The Old West cookout at Roosevelt Lodge is the most popular activity in Yellowstone. On the phone, guests consistently ask me to book them a seat, and often hang up disappointed, as it sells out every night of the summer.
On Friday, however, Reservations and Front Desk staff carpooled out to Rosie, as the locals call it, to experience the activity we are told to recommend and give the staff a practice run. I had a change of heart.
There is something so marvelous about those wagons, rolling through runoff streams under an open sky. The teams of beautiful horses, the imperfect reality of their sun-bleached mane and jangling leather straps and rippling muscle beneath. Their satisfying names: Tango, Oscar, Cash, Felix*. The charms of young ruddy wranglers from across the country, helpful and sweet and genuinely enamored with their job and this place. Rolling across the valley, grass and sky and bison all around.
It makes one feel happy and clear and alive to do this, to get in touch with another time, when the pure unspoilt experience of the wilderness was all-encompassing. When this was life: sweat and hard work and fresh air and weather. This is why people visit this place by the millions each year and the cookout books up. This is why people fall in love with the West - we are hungry for a taste of the tangible.
2000-pound Belgians pulled us out to to Pleasant Valley, a piney, grassy nook that swallowed 200 of us whole. We milled about waiting for the dinner bell, marveling at the loveliness of the scene, the abundance of the sustenance** to come, our luck to be part of it all.
As for the designated cowboy entertainer, this was not some drawling imposter. This was The Man. The Man, a Genuine Cowboy from Texas, seventy or so with a sweat-stained Stetson brim, the Voice of the Frontier. He sat up there with his baby Taylor and microphone, a deep, gentle source of croonery, playing simple melodies and songs not-quite-forgotten.
Listening to him, I was nostalgic for a time and experiences I had never had: a world where dusty horses were comrades for weeks under starry skies, a world of chivalry and simplicity. It was magical and beautiful and so terribly happy and sad.
Sentimental? Yes. Romanticized? Of course. But what good is history, the progression of time, if we can't long for the "good old days," another era, another life lost? The cowboy mythology deserves to be celebrated and mourned, and there is no one who does it better than Bob Sawyer. Legend.
Too soon, I was filled. Too soon, the sun set. Too soon, the spell ceased and it was time to go home. "Easy, boys," our driver repeatedly said. Our horses were eager to get back.
I wasn't. I wanted to stay here forever - in this summer evening between times, with this blend of rugged comforts that stirred and soothed my soul. I wanted to wrangle at Rosie, not answer the phones at Mammoth.
But, here I am. With my cubicle and headset and $7.50 an hour. So I'll sell this activity, all right. I'll encourage you to roam the Yellowstone, to eat outdoors, to saddle up and go riding. I urge you to listen to Cash and Autry and Sawyer. I'll tell you to lay in the grass, to hit the trail, to put the pot on the fire and listen to the old wrangler's stories. Even if the Old West cookout is sold out from now til the end of time, I want you to take a guitar out under the stars and never, ever let that cowboy dream die.
Love.
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*CORNBREAD. So buttery yellow and soft and crumbly and just the right spot between savory and sweet. I'm marrying cornbread.
**Felix IS a great name. For the record.
2 comments:
This was a beautiful, beautiful post. That was exactly how I felt when my family and I went to Philmont two summers ago. Lovely writing, my dear.
And you're right. Felix is fabulous.
AT SOME POINT IN MY LIFE I MUST DO THIS!!!!! sounds so amazing...!
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