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.
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| Scenes from Yellowstone National Park |
