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The Drive

Jackson Hole Afton Cokeville Smoot Thayne Evanston Alpine Wyoming

It seems everybody in Jackson Hole hates the five hour drive to and from the Salt Lake City airport. I don’t get it. What’s to hate?

I’ll tell you what I do hate — flying out of Jackson during the Christmas holidays, which invariably leaves me stranded in Salt Lake City or Denver on the way back. I swear, the giant holding pen downstairs in the Salt Lake City airport, where in bad weather the throng of stuck commuters swells to a roiling, angry, hateful mob, wearing down the customer representatives until they’re all shell-shocked zombies, is pretty close kin to the seventh circle of Hell. Especially when you’ve run the battery down on your mp3 player, basically memorized the Vanity Fair you filched from your sister over Christmas, succumbed to the bored airport dialies, and called home, only to be shut down by your so-called friend because he’s about to slide off the Sublette Lift and bomb another untracked, nipple-deep lap in the Hobacks. Never again.

To preserve the power of my mobility, I sacrifice the extra hours it takes to drive home from Salt Lake. Honestly, I find it less a sacrifice than a welcome transition, a gradual decompression, from the outside world to our plush little wintry Disneyland. I almost always choose the Evanston-Cokeville-Afton-Alpine route, what I like to call the Riviera of the Anticline. I love it for the dilapidated fences, sagebrush, ranch homes that looked lived in, dark forests, and bare hills that rise up behind it all. And I particularly love it in winter when the weather is rotten but just short of a complete whiteout, the road is buried but not icy, you can still go at a pretty good clip in four wheel drive, and the road is basically your own. In that flake-framed solitude, at 50 miles an hour, with the snow pounding out of the sky and the horses dusted white and the pines that shade of gray that only comes when they’re fully laden, you’ve got something like a powder day. Albeit, a lazy one.

Jackson Hole Afton Cokeville Smoot Thayne Evanston Alpine WyomingNot owning a TV, I’m not much of a couch potato. Until I’m behind the wheel. Then I fully connect with my American brethen, as I sit in my cruise-controlled Barcalounger, remote control/iPod in hand, snacks at my fingertips, watching the world go by, shouting at the screen when something pisses me off, like when a son of Star Valley passes me on a blind, snowy corner at 85 mph in his F-350 Diesel Cummings monster truck, “Let ‘er Buck” sticker on the window behind his head, the glossy black vehicle so massive he can fit a four stroke snowmobile in the bed, tailgate closed. You’re a little cowed, and secretly impressed, by how fast he’s driving, and you know it doesn’t bother the driver at all that he just blew by your Tonka Toy with 22 plates like it was standing still. In these conditions, you’ll grant there’s something cowboylike about that. Kinda makes you want to put a chew in and find some country on the dial.

I do love the culture shock, coming from a high rise hotel on Chicago’s Michigan Avenue, where I had Christmas, to the southwestern corner of Wyoming and its constellation of Maverick’s gas stations. (Maverick’s all the way on the Cokeville Route; on the Rock Springs route, I’m a Flying J guy.) Even better than the tub of free marshmallows to spoon into one’s redneck mocha at the Evanston Maverick’s are the employees’ shirts embroidered with the words “Adventure Guide.” If that’s their actual job title, that kicks some serious ass over Walmart’s “associates” and Starbucks’ “baristas.” It’s pretty funny until you make your next stop at the Maverick’s in Cokeville, and realize that one Adventure Guide has safely handed you off to another, and maybe their metaphysical adventure guidance is keeping you on track. I can use the help, actually. I get so zoned out/daydreamy on the drive I sometimes miss turn-offs and find myself in Montpelier or headed to Pocatello. If there’s somebody else in the car, they’re rarely too psyched about that.

Jackson Hole Afton Cokeville Smoot Thayne Evanston Alpine WyomingBack to oddly placed chutzpah: I’ve gotta hand it to the Star Valley realtor who put up the giant billboard that says “Welcome Home” right next to the entrance sign to Smoot, Wyoming, population 100. You found it, the rural paradise you’ve been dreaming about, this is the place, Smoot. Then again, in twenty years, I have no doubt said realtor will have the last laugh. After all, Smoot is the Wilson of Afton.

Goddamn, I’m happy when it’s nuking outside but it’s T-shirt weather in the Toy-coma, the stereo’s cranked up and on shuffle, laying down Led Zeppelin after Johnny Cash after Wilco, and I chug into Afton to update the Rulon index. In 2000, I attended Rulon Gardner’s parade after the Afton native took the Greco-Roman gold in the Sydney games. I’ve never been to a more joyous civic event, culminating with the beaming citizenry of Afton crowding around a tall stage occupied by Rulon and his entire family. Tears streaming down his face, voice breaking, the tank-sized Rulon thanked all the people of Afton, and particularly his high school coaches (who carried him in the parade on their shoulders) for his victory on the other side of the world. Ever since, I’ve been rooting for Rulon to remain Afton’s favored son. So on the way through town I always keep a sharp eye for businesses still emblazoned with his name. Good news, Rulon’s hanging tough.

If you drive slowly enough through Afton, under the world’s largest antler goalpost, you’ve got enough cell reception to call a silky voiced friend and listen to her New Year’s resolutions (to write a book and get her yoga certification), you’ve got another Mavericks (or Gardner’s Country Village) if you need it, and you’ve only got an hour and a half left to Jackson. There are a few more Twizzlers in the bag, another diet Red Bull under the seat somewhere, and tomorrow, you’ll be bombing your own lines in the Hobacks. Sure seems like it’s gonna be a happy new year. What the hell, why not go home the long way, via Swan Valley? Done it before.

Once, even on purpose.

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