Guest Posts on County 10 are provided by contributors and the opinions, thoughts, and comments within are their own and may not necessarily reflect those of County 10.
I made a run up the valley early Saturday afternoon. No matter how many times I’ve driven the road to Dubois, something new always appears along the way. A highlight came this time, a couple of hundred yards west of Morton. A herd of about 200 bison grazed on the south side of the highway.
The image presented by these magnificent animals is the epitome of the American West, and a thrill no matter where you see them.
Earlier, as I turned onto the highway off Cooper Road, just below the airport, I thought of the “Old Highway.” The remnants are with us in the steep, narrow road that takes you to the top of Griffey Hill and eventually to the Riverton Regional Airport.
I thought of a tragedy, one of many, that occurred on that road, as the car moved to highway speed. Half a century ago, a family named Degner was on their way to church at Trinity Lutheran in Riverton when they were hit head-on by a drunk driver speeding in excess of 100 miles per hour. They hit near the crest on the east side of the hill. Of the six members of the family in the sedan, only one child survived.
When you live in a community for a long time, everything takes on a certain significance, even if it seems inconsequential to the average traveler or perhaps transient just rolling through on their way to somewhere else.
On the west side of Kinnear, a yellow Volkswagen Beetle has taken up residence for the last couple of decades. It’s been there so long that an elm tree has grown in the middle of it. A leafed-out sunroof, if you will. In the spring, the first green leaves accent the yellow paint, and soon, the leaves will match the color of the car as they turn yellow. There are times in October when car, tree, and leaves all merge into one unidentifiable yellow object.
The Kinnear Store brings a bit of nostalgia just before you reach the Volkswagen, at least it does if you were ever a kid going to school at Morton or Wind River High School before 1993.
The Lund family owned the store and let us use it as a bus stop. It was a warm place on a cold winter day where the little kids waited to switch to the elementary bus headed for Pavillion and the high school kids waited to ride a few miles west to Morton.
The Cantina once served the best Mexican food in Fremont County, but it’s been closed for a long time. Next door, Gardner’s Market was a haven for the community, a great place to have Fuzz Foster cut up your wild game and always a friendly place to stop for a few groceries or for me and my friends, an ice cream cone.
Roll ahead a couple of miles over a little hill and you see the crumbling remains of Wind River High School. I wish someone would level it rather than just let it continue to decay into embarrassment.
There were three pickup trucks parked on the spillway below Pilot Butte Reservoir. It’s September, Midvale has shut down irrigation water, and the spillway is emptying out. Some years it’s full of fish, and others, not so many. My guess is that there were a few trapped in pools at the bottom of the big ditch since there were so many trucks parked there.
The decrepit building that was once a great place to eat, dance, and have a few cold ones, a place we called The Red Apple, joins the old high school, slowly fading into a mass of rotting wood. In its day, and later when it was renamed the Stage Stop, it was the place to go in the western part of the county.
There is a nice stand of alfalfa below, just west of Pilot Butte. As kids, my late friend Cubby Furlong and I once rode one of the pumping units that still reside on the bluff above that alfalfa field on a bet. We’re lucky we weren’t killed or maimed. The joys and recklessness of youth.
In quick succession, the Crowheart Store, Crowheart School, and the wide spot of Burris all pass within about eight miles.
So much fun as a teenager fishing, riding motorcycles, 4-wheeling, and just simply being idiotic, invincible kids.
A new addition to the trek is the National Museum of Military Vehicles near Horse Creek. It is amazing and worth dozens of trips through the extraordinary exhibits.
When I arrived at the game in Dubois, Joe Alexander, Jr. stopped to talk. He told me the sad news that his dad, Joe Sr., had passed away a few weeks ago. Joe Sr. was a great interview, a man full of stories of local history and an outstanding mechanic. I interviewed Joe a couple of times last year in a story on the Burris Store.
There are so many aging people, such as Joe, who have wonderful stories to share, but don’t have an outlet. I wish I could record all their stories, but I’m just one guy and do what I can.
Red Rocks, where the Wind River turns to the north in front of those bright red hills, was also once a great place to eat. Some nights we’d load into one of our parents’ cars or trucks and drive 30 miles or so just to eat shrimp, French fries, or a burger.
Ben Barto had an intriguing business in the same building in later years, buying and selling antlers and creating antler jewelry, knives and other artwork, but the doors and windows are now boarded shut.
The Wind River, as it winds back and forth along the highway the final 10 miles into Dubois, was an adventure on many a Friday afternoon, Saturday, or Sunday. Fishing in the public access areas, behind a few cabins along its banks, and in Jakey’s Fork was always good. So were the times as a high school kid at the Trail Lake Camp up the road along Jakey’s Fork. It was the first place I met kids, girls in particular, from across Wyoming.
Every time I round the big curve into downtown Dubois, I think of the construction worker and single young man phase of my life and the dozens of wonderful adventures spent on Union Pass.
Nowadays, I usually head for the high school, going straight rather than turning left.
The smoky haze coming down from Canada obscured the view of the mountains, but the views of memory were untouched.
All the games coaching against my friend Ernie Mecca, the games we played against the Rams as a kid, and my late friend, the legendary David Trembly, all come to mind each time the speed limit slows to 30 mph on the approach to the little mountain town.
Saturday was no exception. The road to memory doesn’t have to be made of asphalt, but sometimes it is.