Organizing My Car in the Middle of a Forest

Even though last night had a clear sky, I woke around 1am and checked the clouds to see if a lightning storm was coming. In the dark even I could tell that the clouds looked like happy clouds, but I wasn't taking any chances. I broke down my tent, put away all my sleeping stuff, and slept in my car with a pillow and a blanket. I woke up around 3:30am and drove to my bird point, and of course the skies were clear and beautiful. Even on nice nights I can't sleep and think too much about lightning.

The county road was now dry, and my car had no problem making it to my point. I hiked in for a ways, the whole landscape had standing water like a bog. There were lots of meadowlarks, and my favorite, upland sandpipers which sound like a guy whistling at a girl. I think I accidentally did some points on private land, but no one asked me what I was doing.

When I was done, I drove the short way to Upton then I drove to Newcastle. I spent hours in the library, and emailed Erin to give me a call when she was in town. She emailed back right away that she was in the Newcastle library. I emailed back that I also was in the Newcastle library and I looked around a bookcase and saw her. We talked about frightening lighting storms, muddy roads, bears, and hard transects. Then we did paperwork and she called landowners while laying on the library sofa, her bare feet out of her flip flops dangling in the air. She sounded like such the surfer girl she is on the phone, with such a friendly tone, and from what I heard she got all the landowner permissions that day. Even a long conversation about birds with someone on native land granted her her access, something she was worried about. I was waiting till 7pm to call my landowners, because that is when ranchers actually answer their phones in my opinion. So many at home wives tell me that they have to consult their husband when he comes in from the ranch. I did make a call to one up by the Montana border though, and he was a friendly oil man and granted me access after a quick chat. He laughed when I told him what I drove and said I should make it alright on his nice roads though, if I made it there even.

Erin and I had dinner at a restaurant across from the library, she was set on having a burger but changed her mind when she saw the ravioli special. I could only afford a slice of pizza, money was really low. A lady at another table talked to us about saguaros in Tucson where she was from, while I savored every bite of my dinner.

I stayed late reading magazines long after Erin left at the library, just trying to be selfish and reclaim time for myself. It seems this job blurs the lines of working and not working, and I don't get to do the things I normally would after coming home from work after a long day. I finally drove to South Dakota to camp for free up on Forest Service land.

I just went across the border and looked at a detailed map of forest roads the lady at the headquarters gave me earlier that day when I talked to her about camping. I didn't drive far down one road, until I parked my car. I could hear the highway and several forest fire trucks that kept coming down a nearby road. I pulled everything out of my car to move the large trunk in my backseat to the car trunk, allowing room to sleep in my backseat on scary weather nights. I even organized my food in an easy to find way, and put everything in a good place. Everything at easy access for living out of my car. I had a good nights sleep surrounded by tall pine trees, not scared of lightning. I'm such a city girl still sometimes.

Good Night's Sleep in the Worst of Storms

Text messages between me and Kari.

Annie: "Scary lightning storm, hail too. Can I please stay with you in Gillette tonight? I had to leave my tent up at Pine Haven, too risky to take it down"

Kari: "Sure, I just cleaned the bedding for that bed too."

I was completely terrified at the bright flashes of lightning and the booms of thunder. I had fallen asleep in my tent again in the morning to be woken up by a afternoon thunderstorm with hail. I ran out of my tent, hopped in my car, and drove to the bait shop down the street to inquire about the weather for the day. I jabbered on for several minutes out of nervousness with the kind lady inside, about the storm and what I did for a living. She pointed outside the window next to us and said that she once saw a tornado right there a few years ago. That was enough for me, I left, said I was driving to Gillette and hoped I could stay with one of my friends there.

I can't even remember when I've seen rain pour down so hard, I had my windshield wipers on full blast, but still couldn't see out very well. At one point I had to pull over on the side of the highway and wait for the rain to drop down a little less severe. I finally made it to Gillette and went to Walmart first to get some brownies to bake. In the parking lot I broke down, trembling and crying still sitting in my car for a good 30 minutes as I tried to wipe the tears from my red puffy eyes. I bought some chicken too, since I had been craving it for days and ate it in the park. It tasted horrible, and made my car smell like Walmart chicken. I was really craving the tasty BBQ chicken that I had eaten several nights in the US Virgin Islands almost a year before, but I couldn't have it.

I drove to Kari's still shook up. I felt better after a long warm shower, then came up and we talked a bit about her move to Alaska coming up.

It was the best sleep in weeks, and when I went back to my little tent in Pine Have, I found it wrapped around a tree from the storm. At least is was still there! It popped back into shape and my stuff inside was very dry, I beamed with pride for how well my little tent kept everything dry in the worst of storms. My tent just needs a lightning rod now.

