The Wyoming Incident

This shot is nothing to brag about. In fact, I'm particularly unproud of this picture. It cost my insurance company roughly $5,000 in damages to my rental car. "Wtf? Why?" you might ask. Well, you see, I'd started my day up in Dickinson, North Dakota, heading west for Medora to marvel over Teddy Roosevelt's National Park. After that, I headed further west into Montana where the speed limit is 80, and the bugs don't have nearly enough reaction time to get out of your way, so they die a gutsy death all over your front end.

I followed Highway 7 south to Medicine Rocks State Park. If you ever find yourself in Southeastern Montana, I highly recommend checking this place out. The road that runs through it is not paved, but it's well worth the detour. So then I was bound for Devil's Tower in Crook County, Wyoming. You'd think after spending about five hours in the car I'd be a little road weary, but I really wasn't. I'm a middle-aged trucker at heart. But not your average trucker. The kind that guzzles Smartfood popcorn with the windows down and the AC blasting, quite literally, cheesing hard and serenading sleeping towns with everything from The Beatles to Wu-Tang Clan. The kind of drifter that gets giddy over the sight of a new state's welcome sign. Giddy to the point of squealing with delight and accidentally backing up into a three-foot-something mile marker on the side of the road. Yup. That's right. I pulled over when I spotted the Welcome to Wyoming sign because a) I was too psyched to drive and b) I just had to take a picture of it. But I pulled up a little too far. Nearly passed it. Damn my over-excitement. So I threw my brand new, extra touchy rental into reverse and hit the gas and almost instantly heard a big fat CRUNCH! A classic oh-shit moment. I put the car in park and jumped out hoping I didn't hit a cow (because there was no trace of human life anywhere for miles). And instead, I found a decapitated, metal mile marker, bent, busted, contorted and missing its head.

Folks from back east – this wasn't like the mile markers we have on the side of the road. Western and midwesterners, you know how beefy those things can be. It ripped right through my back right door. Bended it up and in and popped the window out of alignment. The door couldn't open, nor could it fully close. Even the frame of the car was pretty mangled. It looked like a T-Rex had been chomping on it. I was far less than thrilled with myself, but I snapped my shot of the sign, hopped back in my wounded warrior Altima and headed into The Equality State for Devil's Tower, then back east to Deadwood, South Dakota for the night. Needless to say, my welcome to Wyoming was a self-inflicted flop, but seeing Devil's Tower, and talking to the folks at Enterprise-Rent-A-Car, and Travelers Auto Insurance made me a very happy wanderer.