Dubois, WY

“Are you satisfied?”

She broke my revelry. I looked up to see my young server staring at me. Satisfied? About what? Life? My situation? Where I am?  My 401K? They rushed through my mind in a split second. And why is she asking?

Seeing my confusion she moved her hand toward my empty plate.

“Oh, yes, I’m finished,” I said.

“I am sorry for using the wrong word,” she said. Dina is from Macedonia and is spending her summer as a waitress in the main restaurant of Colter Bay Village in Teton National Park. The service staff from maintenance workers to restaurant hosts is an international goulash. Like all the workers, Dina paid her own airfare to Wyoming and pays her own room and board in the employees’ dormitory.

“I do not do it to make money,” she said, “I do it to visit America and to get better with my English. And I like meeting people.”

With a delightful early-morning interlude like that my day was bound to be good. The weather was great and the skies bright.

To my left the rising sun cast a spotlight on the majestic Tetons. The French trappers certainly got it right in naming these perky protuberances on North America’s chest Le Grand Teton. No mere Appalachain humps or Rocky Mountain masses, these are young, proud and angular. 

As the day wore on and my 18-mile climb up Togwotee (TOGA-tee) Pass ground on, I did a roadside strip. The morning had been chilly so off came my gloves and arm warmers at one stop.  Then jacket and outer shirt a couple of miles further on. The leggings were the last to go.

Two miles from the top I overtook a young man on a mountain bike who was eating a PowerBar. He was competing in the Continental Divide race from Canada to Mexico. He was in last place but enjoying the experience. “I did it on a lark,” he said. Riders follow the Continental Divide using mountain trails 95 percent of the time. They can ride for as long as they want but must carry a SPOT GPS locator and cannot have any support. The last person has to finish within double the amount of time it takes the winner. For example, if the winner completes the course in 17 days, the last person has to finish in 34 days or he/she is pulled off the course.

As I neared the summit sand traps of snow were scattered across clearings and meadows. They closed in on each other until both roadsides were covered with snow. I was at the summit (9,685’) but I didn’t know for sure. There was no ego kick, no sign announcing the accomplishment. I asked a guy in a pick-up, “Is there any more mountain?”

“Nope, buddy, it’s all downhill for you.”

It was, all the way into Dubois. No sign but a great downhill slide.