By Betsy Gonwa, 
We ate dinner in Cody at a Mexican restaurant with not very Mexican-tasting food. I was enticed by a Google post that boasted about great fajitas, so there we were. Our van and bicycles were getting very wet in the rainstorm that we had been driving in up until that point. We were both on our phones, me doing Wordle and Connections, and my husband booking us a room. He set his phone down with satisfaction. We were booked at a Ramada in Sheridan.
Even in the rain, the Bighorn Mountains were a sight worth seeing. Windwipers swishing, and driving a little slower than we might have been had the roads been dry, we took it all in. This route through the Absaroka Mountains and then the Bighorns rivaled the beauty of the Going to the Sun Road at Glacier. We had chosen this over the southern route that went through Buffalo, and it was turning out to be a good choice. And then, just as we were about to head down the mountain toward Sheridan, we met a sheriff’s car with its lights flashing coming toward us.
The road ahead of us was closed, the deputy told us, littered with mud and rocks set in motion by the storm. We had noted some hail, and the rain had been heavy at times, and apparently, this was the result.
After our brief conversation with him, we backed into the overlook that we had just passed, and parked. The wispy clouds moving across the valley below enticed me out of the van with my phone set on camera. Another car was there, too. As it turned out, its occupants, were a local man with his brother and his nephew, who were visiting from Wisconsin. They were full of stories about their many experiences in these mountains. We heard about elk and moose and snow. The fellow Wisconsinite shared about a time when it began to snow and they got stuck, another time when he got lost with no GPS and could only guess the direction to go by following the sun, six hours with his two children, little at the time, rationing out the food they had in the car.
By this time, we were all taking photos, for the rain had stopped, and along with the sunset and the clouds, there was a rainbow. Calmly, we waited for the road to be cleared. On the switchbacks below, we saw yellow vehicles heading up the mountain. A front end loader was followed by two snowplows. We were hopeful that the road would be open soon, but a short while later, the deputy returned to dismiss those hopes, for when we asked him how much longer, he answered, “It’ll be awhile,” and then, pressed for more specifics, he said, “Two hours.”
With darkness descending, we decided to prepare to sleep on the mountain. With our headlamps strapped around our heads, we transferred items piled on our bed into the driver and passenger seats of our van. Then, still in our clothes, windows rolled up, doors closed, we climbed in. We knew that it would only get colder.
The reservation at the Ramada was prepaid and non-refundable. It was one of the only times we had reserved a spot for ourselves in advance. Except for the reservations at Red Eagle, the Blackfoot campground at East Glacier, we had been traveling into the unknown and trusting that we would find a spot to camp when we needed it. This had led us to many beautiful campgrounds across Montana, Idaho, Oregon and Wyoming. Always, we had been provided for.
Lying there, in our minivan, warm and comfortable, I acknowledged that we might not have needed to reserve a room. We had passed some camp grounds, and the rain had stopped. We might even have been able to camp here at this overlook. Wouldn’t it be lovely to wake up in the morning to sunrise in the Bighorns? So went my thoughts . . .
I’m not sure how close I was to sleep when I heard a horn beep, and a rush of traffic passing by.
I poked my head up to look. “What’s going on?” I asked my husband.
“The road’s open!” he said.
A glance at our watches indicated that much less than two hours had passed. It may have only been 35 or 45 minutes. Encouraged by the caravan of cars that had just passed, we emptied everything out of our seats, and prepared to head down the mountain. When we got to the road block, it didn’t appear open. What was going on? How had those cars I had seen gotten through? The deputy’s car was there, and then we saw one of the road maintenance workers begin to walk toward us. The deputy spoke to us right away, and his words put us at ease, “You’re good,” he said. “Just do exactly what those gentlemen tell you to do.”
When the road maintenance worker in the yellow reflective vest got to our van, he simply said, “Drive slow wherever you see mud and rocks.” And that is what we did. When the road was clear, we picked up speed. At the motel, there was a line to check in, for we had not been the only ones delayed by the storm.
I fell asleep knowing I would wake up to a warm shower, and also knowing that waking up to sunrise in the Bighorns would have had its own gifts.
What gifts have you welcomed on the journey to your destination?
