Brokeback Betty

After somehow completely missing Grand Teton National Park, we pulled into Jackson, Wyoming, a tiny town where cowboy meets couture (Mind you, I said Jackson. Jackson Hole is the resort area immediately surrounding.) The downtown consists of chi-chi shops, outdoor tour companies and building facades that look as if they have not changed since 1872. Stage coaches clop around the town square, and the Cowboy Bar offers saddles instead of bar stools. And the arches leading to the town park? Made entirely of antlers. 

By the grace of God, we stopped in Jackson on the 4th of July. If you have never been in a small town during Independence Day, then you might as well be an ex-pat. Livingston, MT had already started their celebration when we rolled through on the 2nd, and by the time we reached Jackson on the 4th, festivities were in full swing. Officials had blocked off the town square, families picnicked in the park, everyone had an ice cream cone, and little kids danced in the street in full cowboy get-up.

It was darling, but unfortunately, Wyoming is a very big, empty state, and we had a very long, lonely drive ahead. I spent the first 5 hours hungry but clueless as to what I wanted to eat. We had bread and jerkey and cheese and yogurt and crackers and carrots and fruit and oreos and Fiber 1, but they all sonded so gross. I sunk into the back seat, while outside, a thunderstorm threatened to beat Black Betty to a pulp. 

We stopped to get gas in a town with a handful of trailers, no traffic light, the gas station, and across the street from the gas station, mecca. Also known as an ice cream shop. The nutrient I didn’t know I needed. I walked across a dirt road, to a parking lot full of beer-bellied cowboys sitting on their truck beds slurping ice cream out of waffle cones. Everyone stared as I walked by, staring the stare you only get in a small town where residents know you don’t belong. 

The ice cream store shared space with the law office and the coffee shop, and offered a handful of tables for what seemed like the entire population. I waited in line and, when my turn came, ordered one scoop of Cookies N’ Cream. The young woman behind the counter handed me a cone the size of my face. 

“$1.98, please,” she drawled. The royal blue polo stretched over her belly matched the headband stretched over her ponytail. I handed her my new debit card, one with my picture on it. She swiped and took a second look.

“Where you from?” she asked.

“New York.”

“Oooh,” she said. “Reason I know is we don’t have credit cards like that in Wyoming. What’re you doin’ way out here?”

“Oh, I’m on a road trip,” I said. “With my sisters.”

“What, they didn’t want ice cream?” she asked, as if she could not understand that such a being may exist. 

“Oh, um, I don’t know. They actually don’t know I’m in here,” I smiled. “Gotta get away some times.” She smiled, her brow a little furrowed, as I handed her the signed receipt and bounded out of the store, approximately 5,000 times happier than the era Before Ice Cream. 

We spent the next 6 hours driving through a Wyoming thunderstorm, consuming the treats we’d purchased at the gas station (including P.S. I Love You) and gaping at the double rainbows that appeared over the highway. Around 10 p.m., we sputtered into a gas station outside of Boulder with an empty tank and very full bladders. I sprinted to the doors, at 10 p.m. on a Sunday, mind you, only to find them locked. Closed for the 4th. In fact, the only thing open on Independence Day seems to be Wal-Mart; are you surprised? Nope, neither were we. We purchased dinner–three cans of beans and two gallons of water–and headed back to Betty, so we could find a hotel.

Unfortunately, three blocks down the road, Betty lost it. For the past week, she’d whined every time we turned her on, and now something smelled like butt in the back seat and vapor oozed out of the air conditioning vents. The windshield fogged up so badly that Steph couldn’t see, so we pulled onto a dark, deserted road and flicked on the hazard lights, while we tried to figure out whether hot or cold air would make the steam go away. We decided on hot, and the car quickly become a cesspool of rotting food and filth. We plopped ourselves on the hood of the car and ate beans from a can, watching fireworks in the distance while we waited for the steam to evaporate off the inside of our windshield. Happy 4th of July!