Beyond Cuckoo

Medicine Bow Wyoming

Webster’s New World Dictionary defines a pilgrimage as a journey to a shrine or holy place and/or any long journey to a place of historical interest. Exploration of the American West has become my pilgrimage. If you’ve read my memoir, Balanced on the Edge of the Crowd, you already have a sense of me and my early trip west from the Big Apple as a teenager. Now, as a calmer adult, I want to go further to catch the feel and history of a place.

In the 1970s a paper road map slid easily into a backpack or glove compartment. Today, we often rely on electronic devices to show us the way. As my husband, Blake drives, I read his previously printed computer instructions aloud. We’re alright until the road numbers change. We don’t know that Wyoming and Colorado assign different numbers to the same road or that there are Colorado signs on Wyoming roads—are we lost? We’re not sure.

“This can’t be right,” Blake starts.

“I think we’ve gone too far.” I say staring ahead at endless rolling landscape framed with pine forests.

“I saw a sign for a town, I’ll stop and ask.”

“Good idea.”

We drive ahead with little conversation. After forty plus years of marriage, we mostly read each other’s minds—a glance, a nod or grunt suffices. I know we’re in trouble when we pull in front of a small cabin with a sign that reads, Carbon, Wyoming Post Office. The rest of the town appears abandoned. Our dog Gena nuzzles my arm.

“She’s got to pee,” I say as I open my passenger door. Blake jumps out to try the post office door—locked. As I open the side door to the RV to let Gena out, I catch movement across the street. “There’s one,” I call to Blake, meaning that I see a human.

I feel his relief as he approaches the old man. “We’re lost, can you help us?”

From what I can hear, as I offer Gena some water, is that we aren’t too far from our mark. After some finger pointing, laughter at the cell phone in Blake’s hand, and the production of a paper road map, we are on our way.

As we make a U-turn, another car pulls up looking for directions. “Are you the Postmaster?”

 “No, today I’m the tour director.”

I looked at Blake and say, “I thought he was going to say, ‘Are you the Key Master?’—like in the Ghostbuster movie.”

“That would be about right in this ghost town,” Blake laughed. “We should have followed the sign back at Laramie that said Ski Area, but we can go around another way from here.”

“This place is right out of a Twilight Zone episode,” I say. “Keep expecting to see Rod Serling come out from behind a building.”

“Well it is kinda creepy. There are cars parked on the streets, but no people.”

“I wonder where they are?”

“I’m not sure I want to find out,” Blake says as he hits the accelerator.

The Wyoming hills are green. Streams and rivers are flanked by herds of antelope. We pass a car or two, but we are mostly alone on the highway. We ignore the signs, which are wrong or absent. A sense of peace fills the gentle breezes. Gone are the high winds we maneuvered earlier in the day. Cattle ranches and hunting/fishing lodges are marked with rustic signage—most appear to be hundreds or possibly thousands of acres. I like the spaciousness—the reclusiveness. It feels familiar.

“Here we are,” Blake blurts out. “Ryan Park Campground”.

We turn into the driveway, welcomed by stands of Aspen trees. “This is nice, I like it here.” I say to myself and then to Blake.

We had reserved a campsite online and unlike our directions our site is clearly marked with a welcome Websters sign clipped to a wooden marker. We have a few neighbors, one of which is the camp host. We wave to him and his wife as we set up camp and I’m glad we won’t be driving for a while. Soon we’re lounging in our camp chairs with Gena sprawled out on her straw camping mat and sipping glasses of wine. The next-door conversation drifts over us and we quietly listen.

“Yep, this is the place to come for fishing, but ya got to know where the best spots are. I tried a crick down the road last week and got nothin’. Had my wife drop me off at one end, so I could walk it. Got about half way back and couldn’t find one darn trout. Then I turned around and a guy on horseback was there laughing at me. ‘Catch anything?’ he says. I go, ‘naw, not a thing.’ ‘Well, there’s not a fish in that whole crick, so don’t bother.’ So, I hoofed it back here. The next day I fished on the North Platte River near Saratoga and caught my limit in no time. They say there weren’t any trout in that river until the hatchery was built in 1915, now they’re pullin’ out 20” Rainbows. The fish are breeding so good, they don’t even stock it anymore. There’s no dams, which is why.”

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            In the morning after breakfast and friendly chats with a few neighbors we load our cameras and hike the Moose trail—rightfully named after the animal that created the paths along Barrett Creek. Moose unlike deer, elk and antelope lead mostly solitary lives. Females will keep their young close, but then go solo once the youngster is ready to be on its own. I think about that as I snap photos of the wild flower displays strewn all around. What is it about some species that they thrive on reclusiveness? Do they not get lonely? The same with happiness. From what I’ve read about Native American Plains tribes, especially the Cheyenne, they don’t have a word for happiness—don’t seem to need more than they have at any given time and place. Is the bird happy when it has food, water and shelter? Or is it simply being?

            Medicine Bow’s history includes its WWII construction as both a P.O.W. camp for Italian and German captive soldiers and a Civilian Conservation Corp camp. The two factions worked side by side building infrastructure and planting trees. Check out the signs I’ve included in the photo gallery posted below. All adding to the power of this placid place deserving of our respect and protection.