The Green Tortoise Part XIII

Sitting in the egg shaped crimson compartment, the Tilt-a-Whirl went round and round and round until the world spinning by was a blur of colors perfectly smeared on a sky-blue background. Green leafy trees, white iron benches, yellow Chinese lanterns, summer clad tourists all blending together in perfect harmony. The old clammering diesel engine sputters black puffs into the sky and I am dizzy spinning round and round and round. Children's screams float through the air like brightly colored balloons. Flimsy metal bars sit loosely on their laps, bringing some sense of security. My skin feels sickly sweet from the cotton candy, waffle cones, funnel cakes saturating the air and I am transported in time and space, not thinking, just spinning, spinning, spinning until I am dizzy.

In the distance I hear words faintly saying, "Shit! Shit! Shit!"

The spinning continues round and round. "Shit! God Damned! Shit!" I hear louder. My eyes flutter open and I am in a foggy state, that place between dream time and human reality not knowing where I am. It is the wee hours of the morning. Stars brightly fill the big Montana skies as trucks whiz by our bus make up for lost time during daylight hours. We're stopped, parked on the side of the road.

"Urgh!" Cassie, overnight driver and professional babysitter, growled.

"SHIT!" she says in frustrated irritation. Hearing this brings me fully back to consciousness and I realize I am still on the Green Tortoise, sleeping snuggly between strangers. I lie still for a moment sad that the dream is over. The bus idles as another eighteen wheeler races passed us. Cassie checks her mirrors, takes a deep breath and turns the bus around again, spinning us back around to where we were just moments ago. She drives for a few quick miles, stops the bus again and switches on a light this time to read the handwritten directions again. Turns are highlighted in pink, roads are in yellow.

"I fuckin' did that!" she says with exasperation. "That’s it. I'm calling him."

"No! Don't wake him up!" the partiers say sitting together on the big bed behind the driver’s seat. Only a few were still awake at this hour, the others passed out in drunken slumber from strong cocktails served in blue plastic cups.

"No, screw you guys. I'm calling him." Cassie defiantly says.

I lean forward straining my ears to hear over the idling engine as Cassie tells the partiers to shut up as she picked up the walkie-talkie to ring Driver Dave who was sound asleep in the driver’s chambers in the back of the bus. No answer. She rang again.

Her tone changes from angry and frustrated to friendly and apologetic as Driver Dave finally wakes from his deep sleep. I readjust myself and Cassie lowers her voice so I cannot hear her at all.

“It’s okay. What’s up?” Dave says.

“Uh huh. Where were you?” He waits for an answer.

“Okay. Then what did you do?” He listens for a long time.

“Ummm, really? Weird. So then what?” He was as patient as she spoke for a while.

“Okay, okay. That’s okay. Then what did you do?” he probes.

“Alright. Did you add anything?” he asks. Add anything? What the hell? I thought we were just lost. What were they talking about? I leaned closer to the driver bunk to eavesdrop with more clarity. Maybe I didn’t hear him right.

“Did you add oil?” he asks. “Did it change anything?” he silently listens to the reply.

“Okay, but then you pulled immediately over, right?” he asks. “Why not!”

“I’m coming up.” He says and nearly as fast as he said the words, the curtain fly open from the sleeping cupboard and he swings his legs out hopping down gingerly stepping over sleeping passengers as he makes his way to the front of the bus where they hold conference in soft voices. Cassie turns the engine off and the big door swings open and they leave the bus.

A few minutes pass before they return inside the bus. Dave says, “It should be okay until morning.” and he steps over the slumbering passengers as he returns to his warm bed. Cassie fires up the engine confident of where we are headed and the miles fly back as we return to the road, full speed ahead. I fall fast asleep longing for carnival dreams on popcorn highways as the miles roll on under our big wheels.

In the morning, I wake up in the Grand Teton’s National park parking lot. Rumors are flying between the passengers when I returned from the out-house. Conversations clusters form around the prep tables as we make breakfast. What's going on? Were we lost last night? Yeah? I heard that we were but that the bus broke down, didn’t you hear that? Was the transmission out? Did you see anything leaking? What did you hear? When will the parities get up so we can get more details?

Esther groggily emerges from the bus rubbing her eyes. I asked her how she slept. It was the first night she chose to sleep in one of the top bunks which are suspended over the big beds.

“Terrible.” She said. “Is the water boiled yet? Is there tea?” she asks me. i know where everything is in the parking lot kitchen.

“Yeah it’s ready.” I say pointing to the hot water pitcher and open boxes of tea. “Why did you sleep so badly?” I ask as she dropped the tea bag in the orange plastic mug and poured the hot water for her brew.

“I kept falling out of the bunk. Like the bus was tilted.” she said. As she spoke I looked over at the bus and sure enough it was tilting hard to one side at a steep incline. Poor Esther kept rolling towards the floor of the bus and she had to hold on to the side to keep her from falling onto the sleeping passengers below.

