Have you ever had to go so badly that it felt as if your tummy was going to burst? And what if you were way beyond any public restrooms? What then, dodge behind the nearest tree? Well, what if there were no trees? It\u2019s odd, but the most vivid memory of one of our trips out west was when nature called and we couldn\u2019t answer.
\nWe were with our friends, Bumper and Elaine, who live in Colorado. The first part of the week was spent hunting turkeys, but since the only turkeys to be found were Bumper and Walzie, we decided to do a little sightseeing across the wilds of Wyoming.
\nAfter spending the night in Cody, we headed for the eastern entrance to Yellowstone Park. The ranger stopped us at the gate.
\n\u201cSorry folks. This entry to Yellowstone is closed,\u201d she informed us.
\nHearing this, we wanted to punch a moose in the nose just like Clark Griswold in \u201cVacation\u201d. Heck, they might close Wally World but they don\u2019t close National Parks, do they?
\n\u201cThe pass got four feet of snow last night,\u201d the ranger continued. (This was in mid-May; we easterners weren\u2019t accustomed snow that late in the year.) \u201cThe Park is open up north. You can drive up to Montana and enter that way.
\n\u201cBut we\u2019ve got four-wheel-drive,\u201d Walzie argued. \u201cWe can go anywhere.\u201d
\n\u201cSorry, you cannot enter Yellowstone from here. Now, please turn around.\u201d
\nI think I heard her mumble \u201cidiots\u201d under her breath.
\nSo we motored up through Montana for four hours and entered Yellowstone Park via Gardner. The north entrance is actually pretty cool. We drove under the tall brownstone archway that welcomes all visitors; along the roadway was a herd of elk and within a few miles a grizzly bear meandered across the road in front of us. To give our behinds a break from all that traveling, we climbed the walkway to the Mammoth Hot Springs. The view from the top was as breathtaking as the exhausting climb.
\nWe spent the night at the Old Faithful Inn. An elk bugling under our bedroom window wakened us to a sunny morning that coaxed the frost into sparkling diamonds. The hotel sits in a geyser basin and the steam clouds dissipated into a sky as crystal clear and blue as a baby\u2019s eyes. Yellowstone Park deserves the title of America\u2019s First National Park. It is an awesome sight to behold.
\nDeeper into the Park, we realized why the ranger laughed at our thinking four-wheel-drive could take us anywhere. The highway itself was cleared of snow, but along the sides was at least twenty feet of packed snow. It towered above even the huge RV that we followed. We could see where the snow-auger trucks had tunneled through. They couldn\u2019t even plow the stuff; it had to be blown off the roads.\u00a0 A four-wheel-drive might just as well be a unicycle in that stuff.
\nWe gassed up (the car and ourselves) in Jackson Hole and began the journey to Denver and our flight back to Pennsylvania. Bumper said that he knew a shortcut; he would lead the way in his pickup truck. We followed in our SUV. With the mountains behind us and the prairie land ahead, we were singing along with Willie and Waylon, just enjoying this great nation.
\nHours later, we were still seeing flat open country with nothing in sight but antelopes and prairie dogs. Not another vehicle, not a house, not a tree \u2026 it felt as if we\u2019d fallen off the face of the earth.
\nHow much soda pop can a bladder hold? Well, after a six pack and several hours for it to run through the plumbing, we found out that both of ours was stretched to the limit. Well, that\u2019s not so bad for the fellow with an outdoor faucet. What about we with indoor plumbing? In Pennsylvania there\u2019s always a tree to hide behind. What is there in Wyoming? Ankle high scrub brush, that\u2019s what. And it\u2019s prickly, too. No thank you, I\u2019ll hold it. Walzie, being the compassionate husband, decided that misery loves company, so we kept motoring.
\nAfter another hour of nothingness, way off on the horizon I saw a tiny building. As it grew larger, it was plainly a gas station. I was really squirming now, and urging Walzie to speed it up. As we approached the station, we saw a school bus pulling in from the opposite direction. A school bus means lots of kids – kids with full bladders, no doubt.
\n\u201cHurry, Walzie,\u201d I shouted. \u201cI gotta beat those kids to the potty.\u201d
\nThe bus door opened and the first child stepped off as Walzie screeched to a stop. I bolted from the SUV and ran flat out, nearly sweeping a little girl off her feet in my wake. I whirled into the station like a tornado through a trailer park. Without saying a word, the attendant pointed to the restroom in the back. He must be accustomed to tourists.
\nAhhhhhh!
\nFacing the angry munchkins waiting in the potty line didn\u2019t bother me nearly as much as sitting in wet britches would have. And so what did we do next? Of course, bought more soda and water to finish the trip.
\nIsn\u2019t it strange that of all Mother Nature\u2019s wonders that we enjoyed on this trip out west, what we remember most is that long, lonesome road to nowhere that had relief at its end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Have you ever had to go so badly that it felt as if your tummy was going to burst? And what if you were way beyond any public restrooms? What then, dodge behind the nearest tree? Well, what if there were no trees? It\u2019s odd, but the most vivid memory of one of our trips […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-special-interest-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area","category-excerpts-from-the-tyrone-daily-herald"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3979\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}