Cross Country: THE INCIDENT AT EXIT 88 Pt 2

continued from Part 1:

Meanwhile, I'm freaking out, and Damon is trying to calm me down. Once we get our bearings, we remember we have two spare belts in the van, and we  go inside to see if either is the correct one.

The Mini-Mart
Damon and I enter the Mini-Mart, and ask the man if either of the belts is one we need. Of course, they aren't, and he tells us that neither of the two closest towns have it either (and by closest, we mean 35 miles one direction, and 40 miles in the other. We're literally in the middle of nowhere).  As he's on the phone, we start realizing where we are. This Mini-Mart has obviously been not operating for a while; the shelves are pretty cleared out, it's sorta dark and dusty, and as our eyes adjust to the somewhat dim room, we realize... the walls are COVERED in taxidermied animals.

Coyotes, deer, wolves, antelope, bison; if it lives in Wyoming, it was dead and stuffed on the wall. Oh! And a few full size free-standing animals too (a buffalo and a deer, at least).

Huh, we think... Creepy.

The guy gets off the phone and says, ok, I found a place up in Sheridan that has the belt you need, but it's 70 miles up the freeway. I can give you a ride if you can pay gas money. But they close at 9pm, so we need to leave now (it's around 6-7ish at that point? we had a late lunch).

And we agree, so he goes to get his car and pull it around.

The Car Ride

The minute he pulls his car up and around, we immediately start questioning our decision. He pulls up this old beater of a car, and it has this insane spiderwebbed crack all over the windshield; like, somebody threw a brick at it sorta crack. We get in, and realize the car is FULL of trash and random crap; it's even hard to find a place to sit. Damon sits in the front, and sees a Holy Bible sitting on the dashboard. I'm in the back, and I realize there's a blanket with me in the back seat, like he's been sleeping in the car.

We pull out and onto the freeway, and Damon and I realize we have suddenly put a lot of trust in this guy.

SO, we're sitting in the car for this hour car-ride to Sheridan, and I think, well, let's try to make small talk. So I ask, "So, what brings you to Wyoming? Have you lived here all your life?" He responds by starting out "well, I was working at this fish hatchery in Alaska...I met this priest who was a Monsignor, and I looked him up when I moved to La Canada (in CA), and he had this great posh apartment, and he had this amazing full bar with really expensive cognac and some amazing weed" and just rambles on, none of which answers the question. And all his stories were like that- they would start normal, get reeeallly weird, and then trail off, without any real ending. At which point, Damon and I would sit there in awkward silence thinking... "wait.. what???"

Another story sounded like he had also met Walt Disney, had briefly stalked one of the kennedy girls, and how his brother owned some resort off some lake in Wyoming.

After one of the many stunned silences following his stories, he abruptly asks "So, do you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?" Immediately, I answer "YES! yes. of course!" (probably too fast!), and he starts going on about religion, which segues into how America is the greatest country on earth, because you can't find gun stores in other countries. To which we whole-heartedly agree to as well. Because when you're stuck in the middle of Wyoming with a questionable man in his car, you'll agree to a lot of his questions.

We finally make it to Sheridan, and pull into the auto supply place. As we're getting out of the car, Tom mentions nonchalantly in one of his rambles that oh yeah, he hasn't had his drivers license in over 10 years because of 4 DUIs.

...?!

Yeah, that's what we thought too.

to be continued...