Pinedale Winter

 

 Pine Street, the main street of Pinedale,
after the first real snowstorm since
my arrival two weeks ago

 

Heart and Soul Café, where “everybody knows your name,” or some of them do.  Margaret said she missed me and wondered what happened, referring to my many visits there last August.  And Lynn at the counter said she recognized me, with my mask on, and wondered where I had been.  “I’m happy that winter has finally arrived,” I said.  “This isn’t winter,” said Lynn.  

 

I have been the only guest here at the motel.  My jeep waits at the back door where I go in and out, its electric connection to the engine heater keeping it ready to start at any temperature, hopefully.

 

I go out and start it on cold mornings, scrape ice off its windshield or sweep snow off, unplug it, then go back inside for ten minutes or more before driving. 

 

Ice hangs from almost everything on the jeep’s bottom side, some of it dirty from sand and salt on the roads, some clean from a night at the motel 

 

Pillars of ice hang from the motel roof like stalactites.  They sometimes fall like spears in the wind or if it warms up too much or too long. 

 

The end window gives me a view to the Wind River Mountains   

 

No, the building is not leaning, the icicles are.  Tentacles of creatures on the roof try to get me by coming through my window.  They lurk until the wind blows, then creep over and under the eve and peer inside. 

 

I look out and see their devious plot, and just when I’m about to scream, they change direction and head earthward.  

 

I placed a thermometer on a tripod outside my window so I can know the temperature how to dress.  Only once has the wind blown it over, and more than once snow has covered it.  It is on the back side if the motel where nobody removes snow.  

It takes the putting on of high-top boots to trudge out there.  But I can usually get the temperature while snug inside.  

 

Fremont Lake, where I showed you visions inside the ice and talked with a friendly ice fisherman a few days ago, is now under a blanket of white.  I cannot see the ice I am walking on, and assume it is still there.  The symphony of cracking sounds is mostly gone, and the mystique of walking on water is replaced with a walk on what seems like a meadow. 

 

 

Rest in peace—mule deer beside the road.

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Please see maps prepared by Michael Angerman showing the places the places I stayed.

Map for the summer trip of 2020:  Michael's Map 

Map for the winter trip of 2021:   Google Map for Winter 2021