West Yellowstone
ok so techinically west yellowstone is in Montana…
We stayed at the closest place you could get to Yellowstone without actually being in Yellowstone—a wide, open field carpeted with sagebrush and dry shrubs, dotted with trucks, campers, and more mosquitoes than grains of sand on a beach. It was under the pale glow of a full moon that we caught the final mouse of the family. We heard the trap snap through the stillness of the night—loud and decisive. Naked and half-asleep, I stumbled out of bed to check on the little bastard.
Naturally, it had happened right beneath Nicole’s head.
I clicked on my headlamp and knelt down. The trap hadn’t killed him. It had only crushed his hind legs. He was dragging himself forward with his tiny elbows, the trap clattering behind him like a bloated diaper weighed down with the shit of an entire lifetime. It was grotesque. Pitiful. Weirdly noble. I picked him up gently, careful not to startle him more than he already was, and carried him into the shrubs. Still naked, I squatted on my heels, only to feel a few stems of grass tickle my asshole, sent me shooting upright like I’d been hit with a cattle prod. My heart raced. I cursed softly. Then I crouched again, slower this time, more aware. And there, in the stillness, I pried open the trap.
I could’ve ended it. Snapped his neck and saved him the crawl. But I didn’t. I watched him pull himself, inch by inch, into the brush. Even a maimed mouse deserves a shot at its own ending.
Tetons and Jackson Hole
If you grew up in a small town, you probably remember the ole one-screen movie theater, the kind where you walk in and the smell of a 7$ bag of popcorn slimy with butter fill your nostrils. You pass through the doors into the darkness of the theater along the cement aisle, cheeky chairs with small wooden arms and threadbare upholstery stretched over tired foam. And of course, that glowing screen that seemed enormous when you were a kid. So when we walked into Hand Fire Pizza, it was sort of like stepping back in time.
Once a classic movie house, the space has been transformed into a wood-fired pizzeria. Where the last rows of seats would’ve been was now a sleek and modern bar. And where the towering screen once loomed, two gleaming round pizza ovens now take center stage, each with a chrome exhaust pipe rising like a chimney into the exposed wooden rafters above, giant, metallic sentinels that mke the ovens look weirdly like UFOs.The interior was expansive, i mean theaters are huge, but they were always dark so you never got the full idea of just how big they were. But in the light, you could have played a sand volleyball match up in here. We grabbed ours zas and made the short walk to the town square, the heart of Jackson, Wyoming, where the evening buzzed with its usual strange blend of fabricated grit and gloss. We laid out a blanket on the grass and ate there, watching the curated chaos unfold around us.
Jackasses in brand-new flannels and five-hundred-dollar cowboy boots that had never touched manure walked tall and proud like they sit down when they piss. Some girl had her boyfriend take a million photos of her while she posed in front of the antler arches, didn't take a single one with him in it. Kids fed french fries to pigeons. A girl with the look of a straight-A student played an old French tune on a violin, that Nicole grew up listening to, i watched her as she drifted back in time, a small smile of nostalgic wonder on her face. After it was over Nicole exchanged a few words with here and left her with a nice tip. There were ranchers in designer denim, those nasty ass pressed jeans with glittery back pockets, some Forever 21 bullshit, sipping lattes from to-go cups. And then there were the trust-fund dirtbags with Ray-Bans attached to croakies dangling from their necks, Patagonia puffies tied loosely around their waists and Chacos on their feet. Somehow, we got into a rock solid fight and drove in silence towards more silence. Past the lights and away from the curated beauty and into the darknes of the hills. After turning right 90° the left 90° a few times through farm lands, we began our ascent to a place we found tucked away on the side of a dirt road.
We didn’t say goodnight to each other and i spent half the night expecting Nicole to tell me the next day that she was sick of this shit and wanted me to take her to the nearest airport. Making for a long silence as heavy and cold as the night itself.
The next morning we hashed it out while sipping coffee with numb fingers and eventually drove to Jenny Lake, where i was going to hit the trails and smash some elevation and Nicole was going for a hike around the lake. Once i hit the backside of the lake, (the side nestled up against the jagged Tetons), i headed up along an overgrown, questionable trail. It didn’t take long for the stillness to get loud for i knew we were now in Grizzly country, not black bear or brown bear country of the west coast, but fucking grizzly country. Thick brush in every direction. The kind where a bear could be standing five feet off trail and you’d never know until it stood up. I started making noise. Loud, regular. Kept peeking around every bend like I was expecting to meet my maker. I could find no reason this trail was worth my life and so turned around and finished up the loop, excited to intersect Nicole somewhere on the the loop and finish it with her. But Nicole was nowhere to be found. She wasn’t anywhere. As i got closer and closer to the car, i feared more and more that should got mauled by a grizzly. I couldn't shake it until I made it back to the car. Where i thankfully saw her fumbling around the back of Ravie. She said she’d turned around early, that she got spooked and headed back.
But that there was more.
Turns out, she’d been late. Real late. Not for an important date, but that female thing that rains emotion and blood once a month She had picked up a couple pregnancy tests along the way and snuck off to a park bathroom while I was on the trail. When I opened a bag of snacks in the car, there it was, pee-soaked plastic, two pink lines, loud and clear.
