The hotel in Chugwater, Wyoming really hasn’t changed all that much over the past 40 or so years. Sure, it’s all boarded up and the word “hotel” is barely visible on the sign in front, but it was pretty dilapidated back in 1967 when I fled the highway for a room for $2.98.

 I had started my drive to Denver early on a February morning.  Yes, February, because at almost 19 I thought that would be a good month to drive through southern Montana, all of Wyoming and halfway into Colorado.  At around 5:00 that first day, I arrived in Wheatland, Wyoming.  The sun was still shining, and so I decided that I could journey another 70  miles or so down the road to Cheyenne before stopping for the night.  Fifteen minutes out of Wheatland, the weather did what it does best up here in the high desert:  totally and completely changed to a blizzard the likes of which I had never seen.  Too late to turn back; I soldiered on.  This was back in the days when there were no four-lanes in Montana and Wyoming, only a series of winding roads through some of the most desolate and unpopulated high desert and mountainous country in this nation.  No GPS.  No cell phone service, because there were no cell phones.  No rest areas.  I suddenly understood why my dad had unsuccessfully tried to change my mind about this move.

Fifteen minutes or so into the storm, I started seeing semis, trucks and cars in the ditch, some of the semis jackknifed.  Soon I was no longer able to see anything but a million snowflakes hitting my windshield.  I opened the window and hung my head out in an attempt to locate the center line.  The wind whipped tears from my eyes which froze mid-cheek, while I went into panic mode.  Surely I would survive, but I didn’t know how to make that happen.  I was beyond thrilled when I came upon the small town of Chugwater, Wyoming, which back then consisted of a gas station (closed) and a decrepit looking old hotel.  Nevertheless, I grabbed my bag and opened the door into a scene right out of the Bates Motel – three old men in stained clothing smoking in a small lobby watched over by a desk clerk who scared me half to death.  This WAS, in my defense, the first time I’d been on the road alone in my life, and the first time I’d ever had to walk into a motel without a chaperone.  My previous experience with motels had been in high school when I attended out of town music festivals and basketball tournaments, where a parent handled the details and the rooms were full of teenage girls.

The clerk gave me directions to my room, but no key – because there was no lock on the door.  I looked for the bathroom down the hall, only to find that there was no lock on that door, either.  My bladder throbbed, but there was no way my modest little self was going to use that bathroom.  I was so naïve back then that I thought because I had paid for the room, I was not allowed to leave until the next day, so I sat fully clothed on the bed and waited for the hours to pass until I felt it was safe to sneak out of the hotel.  Finally, around three a.m., it stopped snowing, and I decided the time to make my break was upon me.  Tiptoeing down the stairs, I quietly crossed in front of the empty desk and opened the door to bitter cold.

What a relief to be back in my little car.  That state of mind lasted until I started the car and pulled onto the road, which was slick with “glare” ice and a mantle of snow.   The 44 mile drive to Cheyenne took almost three hours, and by the time I got there, I was too upset to think about looking for a motel, so I continued on to Denver.  Suffice it to say that six hours later, when I finally arrived in Denver (only a hundred miles from Cheyenne), I didn’t have the strength to do anything but drive up and down Colfax Avenue, sobbing.  I can’t remember how the police officer who stopped me got me to calm down, but he must have, as I somehow ended up safe in a warm bed.  Three days later I had a job and an apartment.  Such is the resilience of youth.

My drive at 65 finds me a little wiser, I hope, but I found myself thinking over several of my lifetime adventures and wondering just how it is I’ve been able to escape catastrophe.  Remind me to tell you sometime about my trip to Spokane and the two hitchhikers, or the time I begged to be left behind on a mountain trail  in the Copper Canyon in Mexico because I was delirious with a fever.

What a difference 40 years makes: Watching PBS, enjoying a glass of wine while sitting at the desk writing this blog, catching up on Scrabble games and chatting with friends on Facebook while debating whether to take a soak in the hot tub or just climb into bed for a good sleep.   And oh, yeah.  I’m not afraid to use this bathroom.