Big Sky Journal

Travel notes squeezed out somewhere between internetless camp sites…

Aspen. Snuck out early to avoid the Aspen City Departure Tax on those not rich enough to fit in properly. Leadville. Coo. Nineteenth century mining town on the Roof of the World. Kinda Tibet with spurs. Somebody ought to make a movie here about gay cowboys who are too cold to have sex. Drake. Put tent up with almost negligible amount of intrafamilial bloodshed. Sausages and marshmallows for tea of course. Great Divide Basin. Wyoming is BIG. Endless miles of rolling hills with nothing but sagebrush and pronghorn. Re-assuring clatter of kids on their DS consoles ignoring the scenery. Laramie. Hang on. Aren’t there some astronomers round here someplace, with an IR telescope ? Fambly not interested. Apparently there are “astronomers everywhere”. Rawlins. Toured Old State Pen. Absolutely gruesome. Highlight is a rusting gas chamber. They let you sit inside and shut the door. Apparently after each “use” the seals were changed and it was tested on a pig. Don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Dubois. Coffee twenty five cents. Take that Aspen ! Grand Tetons National Park. Surely these mountains were drawn by an eight year old ? Or taken out of a catalogue of Perfect Pointy Mountains ? Bought “organic beer” called “Grand Tetons blonde au naturale”. Doesn’t this mean Big Tits Naked Blonde ? America is a very strange place. Yellowstone. Hundreds of steaming vents and bison warming their butts on same. Saw Old Faithful of course. Mused on non-linear feedback making quasi-periodic phenomena. The way you do. Has anyone made a model that works equally well for Geysers and Dwarf Novae ? Jackson. First motel for five days. Kids frantically recharging thirty eight different electronic devices and apologising to all their Facebook chums.

Time to head back to Frisco. Step on the gas and wipe that tear away.