Wyoming

Whilst driving down a road from nowhere to nowhere we hit a cloud of bees at about 50 miles per hour. I don’t know if they were swarming because they were angry but in a very quick moment they were relaxing all over our windscreen in a burst of what sounded like rapid gunfire. I thought someone had thrown a fistful of gravel at the windshield. I spent the next 30 minutes expecting them to start buzzing around the cabin but I think they were garrotted by the radiator grill before they made it through the vents. When we stopped the car we were swarmed by houseflies and bluebottles as they set about sucking off the bee juice from the dash and side of the vehicle. I wonder if that’s because exploded bees taste like honey. Either way it was gross.

Southern Wyoming doesn’t contain very much. We drove for hours to a town called Green River in the drizzle. I played up the local sights to Emma by insisting that this was the place to see wild mustangs. We had already seen a herd of the most glorious wild horses running through a field whilst bypassing through a corner of Colorado which had left us looking forward to seeing more. I don’t usually go for horses but these things were like something out of a Disney film. We drove through a desolate landscape called White Horse Mountain and camped atop a hill looking out over a sea of grey moorland. The wind and rain battered our van through the night and into the morning after when we made our way into Green Valley to do some laundry. Maybe it was the weather, maybe it was the empty and lonely landscape, maybe it was the washing powder but whatever it was it was making Emma feel very unhappy about the place we were in so once my pants were scrubbed we jumped in the van again and pootled off northbound.

Before this stage of our trip we had use a combination of local feedback, Lonely Planet guides and intuition to guide us around. Entering Wyoming we were without any of this information so resorted to buying a Moon travel guide to Wyoming and Montana. Quick review – Moon books are shit.

Fortunately Emma is pretty good at researching places to visit so we targeted Jackson on the way to Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone. On arrival Jackson seemed to be a really pleasant mountain village of the type we had come across frequently on our trips; the type which exudes rustic charm without any of the boring things which accompany real rustic western towns such as unemployment. Essentially a winter skiing village in summer mode Jackson was gearing up for a Memorial Weekend festival as we arrived. This meant a busy but festival like atmosphere complete with Japanese tourists, German tourists and us (British tourists). We camped out of town up a steep and poorly managed road within the elk sanctuary (devoid of elk except during winter). It was still raining on our arrival so we couldn’t see much but as we left the campsite in the morning we were afforded a beautiful view of the entire Teton range and the Jackson Hole valley in front of it. We whizzed back into town to take part in the Old Western Days festival which, to my great joy included an Old West Brew Fest. Within an hour I was incompetent and had to go lay down in the van. I spent most of my time chatting to brewers about their lack of cask ales, the future of British brewing and my enjoyment of beer in general. I made a particular friend in a bloke called Kurt from the Uinta Brewery out of Salt Lake City. I took a bunch of email addresses whilst I pretended to be a beer journalist and drank for free for the entire festival. I had arranged to meet the brewers afterwards in the local brewery but I ended the evening far to inebriated and after the mock gun fight in the town square I passed out over a box of pizza up the top of the valley again. I had a brilliant time though.

Kurt mentioned that there was an even bigger beer festival in Idaho Falls two weeks later so I made a mental note and sought to subliminally steer Emma there on our travels – a rather difficult task when you have two weeks and all of Montana and Yellowstone National Park to explore.

Yellowstone is ridiculous in size and content. The entire park is essentially in the caldera of an active super-volcano. I watched a fear mongering documentary explaining that if and when Yellowstone blew it could have global consequences. Until then ignorance was bliss as we drove the hundreds of miles of roads which make up the national park. Upon entering we were rewarded with Bison, Yellow-Bellied Marmots, Elk, Bald Eagles, Black Bears and Ospreys. As ever when visiting national parks we were also rewarded with people stopping their cars in the middle of the roads to take pictures, psychotic tail-gaiters and the ever unhelpful clueless campsite co-ordinators. At the park entrances they had notices explaining which campsites were open and which were full. We noted the ones without ‘full’ signs and made our way across the park. Bearing in mind the journey across the park was about 100 miles it is a long way to go to be turned away from a campsite. The woman at the first one we visited just laughed in my face. When I asked if any others had space her eyes glazed over and she began eating a doughnut. Out of luck and not wishing to travel 100 more miles we made our way to the Eastern exit of the park where we were pleased to find a cheap National Forest campground next to a creek and complete with bear lockers to store our food. As I fished my chilled bottles of beer from the river that evening I looked across the water to see a young bull moose picking its way through the undergrowth – worth the petrol money.

The next morning we explored the sights of Yellowstone – from the stunning canyon to the plopping mud pots and explosive geysers. All very enjoyable to the point that I wasn’t even annoyed at the mental drivers any more. People were parking their cars next to giant bison and walking up right next to them like ABSOLUTE IDIOTS. We would later hear that two people were gored by these beasts which pleased me greatly. It is against the law to approach within 100 yards of a bison and apart from that it is retarded. So I’m glad a bit of pay back was issued by Mother Nature. Of course I hope nobody died, just a horn up the bum or something.

Yellowstone occupies the North-Western corner of Wyoming and I am surprised Wyoming doesn’t call itself the Yellowstone state as it really has little else going for it apart from cowboy boots and dust.