Vigilantes and Black Angus Bulls

After a truly lovely weekend at Yellowstone, we made our way home, slowly. Very slowly. It happened on this wise. The Wood Artist handed me the map and said, "You are the navigator. Just make sure we go through this Small Town!" No problem. I like maps. So I studied the map and determined the best way possible. As we went merrily on our way, however, The Wood Artist took the map, and declared, "No! I want to go this way." Hmmmm. Those road lines looked significantly smaller than the ones I had chosen, but, o.k. So we sailed along until there was a bump and a rattle and we hit gravel road. I raised an eyebrow. Not that I mind gravel roads, mind you, but we really needed to get home in a reasonable amount of time. The bumps got bumpier and gravel got narrower...and narrower. Presently we were creeping along this trail surrounded by sage brush. Suddenly, (I'm not exaggerating!)there was a huge ditch dug right across this road and a make-shift sign pointing the way into a rancher's yard. Now, mind you, we had just passed through a former vigilante area and I'm certain they were laying a trap for us. (O.k., so maybe a little exaggeration now.) They just saw the peeling paint on our mini-van and decided we must not have anything to rob! :) After detouring through the rancher's yard, we proceeded into canyons and gullies and I began to get nervous. You see, our car had just turned over 290,000 miles and I wondered what would happen if we broke down. It was still 6 weeks until hunting season and we may not be found in time. Suddenly, we rounded a corner and there, was a huge Black Angus bull. At least we wouldn't starve. But how would we (four vegetarians) harvest him when the only thing we had in the picnic basket was a bread knife. I shuddered, just hoping that we DIDN'T break down. Somewhere in one of the gullies, The Wood Artist mumbled something about getting the feeling he was becoming the butt of a blog. 37 miles and 90 minutes later, we emerged in the Small Town we were headed for. At the beginning of the day, I had had thoughts of stopping at a town on the way home and trying out a Buddhist restaurant I'd heard of. Not anymore. We were hungry NOW and settled for Taco Johns - and a layer of dust on EVERYTHING! Nanette