Goin to Jackson (Wyoming)

I'm goin' to Jackson, I'm gonna mess around,

Yeah, I'm goin' to Jackson,

Look out Jackson town. – Song “Jackson” ; Billy Ed Wheeler and Jerry Leiber. 

Okay, the song that Johnny Cash made famous wasn’t referring to Jackson, Wyoming but the tune rambled through my head as we made our drive.

It was a long pull getting to Jackson, Wyoming from Fernley, Nevada where we spent our first night.  Fourteen hours on the road but not all of it driving.  We stopped for photos, for food, for coffee, water or soda.  We stopped to stretch and we stopped to relieve ourselves of the coffee, water and soda.  We left Fernley in the black of the morning and arrived in Jackson in what seemed a blacker night. 

There was more than a little nostalgia during the ride.  I made it a point to stop for breakfast in Elko, Nevada.  It was the family’s breakfast way station when I was a kid.  We always stopped at the Commercial Casino, home to White King, a stuffed polar bear standing on hind legs in a glass enclosure, looking ferocious.  I suppose I’d look ferocious too if I were a polar bear, stuck in a casino in the middle of the Nevada desert; and dead.  Every trip we would gawk at the big bear and every trip dad would say, “Look at the claws on that bear.”  Then we would proceed to the coffee shop and every trip I would order a stack of pancakes which I dove into like; well, a starving polar bear I guess.  After placing the breakfast order dad would amble over to the casino and kill some time and money playing the slots. 

We found the Commercial and sure enough there was the familiar sign with the statue of White King.  The statue looked old, forgotten and forlorn.  “Screw it.”  I didn’t want to see White King.  When I was a kid I never appreciated the majesty of a polar bear.  Now a half century later I appreciate the magnificence of God’s creatures.  I have a feeling that White King has lost his majesty.  He’s probably moth eaten, no longer ferocious and bereft of the regal bearing he once held in the wild – now only sad.  I couldn’t stomach seeing that once proud creature standing in a casino that’s probably seen much better days.  From the outside the joint looked like a dump.  Maybe it was a dump 50 years ago and in my childhood innocence I never noticed.  So, we went to The Stockman, which is also something of a dump.  I did have a stack of pancaked though.  Some traditions are meant to keep.

I recall those driving trips across the Nevada desert as never ending, sweltering tedium.  I’ve changed.  I appreciate the desert for its desolate beauty.  I used to see it as bleak brown and gray.  Now as an adult I appreciate the many colors I never saw as a child; the varied hues of reds and brown along with the yellows and greens thrown in for good measure.  I pointed out the changing scenery to the wife.  When you’re from the Philippines driving through the Great American Desert is probably like taking a drive on the lunar land rover. 

We touched three states in one very long day and it was something of an overload of varied scenes and I suppose that achieving the occasional sensory critical mass pulled us out of exhaustion; that and sucking on 4 Dr. Peppers during the course of the drive. 

                A string of little towns; miniscule.  No Services the signs say.  Who lives in a place with no services and the next services a seeming half tank of gas down the highway? 

                Freight trains and truckers.  Highway 80 is an artery that flows with big rigs.  Along the route beside the highway are the tracks. It seems that there’s almost always a freight train winding through the desert as if it’s just one long never ending train; a string of cars many rusting, almost all tagged with graffiti forming a steel ribbon that wends its endless way through passes, over hills and across dry washes.

                There was the Native American man at a rest stop just outside of Battle Mountain, Nevada.  A living contrast of the ancient and the modern; pacing in front of a blanked laid out with crafts for sale while talking on a cell phone.

                We stopped at an unnamed little rest area in Northern Nevada; a little oasis next to a stream that ran through a little canyon.  Along the length of that little section I counted three beaver dams.  The rock formations enclosing the stream would have been dramatic were it not for the graffiti defiling the rust red rocks. 

                A short way up the interstate is Jackpot, Nevada just south of Idaho.  Cactus Pete’s Hotel and Casino is the last casino before you cross into Idaho.  It’s a big attraction in Jackpot but not the only one – depending on what diversion you’re prowling for.  Right outside of town are signs for two bordellos; Ladies available 24 hours promises one.  Last chance for slots and women.  It all begged the question, how does a girl end up working a brothel in the nowhere of Jackpot, Nevada?  Something must have gone seriously south at some point. 

                With the land of casinos and cathouses behind us we crossed into the land of spuds.  The tiny towns in their desert loneliness gave way to sprawling green farms.  Somewhere in the middle of the afternoon and getting bleary eyed and feeling a little goony.  A few more pulls on Dr. Pepper and it was just what the doctor ordered; awake and alert.

                Reno was the last city we’d been through, long disappeared from the rearview mirror.  Suddenly we were in Twin Falls, Idaho.  It had been less than 24 hours but the endless string of malls and busy city traffic were a slap in the face; McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy’s, Olive Garden, Red Lobster and all the big boxes were an unwelcome dose of what we’d left – if for only a couple of weeks.  Leaving Twin Falls we crossed over the magnificent Snake River Gorge.  It’s yet another contrast.  On one side of the bridge the gorge is more or less as nature intended – a natural state of splendor.  On the other side of the bridge it’s as man intended; a golf course, a violation of nature to allow the rich to play with their little white balls. 

                We passed by American Falls and swung north, skirting Pocatello and passed through the sprawling Fort Hall Reservation, home to the Shoshone – Bannock tribes.  Fort Hall is an ugly paean to America’s national shame – the Indian wars.  Fort Hall was spawned after the Bear River Massacre when over 400 Shoshone were killed by the US Army under Colonel Patrick Connor.  Chief Pocatello later sued for peace and his reward was banishment to the rez and having a major city in Idaho named after him.  Given a choice he’d probably have preferred skipping the notoriety and just being left the hell alone.  But there was Manifest Destiny to be had.

                Ironically I found myself fascinated at a rest stop of historical significance.  It sits on a section of the Oregon Trail, the path that led from Independence Missouri to the Pacific Northwest.  A fenced off section of the site holds some of the wagon wheel ruts plowed into the hard ground. 

                Darkness fell and we crossed into Wyoming.  Along the way we would, time and again, touch the Snake River.  It would be our omnipresent companion through our arrival and travels in the Jackson Hole/Grand Teton area.  I continually glanced off to the side to sneak a look at the stunning beauty of the river and its environs.  I would have loved to stop but after a long day we were running on fumes.  Oh the car was fine; full of gas and ready to go for hours and hours but the wife and I were fading fast.  No stops till Jackson.  I wanted to break the rule and slam on the brakes when I thought I’d caught a glimpse of a moose wading in the river.  Maybe it was a mirage.  We kept on.

                Once into Wyoming I found that there mostly two kinds of music on the radio – Country and Western.  A welcome change from San Francisco where there are basically two country stations and both of them are fuzzy.

                It always happens that the last few miles before the destination are the longest.  My mom used to joke that they must be moving the place away.  I commented to the wife that apparently in Wyoming a mile is about 20 percent longer than a conventional mile.

It's the American road trip.  As American as the Old West that we were passing through. It's a compound of all that is America; the cities, the burgs, the lonely little outposts, the natural beauty sitting beside man's tawdry contribution.  It's our history; both proud and shameful but all fascinating in their ways.  There is nothing at all like the American road trip.  There is no first class air service that can touch the road trip in it's inspiration and insight into what America is and was. 

We finally hit Jackson.  It was a welcome site even if Jackson would not be immediately welcoming to us.