Keeping the Hearth Burning

I slept for eleven hours last night in my comfy hotel room, I was so tired that I didn't even watch TV, read, or write in this journal. I grabbed a cup of hot coco in the morning with a handful of animal crackers for breakfast and read a book of Emily Dickinson's poetry. I was sitting next to the Bordello Room, and heard a couple fighting inside of it. It was pretty funny listening to how silly their argument was. She was upset she didn't have a change of clothes, and at one point he actually yelled "talk to the hand". When they came out of their room with suitcases, they both looked at me a little embarrassed. They were both attractive, staying in a beautiful hotel on some sort of vacation, why they were fighting I don't know.

I drove to Upton hoping I could do a point just west of there, but I was not prepared for the horrible storm later that night. I managed to drive down a county road to my point, then a two track road lead even further it, and my car did well on it being dry. I knew I would be stuck down there if it rained though and went to Keyhole Lake just north in Pine Have to camp for the night. I have gone to this lake before, on a bad day when it was still frozen over.

I was proud of myself for starting the most beautiful fire with bags of unopened mail and small logs gathered around my tent site. It was a roaring fire for a while, then the logs turned into the most perfect charcoal good for grilling meat. I was sad that I didn't catch any fish, nor was I hungry to cook something over the fire. It reminded me of grilling lamb over charcoal in Germany. The fire master waited till it turned to charcoal before the put the lamb kabobs on top. There were sheep in a nearby yard, and I felt sorry that we were grilling up their cousins in front of them, but they didn't seem to notice.

There was something very comforting about having my own fire, as I spent hours tending it with care. Something very ancient indeed in keeping the hearth warm and burning. I finally went to bed, knowing it would burn itself out.

It was pouring down rain, the lightning was on top of me and close, so I ran to my car. I looked up what to do in a lightning storm on my blackberry, and wasn't comforted at all. There were even pictures of people smiling with their hair standing up and the caption read that these people died or were seriously injured right after the pictures were taken. I shouldn't have put my tent under a tree because of super heated sap that would gush out if lightning hit it. I emailed my co-workers from my car to see if they had to deal with the same conditions as me. I didn't sleep anymore that night, but first drove to Pine Haven, then just wandered the highways listening to Lady Gaga, not wanting to think about lightning.

Cliffs of Insanity

Rain drops started to plop down onto my dusty windshield as I drove out to Crazy Woman Creek again. I was determined to make it to my transect though as I turned down the ranch road onto private ranch land. Black Angus cows stood in the middle of the road, reluctant to let me drive by. One small male calf even challenged my car refusing to move until I honked my horn and he ran to mama. The rain was really coming down now, but the methaners used this road and had put down gravel for easy access. I drove for a while with no problem through herds of cattle in bright green fields until I passed the last methane check station. My little car slid around on the mud like it was ice. I was 3k away still and knew the road got within 1k, but didn't want to get stuck, so I parked it. I put basic necessities in my backpacker backpack, no pillows or extra blankets, and hiked in the pouring down rain the 3k. It got sunny above the sage that would be my home for the night. I had cliffs nearby and hoped lightning would strike those before my metal poles.



I put up my tent and was amazed at the vast open landscape so far from civilization, except my phone worked. All I could see was a ranch house in the far far distance. I let the cowboy boots dry in the sun and changed out of my wet muddy pants into a fresh pair in the bag. I read my book "I Capture the Castle", a cheap find at a consignment shop, while a lark sparrow wooed females with his alien space invader gun sounds and occasional farting noises. Meadowlarks were abundant and a sage thrasher went off on his cute rhythmical song of romance.

Night came, the wind blew hard again bringing rain droplets that hit my water-proof tent with load thuds. A flash illuminated the darkness...lightning. Fear lodged itself in my throat, maybe I should have camped in a canyon. I counted the distance for every bolt, it started at about four miles away, then came as close as 2 miles. I finally decided that if I died, I didn't care because I would finally get some rest and nodded off for the night.

I was reluctant to get out of bed after a late night phone conversation with my new boyfriend, a cattle rancher, that drained my phone battery. The storm didn't help either. I hiked up the cliffs above my tent and was shocked at the intense landscapes I had to walk over that day, it was so hard. First point was easy enough with a Northern Shrike sitting on a fence post for me to count. I spent the rest of the morning climbing up and down the most insane crumbling mud cliffs. I nicknamed them "The Cliffs of Insanity" and kept repeating the lines for "Princess Bride" in my head to inspire my legs to move.



