quite a while. And as I was still waiting, I noticed that every car coming the other way had what looked like snow in the front of their car. Eventually, a brand new pickup truck pulled over. He told me he didn’t to pick me up since I was wet and were to damage his seat, but the park was closing the road due to the snowstorm on the mountain, and he was the last car to drive the road. We were on September 25th, and I got hit by my first snowstorm. I get it is time I start heading south, but I still want to see the rest of Wyoming and South Dakota, so let’s keep heading east, but without too much detours.
When he dropped me at Canyon Village, I decided to go for a walk in the snow. I left my bag at the visitor center and regardless of everyone calling me crazy, I walked for about two hours in the snow. Especially with holes in my shoes letting snow in, it may have being cold out there, but the Canadian in me made my heart feel warm to see the wintery snow covering the otherwise green grass through the now covered forest. I got reach the Lower Yellowstone Fall where I was left alone in front of the canyon which gave the name to the park. A few hundred feet below me was a beautiful river imbedded between the yellow stoned rocky wall of the canyon, with a few patch of golden orange and pinkish re. Finally, upstream was the reputable waterfall, falling straight down from one side, but scattering on the other. To add the magic touch, the picturesque scene was viewed through a curtain of gentle snowflakes dancing their way down. I stayed there for a while, maybe too long, since my toes began to cause great pain due to their frostbite. Being used to the cold, I knew the only thing to do, other than finding a dry and warm place to hide, was to keep walking. So I walked along the deep yellow canyon to another closed overlook, and started heading back toward the road. As I was walking, another perfectly timed song created another unrealistically beautiful moment. As I was walking along the half white, half green forest floor, listening the Learning to Fly from, yet again, Pink Floyd, I raised my head, and just a few feet from me was a huge elk with its antlers staring back. And just as I reached to grab my camera he disappeared in the forest in all its majesty. A lot of people don’t like listening to music ad they are in the wilderness; they say it distracts them from the music of nature. Even if every once in a while I prefer to listen to the sound of a forest or the desert, I think that depending on the type of music you listen to, the music can make a beautiful moment turn magical. And from that point on, whenever you listen to that song, you relive the moment, making it last for years. And so, I for one wouldn’t discourage listening to music when enjoying a nature walk. I would suggest listening to appropriate music that speaks to you, and only listen to I through one ear, so you can still enjoy the song of Mother Nature,
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| Yellowstone Fall |
Later that day, I was dropped at the intersection of the road exiting the park to the east. It was the perfect temperature to have to most horrible weather. Being exactly 0°C, the delicate snow seen at the canyon was now big heavy and wet snowflakes. They fell with enough force to bring pain to my eyes, and being a mixture of water and snow, they stick to your cloth until they find a way in. So, in no time, you are soaking wet, cold and shivering as your toes, and finger feels nom and your ears completely frozen. Karen finally game to my rescue by picking me up. Unlike what most people believe, hitchhiking under the rain is much harder than when it is sunny, because most people feel worst for their seat than for you; hurray human nature!!
Karen and I drove down the Wapiti Valley as I was slowly warming up. This was a very unexpected surprise as the road between Yellowstone and Cody proved to be incredibly divers in rock formation. I had never heard about the valley, and even once back home, I never found much on it. We could find rocky pillars; weird looking brown rock sphere with zit looking bumps on them, looking like opaque soap bubbles, painted dunes striped with all sorts of colors, and beautifully eroded mountain side creating hundreds of thin smooth point towers of rock.
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| Wapiti Valley |
Once in Cody, Karen took the time to help me find a place to sleep, and once we found a campground that could offer me shelter from the coming rain, she gave me $20 and dropped me. When I looked at the weather, it said it was going to rain for two days. I thought about it for a second, and decided to pay for three nights. It proofed to be perfect, as I got to re-explore part of the Wapiti Valley, visit the Buffalo Bill Museum, and equip myself better in preparation of the quicker than I thought arriving winter.
