Week 6: So Much and So little: Leah’s Perspective

It is twilight, and I am walking through the Wyoming desert alone. Oakley has chosen to stay behind and read his book. He is exhausted after another 65-mile day biking. Today we traveled through the Wind River Reservation to Jeffrey City in southwest Wyoming. I just feel the need to stretch my legs before calling it a night.

It is funny that Jeffrey City calls itself a city. It is a cluster of beaten up trailers, a rock shop, a gas pump, and a tiny motel, with us the only guests. Usually, the towns in this area are centered around a river or some sort of moisture that creates a green oasis, but not this one. There is no water here and no trees, just miles of sagebrush, dry prairie grass, and rocky promontories.

Through the encroaching darkness, a few miles away from this small cluster of buildings, deep in the vast desert dusk, I can see the distant glow from the light in a lone trailer, nestled under a rocky outcropping. What are they doing out there? I wonder. It is incredibly isolated. It must be lonely. What a different life from mine.

The wind seems to blow continually in this area, and, while biking, this is a huge nuisance. Tonight, though, as my hair whips around my face, I welcome it. It is cool and soothing. I stroll down a sandy road that seems to lead nowhere. The sand under my flip-flops pillows my feet.

After Oakley’s constant chatter, I embrace this moment of solitude. The quiet is a balm to a day that was filled with intensity: sweat, sun, wind, Oakley’s many moods, trucks whizzing by. I breathe in the silence.

It wants to rain, and the clouds filling the sky are dropping their loads only to have them evaporate before the rain reaches the ground. Huge curtains of rain cover the sky above me, but only a few drops make it down and tingle on my cheeks.

The air is heady with the smell of sage, and it seems as though the leaves of the plants are releasing all their fragrance in hopes that it will entice the rain to try a little harder to reach them.

Along the side the road, there is a herd of antelope. The males are standing proudly with their tall, black pronged antlers, looking at me quizzically and sizing up whether I am a threat or not. The females stand close by their young, also watching, some springing away as I approach, showing me their fluffy white behinds that seem to glow in the darkening night.

A fox runs across the road 10 feet in front of me. His eyes catch mine for an instant, and then he is gone.

It has become truly dark, and I should head back. Oakley will worry. Before I turn around, I peer once more out at the trailer set against the rocks so far from this little town. Someone is in there. They live here and can experience this every night. I think I do understand what they are doing out here.

As I walk back, I am filled with a deep calm and a longing to have more of this in my life. The next day we will be hammered by a swirling sand storm, winds gusting to over 60 mph, crushed by traffic on Interstate Route 80. Road construction will close the shoulder and force us to ride shoulder to shoulder with semis barreling along at 75 or 80 mph. This night, though, in this hardscrabble town, there is momentary peace in our lives, the kindness of a solitary motel keeper, and the comfort of a puzzled herd of antelope.

Oakley’s Perspective: Best Day Off: Week 6

Today we took a day off in Saratoga, Wyoming. Yesterday was so stressful because of high winds and because my front wheel fell off. I wasn’t hurt, but we had to hitchhike to the nearest town for repairs. Once back on the road, we were hit by a powerful sandstorm while we were biking on the highway.

Saratoga is a cool town, though, and we went to the community gym to find people to hang out with. I met a boy named Seven. He asked if I could ride dirt bikes and ATV’s at his house, and in a moment of weakness, my mother said yes.

First we went to his house. We rode his ATV all over the hills of Saratoga, doing jumps and drifts and tearing it up. Then we had to check-in with my mom. We met her at a river that is fed with hot springs and has little rocky pools on the sides. We floated down the river and into the pools. One was 118 degrees!

My mom let us disappear again so we did. We went back to Seven’s house, and while I was making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich I looked down and a four-foot lizard was at my feet! (An iguana.) In his backyard was also a cage full of 10 two-week-old kittens. Seven locked me in with them!

After that he took me to his grandfather’s house where his dirt bikes are. His grandfather looks just like Gus McCrae from Lonesome Dove. We rode dirt bikes everywhere. They are not hard to figure out.

I asked Seven to get my gloves out of my bike bag, and he accidentally set off my canister of bear spray. That was exciting.

Before I left to go back to our campsite, Seven’s father came home from hunting. I was standing in the front yard, and he got out of his truck with a rifle. “Get out of my yard!” He shouted. Then he smiled. He was joking.

It was the best day off ever.