I was so worn out and covered in mud with no extra change of clothes to hike out in. The pack felt heavier hiking out, and my shoulders and hips ached by the time I made it to my car. Immediately I changed and tried to scrap mud off my poor boots. I put them by the floor of my car and turned the heater on full blast back to Buffalo to dry them.

I went to the Occidental Hotel, and was barely understandable as I asked for a room. I couldn't afford it, so she offered me the bunk house for a low price and I took it knowing I was using my car payment money. I'm looking forward to my paycheck already.

Lightning at the Hole-In-The-Wall Hideout

I was just trying to find a free camp site on BLM land for tomorrow's points when I made the most amazing discovery of these beautiful red cliffs contrasted against blue patches of ponderosa pine on grassy hills. Even better is that this place was once the Hole-In-The-Wall hideout for some of the Old West's most notorious outlaws. Well my little car got stuck on a rock going up to the actual hideout, then almost rolled off a cliff in neutral when I jumped out to see what was wrong. For a split second I thought I would get a much needed truck, I'm very well insured.

I can still feel the excitement though as I imagine the outlaws riding their horses fast up between the cliffs and I can hear their stolen cattle in the moos of the black angus cows grazing here down the canyon. The wind came around sunset when I was trying to set up my tent, I had to use my heavy wood carved bear again but it wasn't enough so I put my heavy bag of canned goods in another corner to keep it from blowing off the nearby cliff. The beautiful red cliffs were hidden in the dark somewhere, and everything felt so grim. I tried to remember the peaceful place I had experienced a few hours earlier. A vesper sparrow sang his heart out still in the dark, and a sweet smell of flowers drifted in from somewhere. The tent was violently shaking until somehow I blocked out the noise and drifted off to sleep.

A bright flash woke me out of a dream of being covered in ticks in the middle of the night, I could hear it now raining with the pitter-patter of drops hitting my rain fly. Lightning! Having not seen lightning since I was a kid in Texas, I never even considered it when I put my tent up under the dense gray clouds that hovered above me. I started shaking with fear, here I was laying on the ground with just a tent and some bedding in between me and the wet grass and mud, and the only place I could set up my tent was on a bare hill. Even worse I parked my car next to my tent to block some of the wind rolling off the cliffs. There was another flash, and about five seconds later I heard thunder, the lightning was just one mile away up in the sky right over me. I grabbed my cowboy boots out of the corner of my tent and put them on, then crouched in my tent with just the rubber soles touching the ground. I could hear my heart quicken with fear as I looked for my keys in the tent side pocket, then waited for another flash before I ran to my car. Flash! One one thousand...two one thousand...five one thousand BOOM! I struggled to unzip my tent then ran for it, rain soaking into the sweatshirt I always for to bed for extra warmth. I turned the key and Lady Gaga started singing bringing me instant comfort as my little car rolled down the slick red roads out of there. I had to leave the tent, I might have been hit by lightning if I took it down. I hoped it wouldn't blow away without me in it.

Kaycee is a small cow town, so the 2 motels (one in an actual trailer the other a run down house) and cabin site were all closed around 1am in the morning. I had no choice but to sleep in my car at the local truck parking area with several semi-truck diesel engines purring around me. I pulled out the human mace from my job gift bag, and considered the bear mace but figured human mace would be enough to give a trouble making trucker something to worry about. I put my butterfly covered sun shields in the front car window to block out some of the glaring light in my closed eyes, and was glad I am so over prepared and had extra blankets and another pillow in my trunk. It was a rough night, but the next morning my tent was still there on the hill, and not burning in some kind of lightning fire or blown off the cliff. I was going to take it down, but my sleeping bag looked so comfy inside. I was proud of my little tent for keeping everything water free in the thunderstorm. I crawled into my bed, and realized with some joy that my tent really was my home. I had several hours of restful sleep that morning.

Cow Town

I am renting a small slice of Buffalo, WY, with a P.O. Box. I guess that makes Buffalo home, and I haven't really had a home since February.

I did several bird points around the town of Buffalo then drove south to Kaycee, WY, population 250, for today's points. After taking several country roads with an old AM country station playing, I turned down a dirt one with fluffy black free roaming Angus cattle everywhere on BLM land. Almost every cow had a small calf with her, each freshly branded with an "8" on it. I waited for a few cows to leave the spot where I wanted my tent, then set it up in the crazy wind. My tent tumbled away as if it was Russian thistle, and I chased after it. The whole scene would have made a cowboy chuckle if there was a person within miles to witness it. I had to pull out my friend's carved wood bear sculpture from the trunk to keep the tent from flying away, and the tent tried to hover off the ground like a space ship with just the bear keeping it tethered in the center. A few cows passed by and mooed at me, their calves keeping close for protection. Never have I seen such vast grasslands with no human structures in sight, I've only witnessed similar landscapes in the desert where not many people want to live. I went to bed early, a little worried that a bull might find my tent and mistake it for a lovely cow, but slept well in the first warm night in Wyoming.

