And the Pastor Drove Away...

     For their trip to Yellowstone National Park, Pastor Gail and husband Ben rented a Winnebago. They picked it up at their local CarMax in Indiana and took off with Gail behind the wheel, stopping along the way to visit friends and relatives. Inside the magnificent surroundings of the national park, they swam, hiked, and sat by campfires for four days and nights, listening to coyotes howl and watching eagles skim the surface of Yellowstone Lake. When their camping reservation ended, they decided to get an early start the next morning. Around 6 a.m. they roused themselves and Gail again took the wheel. Ben would get his turn after about three hours.

     “We’d better stop at the general store on Highway 20 before we leave the Park,” Gail said. “We can shower in there at the truck stop. No telling when we’ll find another full-service place.” No answer from Ben in the rear of the camper. Gail’s husband was not a talker and was clearly not in charge.

     When the camper reached the truck stop, Gail turned off the engine and grabbed her back pack with overnight necessities: face cloth, towel, deodorant, soap, toothbrush and paste.  She looked in the rear view mirror to run fingers through her cropped gray hair, pushing a cowlick down with wet fingers while Ben shuffled in his slippers and pajamas to the “cab.” A towel draped over one of his shoulders and a toiletry bag dangled from one hand. Together the two walked into the facility, Gail turning toward the ladies’ lockers and Ben turning in the opposite direction.

     Gail was quick in the shower and returned to the camper. She put away the bread, milk, peanut butter and jelly, apples, and granola bars she’d purchased in the truck stop store, hung her wet towel over the back of the passenger seat, and glanced toward the back to look for Ben. His red and black checked sleeping bag followed the curve of his body and the girth of his belly. “He must have crawled in and gone back to sleep,” Gail thought.

     She started the engine and checked the rear-view mirror. It took a while before she could enter the stream of traffic heading out of the park. After she hit the highway, she pushed the pedal to the medal till she saw “65,” turned on a talk show with the volume on low, and sank into her captain’s seat with its molded velour back rest to sip her burning black decaf.

     Two hours went by without a peep from the sleeping bag. “I’m going to stop to check on him,” she thought. “I’ve got to use the facilities anyway, after that mug of coffee.”

     Gail pulled into a rest area and went to the rear of the camper. She peeled a corner of the sleeping bag back, but all she saw was a pillow. She peeled more sleeping bag back and saw only blankets. Ben was nowhere in the camper.

     “Dang it!” Pastor Gail spewed. “Dang it, dang it, dang it!” Pastors didn’t swear, but Gail was sorely tempted.  “He must still have been in the truck stop when I came out. Now what do I do? It’s another two hours back.”

     She had no choice. She turned around, muttering, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,” and other Biblical verses for two hours so the Lord wouldn’t hear any blasphemies. When she re-entered the full-service facility, she spotted Ben’s royal blue slippers on the foot rest under the counter before she recognized the back of him. His pajamas had been a gift from the twin grandsons at Christmas.

     When she stood next to him, Ben was enjoying his last bite of apple pie. “Glad you came back for me!” he said. “Some guy left me his newspaper. Hope you have money for my breakfast and lunch.”

     Gail paid up.

Scenes from Yellowstone National Park