Landed In Lander, WY

The sky pulls a mottled soot curtain from the west to east too full of promise, too full of rain. At The Open Door Cafe' I kick start my titanium cup after 125 miles without a store or coffee I haven't field ground the beans for. No complaints, being blessed to have fresh oily beans from base camp Betty. I am on fumes now, and the motor in my feet is tired of kicking on powdered mix food and the dusty remnants of old jerky from Oklahoma,...yes Oklahoma.
No mail waits at the post. Maybe a hello waits at the post in Thermopolis, WY.
No trees offer cover from the storm that took all night to crawl into town already dropping sleet last night as I tried to sleep under my nylon roof. Slow in, slow out is the old weather jargon. I'm going to get seriously wet. That mixed with subfreezing nights that solidify the top inch of my water tank and I see a long night awaiting me. The energy is fresh in Lander. Instead of being told by Jim Wynn, a field reporter for the Lander Journal, that I must go see that object, or travel over there...I am told I need to be right here. Wonderfully original. Jim gives me a map to the city park where I can stay for several nights and get to know the town that pulled me out of South Pass, Red Canyon, and through so many breathtaking vistas a camera simply nods at but never records. I am starved for words, for people, for the sweet nip of the familiar..or even an illusion of it before I am stranger to all once again.

The newest report straight from Yellowstone is 610 grizzly bears are in the park, not to include black bears. Cody, the town I have been aiming for, is said to have even more fine furred friends than Yellowstone as many bears flee the concentration of people at the park for the quieter outlying regions. Trooper Ed Sabourin of the Wyoming Highway Patrol is a state trooper that heard from a fellow trooper I was heading north. When he sees me forty miles above Rock Springs he pulls around facing me with his cruiser. I give my card and a grit laced smile. I offer my license. He waves his hand in a negative, and asks to keep the card. This isn't Oklahoma. We talk about the land, the journey, bears and family. With a serious face I am warned against traveling through Cody, being alone and on foot. The trooper is far from the last to give me heads up about Cody. I will see Cody, just maybe not this trip. Maybe I will meet a friend along the way. I hate to miss this gem of America being so close. I would regret it.

South Pass was a travel in time, a travel in solitude. How incredible it was to walk in the steps of the pony express riders, to sleep on the Oregon trail, and to sip water at the Parting of Ways while thinking of the lives that were once thrown together for a journey not unlike mine, and then at this point in their route they said their good-byes as some went on to California, others Oregon, and some took the Mormon move toward Utah pulling carts that look very familiar. (Yes, the cart is still a must for food and water, while I also carry Crow Dog, my pack.) The sadness hung in me for over a day for all those that I have parted the company of on this quest, so many souls reaching out above and beyond mere gesture. A Parting or Ways. I have begun to know that junction well in my life. In a couple of weeks I will be in Montana and still tying what little remains in my food bundle into any hopeful perch, then lying back in my tent wondering when I get up at 6am if I will have fresh coffee beans and cakes, and rasins in boiled rolled oats, or powered grass or sand and a shredded waterproof sack that smells like eating. Time alone will show the partings that await.