After counting birds this morning, I went to the small town of Kaycee to mail a book I sold online. The lady with a large belt buckle at the post office suggested the resturant/bar across the street and said I should get a hamburger, even though she confessed she didn't like red meat. I told her she should keep that to herself in this town and she laughed and agreed. I listened to the conversations around me while eating the best burger ever, people were talking about rodeos, branding, and horses. Real cowboys walked in and out with the sound of their spurs going, clink, clink, clink, clink, on the floor. There were horses in the parking lot, and nothing but feed and tack stores in sight. I keep having the old song "Cowtown" going through my head, and popped it into the CD player as I drove just west of the town to my next bird points.

Ghost Girl at the Occidental Hotel

I woke around 6am and slowly got dressed then put my tent away. I drank the gas station coffee from the night before as I shined my copper colored cowboy boots, then used the same light color on my dark hiking boots since I can't find my polishes and shining brush. It seemed to condition the dried leather though. I put on a nice pair of jeans with my cowgirl belt buckle, a horse t-shirt, and the cowboy boots. Today I needed to talk to landowners in person about going onto their land to count birds the next morning. I even put on makeup and might have brushed my hair.

I went into Buffalo and found the library…that wouldn’t open for hours. So I drove around town looking for my 12 bird points. Most were around a high school, but several were on private land.

In the adventure that is my life, nothing goes as planned. I parked in front of a downtown hotel, eager to go to an old fashion soda fountain down the street. A woman was in front of the hotel, lacquering some very old chairs that may have held the bottoms of famous outlaws in a century old poker game.

We started talking and complained about men together. She invited me into the hotel, and I really didn’t understand its historical importance until tonight.

Part of the Occidental use to be a brothel, evidence of a porch once overlooking the street can be seen. The owner who had two loose braids on both side of her face was nice and encouraged me to look at the historic quilt collection upstairs. I inquired about what ghosts lived there and she grinned, I knew a good story was coming.

“There was a woman's daughter who died of cholera in the the NW wing where the brothel was, she was just a child. Some times people can feel her tapping her fingers on their backs, but one guest really got to meet her. His hunting party was snowed in, down in Denver so he was the first and only one to arrive. The whole northwest wing was empty except for him because the other rooms were held for those stuck in Denver. He was the guide, a mountain man, so when he called up screaming around 3am I knew why. He said that something was trying to pull his covers off the bed and they were throwing things around the room. I went upstairs, found his covers on the floor and the stuff on the dresser on the floor too.

With that story in mind I walked up creaky wooden stairs in the brick building. I looked at the quilts, my favorite made from men's work shirts. Old boots with the tiniest ankles belonged to the former owner, her clothes also on display. I looked down the dark hallway of the northwest wing and felt a little dizzy, it might have been fear. I went down the other wing and loved the outlaw room with a river view and brick exposed wall.

The owner encouraged me to explore the northwest wing, so I did and felt dizzy again, I couldn't find the light switch. Doors of unoccupied rooms were left open to show off the historic beds I'm sure, and light from the windows of those rooms was the only light. Dawn said the hall light should be on, but it wasn't. I left but I could tell which room the little girl died in, I felt pulled to it and wanted to turn the door knob.

Many outlaws have stayed there, the Hole-In-The-Wall Gang, Tom Horn, and many others like Teddy Roosevelt, Calamity Jane, and Buffalo Bill. I want to write historical fiction, so I have several books about pioneer women from the area. I just started reading one about Martha James (Bull), and she was married in this hotel in May 1883. I read that tonight! Like a new word learned then heard everywhere, the Occidental Hotel keeps reveling itself to me. I wonder what importance this hotel will have in my future, I feel like I was meant to come to the Occidental for some unknown reason. Buffalo, Wyoming might be my home.

I talked to five landowners and have all my points to count birds tomorrow morning with my silver tongue. People are so friendly here. I decided to camp in the same spot at Petrified Tree on BLM land, since its free and close. I went on a hike around the petrified meta sequoia trees, their rings and shape clearly seen in solid rock. I was taken back to a time long before the Occidental Hotel when mammoth roamed these hills covered in meta sequoia trees and the red hills were given their color from coal deposits that burned so hot around them that the sandstone turned to a red "Scoria" or "Clinker" rock. Will get up at 3:45am tomorrow to take down my tent.