Cassie typically sleeps in after we hit our parking lot destination but this morning she was up with us. She was going to go hiking through the Grand Tetons in a couple of hours and decided to sleep later since we were camping out tonight.

“What happened last night Cassie? Did you get lost?” Ryan laughs as he asks her. He is a buff Australian buck and he has a serious crush on Cassie. She pretends not to notice. All the young men have crushes on her.

“Yeah, but just for a little while.” Cassie said laughing at her mistakes from the night before. She is a junior driver with three years experience under her belt. This is her first time driving the Northern Crossing route and Dave is showing her all the tricks of the trip. Cassie is a pretty brown haired woman in her late twenties who graduated from college with an English degree and decided to become a teacher. She taught high school for a couple of years in the San Francisco Bay area. During her third year of teaching, she took the Green Tortoise down to Baja California and it changed her life forever. She fell in love with the bus, the lifestyle and culture. Then and there she decided what she wanted to do. She quit her teaching job and called the bus company owner convincing him to give her a job as a driver. He did. He hires a lot of people based on passion and not on driving skills. Those can be learned. He sent her to truck driving school to get her Class C license and she started accruing hours on the open road as an assistant driver. Cassie’s a tough girl from Montana, unafraid of the open road or the professional drivers who inhabit them. When she’s not on the open road she is a babysitter.

I think when she is on the road she is babysitting too.

Part of the attraction to taking a Green Tortoise trip is that they don’t drive just on the major highways. They plan trips taking the scenic route, even during the nighttime. Cassie missed a couple critical turns during the night. Anyone could have missed them since they weren't clearly marked. We only circled for an hour or so before getting the back on track. She won't make that mistake again.

Driver Dave gathers us around as we finish eating to tell us the day’s itinerary. After we clean-up we are headed to Jenny Lake for several hours of hiking. We can take a boat ride across the lake if we want or walk around the lake; it’s about four miles around. Turns out it's seven miles, but who's counting?

“What’s wrong with the bus?” someone asks.

“As soon as we know, we’ll let you know but for now we are going to Jenny Lake and then we’ll be headed to our campsite in the Grand Teton’s and on the way we’ll be making our first shower stop.” Dave says with a smile.

“Will there be hot water?” I ask still craving hot waters from the icy Salmon River the day before.

“Yes and you can get a clean towel for an extra dollar. The showers cost three or four dollars and the towels are extra.” He says. “But first we’re going to hike around Jenny Lake, okay?”

We cheer as we rush to clean-up the breakfast mess. Many of us are more excited about the shower than the hike and there is an enthusiastic chattering as we hurry cleaning up the breakfast tables and pack it all away.

Jenny Lake is beautiful. The mountains are full of late spring snow, the air is crisp and wild flowers are in bloom. Hundreds of tourists flock the lake and wander on the paths scaling mountain cliffs as white water crashes down from melting glaciers above. It is a beautiful place despite the crowds, all eager to have photos taken on big rocks and in front of natural waterfalls. I feel suffocated as there is chatter everywhere and I cannot hear the trees and rocks speak as I hike. I decide to take the boat ride across the lake hoping there will be less people there and am disappointed.

Having had the luxury of owning a VW Bus and the freedom to travel when I wanted, I avoided places with big crowds. My way of communing with nature is through silence and meditation. I absorb my surroundings grateful for the privilege of being allowed to witness the intimacy of the wilderness. But there is no silence in these woods. The trees creak as the wind causes them to sway. Birds chat back and forth with feathered friends about berries and beetle snacks. Squirrels cry out warnings to others to keep away from their secret stash. Blooming plants assault the senses causing emotional reactions from wild bergamot and clary sage. In the wild I am humbled to witness the raw beauty of nature and I am offended by the tourists who ignore the rangers’ requests to stay on paths, preserve the land.

I finish my hike and find a quiet place to eat lunch only to be disturbed by a fighting family from New Jersey. They fight like most families do, loudly. The teenagers want freedom from their middle-aged parents, the pre-teens want to run and play, the parents want everyone to get along and they express it all through yelling not listening to each other. How sad that they are oblivious to the beauty that surrounds them at that moment. Road trips are not for everyone.

I abandon my desire for peace, pack-up and head back to the information area where I people watch and have my first cup of good coffee in several days. Our group reassembles and we head out to our campsite, an hour drive away where hot showers await our arrival. I'm ready for this moment having prepared my day pack with all the essential supplies: exfoliating gloves, deep conditioning shampoo and conditioner, my favorite Aveda body lotion, Jojoba oil for my hair and skin, anti-frizz serum and styling gel, clean clothes complete with fresh socks. I splurge and pay for the fresh towel which is thick and absorbent. It is mid-afternoon and there is only a short wait for one of the ten stalls to open.

Oh Glorious God! Thank you for this most excellent of showers and may my skin be refreshed from the deep cleaning. Scrub all the dirt from my pores and keep the showers coming, Lord. Please forgive me for ever taking hot water and soap for granted and may I grow from this stench that now I release down the drain. Amen.

I pray unaware that my next shower wouldn’t be for another six days.

To be continued…