Now is a good time to mansion that the rain gear I coat I brought with me wasn’t insulated, and was too small for me to wear at the same time as my other coat, which wasn’t waterproof. So when it was raining, I had to choose between wet and warm (which always lead to wet and cold) or dry but freezing. Thankfully, I only faced rain twice, but they were another few rainy looking moment where I had to take the decision. Plus, I `hadn’t brought any gloves.
At this point in my trip, my meal were quite simple, in the morning, I would eat two tortillas with honey, and at night, a small bag of Instant Rice. The problem with my diet was that with the cold taking over my nights, the honey was frozen in the morning. So I decided to switch to peanut butter. That being said, my frozen honey leads to a funny little story. Having free shower at my campground, every morning, before breakfast, I would take a warm shower and bring my honey with me; I would shower my honey to make it melt enough to use it for breakfast. The main problem of this shower was that I didn’t have any towel, and the building wasn’t heated. So after the warmth and comfort of my shower, I would get out and have to wait for the water to evaporate from my body in the cold air of early winter. That part was a little less fun, but still a good memory.
After my three stationary nights, I crossed town and started hitching toward to heart of Wyoming. The more I would accumulate millage, the less population I could see. Still surrounded by snow, I slowly lose the previously gained altitude I had being accumulated since the Oregon Coast. Eventually, I got picked up by three hunters. Their car was full nut the back of the pickup had plenty of place for me. Before I hopped in, the driver got out of the car and warned me they were going off road. He didn’t mind leaving me out on the side of the road, but I was going to be stuck in the middle of nowhere. In my head, it sounded like there was going to be a small dirt road somewhere and so people would believe my previous driver turned on that dirt road, but no, it turns out that at one point, they just started driving through a sagebrush field. I was truly in the middle of nowhere; long straight road going both ways, with not a car in sight. I guess it’s too late now to change my plans, I’m alone, and I won’t get out until someone picks me up. After a few minutes sitting down on my bag throwing pebbles across the street, I heard a car. I jumped up, put on my prettiest smile and raised my thumb, but no luck. I sat down on my bag, and stared at the useless car getting smaller and smaller. Suddenly, the useless car turned on one of those “no U-turn” passage between highways, and just like that, he was back in the game. He once more passed in front of me, but this time, before losing hope, I was going to wait until he would pass another one of those passages. As now expected, he did another U-turn, and came to pick me up.
As I thought, when he saw me the first time, he thought I had being dropped there because the previous car kicked me out, but unlike what I thought, he took the time to think and realised it was open season for hunting, and that I probably had being picked up by hunters. He was dead on right.
Together, we drove south all the way to Shoshone, the last town before Casper, and pretty much on the other side of the state. I got a ride pretty fast, and we drove for about 3 hours, not seeing a single house or even another road, no wonder Wyoming in the less dense state of the country. Once at Hell’s Half Acres, I asked for my driver to drop me off. Walked the few steps toward to entrance but it was closed. And once again, I was stuck in nowhere obligated to hitchhike. Being stuck any way, I broke in the park to take a few pictures, before returning on I-20. This was by far the most remote I have being, as between Shoshone and Casper, there is for about 50 inhabitants. Spread over few town ranging between 8 and 20 people. That being said, to drive though such remote roads, I got to see tonnes of buffalo, elks, deer and pronghorns. And once more, people living in Wyoming where not hesitant to pick up a lost and lonely hitchhiker stranded on the side of the road; no matter how remote he is, as long has he smiles and look half-decent, they will pick him up.
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| Hell's Half Acres |
The Magic Bus
To get to the Devil’s Tower, a couple from New York picked me up. I asked them if it was possible to take a picture of me while I was hitchhiking. With the Devil’s Tower sitting in the back ground, it was a picture perfect moment. They accepted, and so, the lady and I got out of the car and walked for about 100 feet from the car. To have no electric wires cutting the picture. As we were walking, two cars passed by, and out of nowhere, the husband started to freak-out, telling us to come back into the car. Once in, he started screaming at me; blaming me to put her wife in danger. I didn’t reply, as the hitchhiker, I knew I could only lose my ride if I were to argue back. That being said, he accepted, plus, there was barely any traffic.
