West: The Beginning

It was a grayish May day when Destiny and I met at a Chevron station to begin our summerlong adventure. I'm not being figurative here, Destiny is the name of the friend who invited me to work and live with her in West Yellowstone. Despite all of the disclaimers given to me by Dest about the often miserable conditions of West and against my better judgment, I packed-up my things in Gurdie, my '94 beat-up Buick, and took off—little did I know that I would never return home the same.

The first three and a half hours spent on the plush velour seats of gurdie weren’t bad. I had Fleetwood Mac and James Taylor to keep me company. The bleak clouds that were abundant on the drive foreshadowed the snow that would trouble the final half hour of our trek. Because of the conditions, we proceeded through the canyon which opens into West at no faster than 20 mph. Although it was a miserable shade of grey, the sky began to grow. It is that giant, endless sky that is my favorite thing about the drive to West.

I knew we were there when the highway slowly became lined with hotel billboards. One turn off the highway and we were at our new place, the place we would eventually name “the hell-hole”. The snow had ceased, but the pavement was still wet and the gravel parking lot of the apartment complex was full of deep potholes that, in these conditions, became deep puddles. I’ll never forget the look on Destiny’s face as we got out of our separate cars in front of the apartment building. It said: “don’t kill me for letting you live in a place like this.” Frankly, because of all of her disclaimers I was expecting much worse; this place seemed a good enough. I was wrong. This place was the cherry on top of a overwhelmingly hellish summer.