Girls' Trip

to the middle of nowhere

Hey everyone!

I don’t have any point today. I’m trying to write regularly, though, so here I am with a random story about a trip I went on a million years ago. Let me know what kind of content you’re interested in. I take direction (theoretically).

When I was maybe eleven, my mom and I went on a girls’ trip. At the time, my parents were still fully in their dog era so we did not go on the usual shopping and pedicures trip to the big city. Instead, we drove about seventeen hours from Duluth, Minnesota to Medicine Bow, Wyoming to go jackrabbit hunting with three salukis.

The dog on the right is a saluki. When I asked my mom about this photo she mentioned that Mike (center) always carried an extra long pistol on his belt, pretty much a rifle.

My dad and brother stayed home for whatever reason. I remember singing along to some song about how women peak in their forties while men top out at 18 during the trip. Now that I’m in my forties, I’d prefer not to think that I’ve already peaked and it’s all downhill. Let’s be honest, I spent my thirties pregnant and nursing and working a lot of weird jobs that did nothing but pay my loans. I’m at least ten years behind with no retirement. Forty better be the new thirty. It’s required.

But anyway, Medicine Bow is no Disney. It’s is a town of 238, which if you’ve seen it, feels like an overestimate.

Just how I remember it.

Neither of my parents grew up in a family with traditions they wanted to recreate so they were just making up shit from scratch. Relying on the cultural consciousness, you’d think they might have landed on “water park” or “Disney,” but they went straight to varmint hunting with rare dog breeds. So after seventeen-ish hours in the car, my mom and I arrived at an empty field where we hoped there’d be some jackrabbits to scare up. Medicine Bow is located in Wyoming’s Shirley Basin. If you think you need to believe in God to be humble, you haven’t spent time in Wyoming. I remember walking back to the car alone and cresting a rise to be swallowed by a herd of antelope. Funny, when you think I can’t get my kids to walk into the basement without a “basement support” dog.

At the time, Medicine Bow had two hotels: The Virginian, a former whorehouse that was probably decadent in its day, but was all peeling wallpaper, tattered velvet, and suspicious stains by the time we arrived. The Medicine Bow Inn, essentially in the parking lot of the Virgianian, was a motor inn with a similar number of stains, none of the ambiance, and unreliable plumbing. When I met Terrell, he thought it was weird that I didn’t get my nails done. I might have grown up with more than him, but my family didn’t even choose plumbing.

If my memory serves, the Medicine Bow Inn is the lower profile building behind the Virginian.

Back to the girls’ trip. The usual crowd showed up. Karen and Bill owned a bank in rural Wyoming and lived on a ranch where they took us horse \back riding and skeet shooting. The marine from Colorado who cut himself to release the pain was there. I think his wife was too, but it was hard to focus on anyone else, probably a problem in their family unit as well. The ones who stood out on this trip were Lee and Seth Hayes, a couple who drove a tiny hatchback from Gary Indiana. It must have been a 20+ hour trip for them, but they drove to the Shirley Basin most weekends. And it’s not like they even had a reliable car. On this occasion, one of their rear windows had been replaced by a sheet of plastic and duct tape. They had a small TV fixed the dashboard.

Because I was a kid, I didn’t talk to them, just observed. I would have a lot of questions these days. For instance, who were they when they weren’t in Wyoming? What kind of jobs did they have? Why did they share one pair of leather pants? (They took turns wearing them, which was hard not to notice.)

At any rate, on Sunday, my mom and I were loading up the dogs to leave when Lee asked her, “Do you like LA Law?” Because my mom did, Lee offered to swing up from Gary to Duluth—like six hours out of her way each direction—to pick us up for the next hunt. She thought it might be nice to watch LA Law together on I-90. Sounds crazy, but I-90 is pretty dull.

What would make this better? LA Law!

This weird trip with my mom was pre-smartphone. There is no photographic evidence that we ever went there. I don’t think we even thought to take a camera, which is such a strange contrast to life now. If I take a kid out for ice cream I take a picture. If I do anything book-ish I take a picture. People keep telling me that I need B-roll of myself typing so I can overlay text on it for Insta and TikTok. In 1990 I drove 40 hours with three dogs and never even bothered to tell the kids at school the next week, and only partially because I didn’t think they’d get it.

Here’s I-90 on a more recent trip.

I might not have taken any pictures, but I set one of my first books, CHOOSE YOUR OWN APOCALYPSE, in the Shirley Basin. It’s about a group of doomsday preppers who create their own doom while trying to outrun problems they had created themselves. Relatable, huh? It’s the book that got my foot in the door at Quirk, which later published Siri. So anyway, thanks for the weird trips, Mom and Dad.

Speaking of trips, Terrell and I got away for the weekend. FINALLY. We didn’t go jackrabbit hunting. We’re at my parents’ place.

Terrell modeling my mom’s robe. That asshole looks good in anything. It’s infuriating.

They have a better liquor cabinet than us.

We might not be jackrabbit hunting but she did massacre a whole nest of bunnies last week in a nod to the past. And she did it with her eyebrows on.

What I’m writing: A novella called NO REGRETS that will come out next January. It’s my usual mystery romcom. I think it turned out really fun and can’t wait to share it with everyone! Back to ghost romcom mystery tomorrow. I’m really excited about the revisions I made to that and really want it out in the world.

What I’m watching: I had planned to binge Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed on our weekend away, but we couldn’t get Apple Plus to work. Instead, we watched some HBO comedy specials. Whitney Cummings was great. I think it’s funny listening to thirty-year-olds talk about how their bodies are breaking down, though. Staahhhhpp it. I also think it’s funny that she claimed that men don’t want her anymore now that she’s not twenty. I only remark on this because comedy hits different when it’s rooted in truth and self-awareness. It was a great special, but you can tell she hasn’t been out of Hollywood in a while, a place where thirty-five is geriatric and size six is overweight. Whitney, I’m still trying to get my career off the ground. I can’t have you out here making thirty sound old.

We also watched Sarah Sherman’s special. I turned it on because she’s Terrell’s SNL crush. If you love PeeWee Herman’s style of comedy, tune in. You might want to take a Xanax before watching. I felt like I really survived something with that one. She took a risk and made something unique.

What I’m reading: I brought The Prince by Machiavelli to the lake. I wanted to review it for a project. If I don’t use it for a project, I can use it to become an evil bitch. Stay tuned. Terrell is reading conspiracy theories.

Talk soon!
Sam