Monday 8-17-2008
My body had been registering movement and soft noises around itself for some time. My brain, however, registers no alarm at this, and so does not rouse. Enveloped in the warmth and softness of many blankets I sleep into the mid-morning peacefully; sensing muffled light just beyond my eyelids. The aroma of cooking food filters into my sleeping mind, luring it out towards the world. Hearing the sound of familiar men’s' voices brings recollections of where I am waking. Two long days on a motorcycle, beautiful scenery, wild animals, cold rain; then a comfortable little house, cheese and crackers, and chat that goes late into the night with family. Something is placed on the coffee table before me, I mumble, "I'm not quite ready to get up yet." A sore body has found comfort in the softness of an enormous black leather sofa tucked inside this tiny house. Eventually I wake to find Mike and my brother, Shane, talking and laughing while my brother's two black labs patrol around the coffee table hoping to share in my yummy egg-muffin breakfast that my brother cooked up.
Monday was a recovery day, which meant an off-the-bike-day for me. Mike, preferring to shake a little of the soreness out went riding around Powell. I'll leave it for him to post about what he found. I woke up late, missing my sister-in-law, Lisa who had already left for her new job at the library. I spent the morning chatting with my brother while he made some shelves for their new home. I also met the neighbor, a very nice and helpful man who suggested we go up to The Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument in Montana. It was a pretty good distance, but not outside the realm of possibility. He had also already suggested to Shane that we ride the Beartooth Highway, a high and winding road over Beartooth Pass. Mike had already decided that that was a must do and so our plan for the following day was to ride the Beartooth Highway and enter Yellowstone through the Northeast Gate. The neighbor asked if on the ride from Cody I had seen the Hart Mountain Relocation Center, an internment camp for Japanese-Americans during World War II. I said no I hadn't, not realizing that the odd place I had noticed the day before, with the giant chimney on the bluff and the big-shiny cult-looking building in the field below it was in fact the camp with it's brand new, almost finished, visitor's center.
At lunch-time we met Lisa at the finest restaurant in-all-the-town, The Lamplighter Inn. We found ourselves in the company of two groups celebrating birthdays, with the wait-staff genially clicking pictures. It was a good lunch, and nice to spend some time with Lisa. On our way out Mike & I stopped by the Lamplighter-liquor store to buy beer to share with our hosts. Mike was very excited to find one of his favorite beers, Fat Tire in cans, which he didn't know existed before that. Not being a beer-drinker I wasn't quite sure what was so special about it being in cans, but later on Shane seemed to share his enthusiasm about it.
After lunch, when Lisa had to return to work, Shane, Mike, and I set off in Shane's car with the plan of going to Cody. We wanted to explore it a bit, and I had seen there were cute shops that I wanted to check out. We decided to stop and check out the Hart Mountain Relocation Center on our way. We never got to Cody. The remains of the relocation camp were so interesting, even without the visitor's center being opened yet, that we spent the rest of the afternoon there. Shane knew quite a bit about the place and played our tour guide. Hart Mountain was the third largest city in Wyoming during World War II, now there isn't much left: one building with a very large chimney, a couple of barrack buildings, some foundations, an open area, a fence, and a dump. The dump cried out to the archaeologist in me so we prowled about it for a while and I pointed out interesting broken bits to Shane & Mike, ensuring to put the bits back just where I found them. Remember, it's important, to always put artifacts back where they came from so that no historical information is lost.
We really enjoyed poking around the camp and stayed there the whole afternoon, instead of going to Cody. Walking around I thought about what life was like there for the internees. They had had to leave their homes with only what they could carry, and go to a strange place where they weren't able to come and go as they pleased, where they had to live in close proximity with strangers - their family life disrupted, as well as their careers. It didn't seem like a place of extreme hardship; the dump contained toothpaste and shampoo containers, soda bottles, syrup cans, decorative dishes, even the remains of a couple of cars; but it can't have been a pleasant thing to be essentially imprisoned simply on the basis of your heritage. We headed back to Shane's house after that. On our way back we stopped and checked out a wetlands area that Mike had discovered on his morning ride. It was pretty, but very buggy. I got two bad mosquito bites on my face and I looked deformed for the rest of the evening. Once we were back at the house, we chilled a bit with Lisa and the dogs while the others enjoyed the Fat Tire in a can. Then we learned to our detriment that restaurants close early in Powell. Shane and Lisa wanted to take us to a Mexican Restaurant on the main street, but Mike and I dawdled on the way there and when we arrived it was just closing. Shane and Lisa were momentarily nowhere to be found, so Mike and I discussed what sort of business we could open in the empty storefront we saw. There was already a bookstore, so that was out. There was a fabric store and a hardware store too. Perhaps a restaurant that stayed open passed eight o'clock? We did locate Shane and found that Lisa had gone on to the Skyline Cafe which was around the corner. We had some onion rings as an appetizer because it seemed like the thing to do, and each ordered something dinery. I got fried chicken & mashed potatoes. They did have a salad bar, with beats (yum!), but sadly no cottage cheese (I thought cottage cheese was mandatory for salad bars). Then we called it a night.
Hart Mountain Relocation Center
Shane and Mike check out the big-chimney building, under that sidewalk it is hollow
Old Cars in the Junkyard
Enjoying Fat Tire in Cans with Lisa, Shane, and Charlie
