The Art of Turning Around

It was getting late. We’d already gone to one campground, after traveling maybe five miles down a dirt road, that displayed a Campground Full sign. It was very hot – 102 degrees but, as they say, out West, it’s a dry heat. Absent the humidity of the Midwest, the heat doesn’t inspire a full-bodied sweat. But it is hot, hot, hot to the touch. The dogs are in the backseat panting.

We pull over and google hotels. There is a baseball tournament attracting families from all over southeast Wyoming. The only available room requires that dogs weigh 25 lbs or less. Ours are 65 and 70. We launch a brief argument with one hotel to no avail. They are adamant.

Down the road – 30 or 40 miles – is a state park so we head in that direction. At the gate, the nice lady ranger marks in pink the areas where we could find a site to put our tent. “Find a site and come back to tell me which one and pay.”

The park, Guernsey State Park, is massive. Long winding roads carved out of the hillsides by the Civilian Conservation Corps surround an enormous reservoir. Seven campgrounds, all of them hardscrabble, situated on dry hillsides, thick with rocks, but shielded by tall pines. It is a rough place.

We pass a meadow with a dozen empty sites but decide to keep going to find the ‘best one.’ I am the impetus for this, believing always that something better is just around the corner and I want to find it so I don’t regret not finding it later.

Then I saw the perfect campsite. It was at the end of a narrow strip of land, really a slice of a very high hill, with a view of the beautifully blue reservoir below. No more than thirty feet wide, this promontory promised the most extraordinary camping experience although it occurred to me, looking over the side as we drove to the point, that we’d have to keep close watch of the dogs. But, oh, what an incredible campsite!

We agreed at the very same moment. We couldn’t possibly camp there. It was too narrow. Too high. We could roll over and go cascading into the lake. It occurred to me it wasn’t the first time I’d gone hunting for something better, for the best, and then regretted it. It wasn’t the first time we’d had to work together to address the excessive ambition of one of us, our tendency to overreach. Well, mine. Maybe.

But backing up wasn’t an option. Too much risk of error.

So we worked together to get the truck turned around. At least a dozen back-ups, going forward, back-ups, going forward, with him driving and me directing on the ground, until we could drive off the point onto the road and go find a campsite with no precarious edges.

That’s the beauty of teamwork.

I tell this story for no particular reason except I don’t want to forget it. We got ourselves into a tough spot and because we are practiced at joining forces even when we want different things, we found a safe and beautiful place.

We slept on this rocky hill with six or seven campsites around us. Because it was so hot, we had all the tent flaps up. This means that in the middle of the night I could look up and see the Big Dipper. It stayed there shining all night so every time I opened my eyes, it was there. The finest thing.

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From June 2022