Popo Agie River

I stopped at the Ranger Station in Lander for hiking information but I was just going through the motions. I would not be hiking any time soon. I headed a few miles out to Sinks Canyon State Park and grabbed a campsite on the bank of the Popo Agie River, which seems to be pronounced "papozha", as in “Hey buddy, I got a papozha for ya”. It rises in the Wind River Mountains and joins Wind River a few miles from Lander. But rather than flow into the nearby Platte River, Wind River hooks north, into Wind River Canyon, emerges from Wind River Canyon as the Big Horn River, then flows into Montana and the Yellowstone River, on its way to the Missouri, the Mississippi, New Orleans, the Gulf of Mexico. A long way away from Lander, Wyoming.

I had undergone a serious relapse, or really a downturn in a new direction. Chest infection was my diagnosis and I needed to confirm this with a doctor so I could get on antibiotics. I drove back into Lander looking for some kind of medical clinic and spotted a Women's Health Clinic. I went in for guidance and they had a doctor who could see me the next day, but they offered no sliding scale so they gave me a number for a clinic that did. The number they gave me was for a fertility clinic - an awkward little conversation there - which in turn gave me the number for the clinic I really wanted. That clinic gave me an appointment for 4:30 the next afternoon and instructed me to stop at the Labor Department office in Riverton to pick up a transcript of my Wyoming earnings. I said that I had never worked in Wyoming and that all of my earnings had been in Washington, and the woman said that was fine. So I drove into Riverton early the next afternoon and picked up a mostly blank sheet of paper from the Labor Department and then went looking for the clinic to see if maybe there had been a cancellation.

There had been: mine! The person making the appointments had not known that the doctor I was scheduled to see was leaving early that day for her own physical therapy. It was Friday afternoon and I was despondent at the prospect of going the entire weekend without medicine, but the clinic pulled it together and got me in to see the doctor. She diagnosed acute bronchitis on the cusp of early pneumonia, and prescribed 4 medications. Hey, at least I got to the doctor before I had pneumonia. I asked her how come I get a cold and it turns into acute bronchitis and she says “you’re getting old”. The clinic directed me to Kmart where I could get a poverty discount on my prescription. The medication was indeed reasonable, except for the over-the-counter cough pills. I have to say that Wyoming, one of the most right-wing states in the country and proud of it, treated me, their sick guest, with generosity.

Back in my campsite Saturday morning I was now taking 6 different medications, counting my routine megavitamin and antidepressant. I wondered if I was really supposed to down them all at once, but I knew if I did not I would start missing some. I also wondered which was giving me this little buzz, or whether that was the whole concoction all together.

While I regretted my illness, I was pleased with my change in geography. I had apparently stumbled into the "Banana Belt" of Wyoming. Not that Lander is so warm. It is on the colder end of Wyoming cities and gets a ton of snow. But No Wind! I sat out at night reading to nearly 9:30. Few bugs, river running. The first sweet place in months to put a cold beer, and can I have a cold beer?

My site was small - a tiny little tent space barely big enough for my tent - but secluded, curving back behind thick brush right down to the river. On one side of me there was no site at all and on the other side the site was so bad no one ever took it. Fact is the place was nearly empty, even on the weekend. So I could hack my lungs out down by the river and not really disturb anyone.

Convalescence on the Popo Agie

Just an unbelievably quiet campground for a Saturday night in August. Granted, it was very close in to civilization and plenty of Forest Service Campgrounds beckoned from deeper out in the woods.  Possibly this campground sees its use when those further out are deep in snow.

My subconscious fed me a Mekons song:

“Sometimes I feel like Fletcher Christian
In Paradise, with the tables turned.”

On Saturday I dragged my butt into Lander in hopes of getting my car worked on - it was sounding like a poorly tuned motorcycle, but the Toyota dealer's service operation was closed. I went to a bakery the Moon Handbook said was great but I thought the selection was weak, the bagels mediocre and the service borderline catatonic. I did however find a surprisingly good used bookstore. I stopped on the way back to the campground and toured “The Sinks”, where the Popo Agie river disappears into a limestone cave and reemerges a half mile downstream two hours later, warmer and with more water than it had when it went in. This is called “The Rise“.  The Rise featured some enormous trout that the sign said were native.

The Rise

I did a lot of reading along the river, taking my medicine and hoping I’d recover. In addition to Annie Proulx I was reading and old favorite Doug Peacock, and his new book on Grizzly Bears co-written with Andrea Peacock, which I very much enjoyed; Jack Turner’s new book on Grand Teton, which I  came to dislike, and finally Paul Schullery, a real writer, on Yellowstone.

I also pondered my fate. I was disappointed of course but far from despondent. I had had a great run. I had an immense store of positive experience. I had a nice comfortable place to rest, and plenty to read. I held out hope for the following month. All of this combined to keep despair at bay in the face of the cold fact that I sat helpless right outside the Wind River Mountains, one of the spectacular ranges of the Rockies, in the absolute peak of hiking season.

“If I return, they’ll surely hang me

So I guess I’ll have to stay

And if I should croak out in the darkness

No one will know I got away.

Given that I was so close to Yellowstone, I figured I would go there next because a lot of what it has to offer is accessible to everyone, even an enfeebled me. Schullery hits it on the head:

“Philosophers emphasize the solitariness of wilderness experience, and I approve; the renewal and stimulation to be had alone with nature is priceless. But national parks are more than wilderness. They are outposts on the edges, from which people can go, or at least peer, in.”

 At Yellowstone, the attractions come to you.

”