After a short but awkward ride to the tower, I got to fully appreciate the size of the 800 feet high monolith. The wonder behind the tower comes from to particularity: its unique shape and it location. A few million years ago, at the exact location of the tower, a volcano slowly grew. Eventually, the volcano erupted his last breath, clogging its chimney with a rock more resistant than the volcano itself. As the year passed by, the volcano fully disappeared leaving, out of the otherwise flat region, a gigantic chimney. As for its shape, it is a puzzle of hundreds of hexagonally shaped columns stacked one next to the other. When the lava from the chimney cooled off on the last eruption, the surface would shrink, cracking into more or less hexagonally shape. And as the pressure would build up, it would push the cracked rock upward, exposing new lava that would then cool off, leaving behind the basalt columns that create the Devil’s Tower.
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| Devil's Tower |
Once back from a much appreciated walk around the monolith, I saw an older man taking a picture of two older ladies. I noticed they knew each other, so I offered to take a picture of all three. They had just got in the park, while I was leaving, so I didn’t even bother asking for a ride. Actually, I didn’t even say I was a hitchhiker. I started walking down the road, turning at every car to get a ride out. But unfortunately, all I got was my first park ranger stopping me to kick me out of the park. I tried to explain what I was doing, but he stayed stubborn. While we were arguing, a white bus pulled over, and I noticed the guy I took a picture of getting out. Between two moral given by the security, the guy asked me if I wanted a ride out of the park. Without a word, and with the most obnoxious smile, I looked at the ranger, and feeling vanquished and embarrassed, he dropped his head, and as he made a gesture with his hand, he told me “Alright, just get the hell out of here.” It’s funny, because after 6 month of hitchhiking all over the country, I had more problems with park ranger than with actual police officer. But eventually, on my second entrance in Arches National Park in Utah, a park ranger told hoe to hitchhike “legally” in a park. Rather than raising your thumb on the side of the road, you need to ask people at the parking lot for a ride to the next feature, since in that case, it is “carpooling” which is legal, and even recommended.
Once in the bus, the driver asked me where I wanted to go, so I answered with South Dakota. He laughed and told me that was his destination. And once in South Dakota, he once more asked me where to be dropped off, and I told them I was heading toward Rapid City and the Badlands. Once more, he laughed and told me he was going to Sioux City, passing y the Badlands, and also wanted to visit the park.
Being late in the day, we didn’t have enough time to reach our common goal, so we decided to take our time and head to Deadwood for the night, but not without a little break in the Spearfish Canyon to do a little fishing, but didn’t catch anything; I guess it will be rice again tonight.
Once in Deadwood, they drove to a motel, registered, and drove me around town until I could find a camping spot. They told me to meet them in the morning at the motel. On the following morning, I got back to the magic bus, and was offered breakfast.
We got back on the road, followed by the exploration of the Badlands, and Minuteman Missile. Being from two very different generations, we looked at the missile through very different glasses. For me, it was just a cool feeling to see a real missile. For him, it reminded him of all the scary night when the siren would ring the alert and he had to find shelter. But looking back at the Cold War, a thought occurred; it was probably the most civilised war in history. The two countries had their finger on the launching button, ready to annihilate the other country, but eventually, they both realised how stupid it was and decided to let it go. Now for all the history lovers, I know there is more to the Cold War as just the missiles, but if you focus on the probability of it being the deadliest and most uncivilised war that could hit human kind, you realised that both country took the time to think before making yet another mistake that would of impacted the entire planet.
Finally, we went to Wall Drug, some sort of huge tourist trap, where they fed me a huge buffalo burger, before giving me $20, and there phone number in case I was to reach Texas. No wonder I call them the Magic Bus.
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