Day 55, Monday April 22, 2024: Jackson, Wyoming to Dillon, Montana

Carnegie libraries visited: none.

George Armstrong Custer

If you’ve seen a picture of George Armstrong Custer, you know what Matt, a Teton County librarian, looks like. What began with my usual questions about the history of the library in Jackson turned into a long conversation about car life. I was actually talking to Mary, another librarian, about Carnegie libraries, and an eavesdropping Matt joined in saying he was from Pittsburgh and knew of Andrew’s libraries there. Mary asked me if I was flying around the country for my research and I replied “Pfffft….I can’t afford to do that: I’m living out of my car.” Matt also had lived in his car, on the same street where I had parked, for several months while seeking good powder at western ski resorts. Even after he decided to decamp in Jackson and get a job, he continued to use his car as a home given how expensive housing is here. We bonded over our fondness for iOverlander. When I asked him “So, where did you shower?” while living in his car, he said he used Jackson Hole’s recreation center.

Goldfinger's Camp in Jackson Hole

Duh. I hadn’t thought about using recreation centers, even though I had used the one in Golden. It’s amazing what one can learn by asking questions. 

The other time I hiked behind the Tetons was the final day of a seven week backpacking trip in 1980 which took “Zero” (aka Kelly) and me 750 miles from the Canadian border at Glacier National Park to Jackson Hole. I had just graduated from college and was debating what to do that summer. I applied for various internships and had landed a good one at the Alaska Coalition, a non-profit dedicated to preserving Alaska’s wilderness. I remember thinking that taking the internship would be the smart (career-enhancing) move, but then I thought: Fifty years hence, which would I remember better? Moving up the latter in Washington, DC, or backpacking the Continental Divide? Almost 50 years later, I’m glad I made the right decision.

On our final day on the trail, we hiked over 35 miles and ascended (and then descended) about 11,000 feet. At the end of the day we were exhausted and exhilarated. Today, I’ve walked only about one mile and my hip is aching and my feet are sore. It’s hard for me to feel and accept that my strength and endurance have declined so much.

It’s Monday, the beginning of what some would not call it my work week. Each day is different, but today:

6.30: Hit the snooze button.

6.39: Hit it again.

6.48: Sit partially up, get dressed. Go to the bathroom which, today, is actually in a bathroom (my overnight parking spot was a pickleball court away from one open to the public).

6.55: Walk three blocks to a 7 a.m. AA meeting.

7.15: Give up looking for it.

7.25: Drive to the Persephone Bakery for coffee and a pecan/maple/raspberry scone. It was good, but in retrospect I wish I had ordered one of the croissants.

7.30: Read about the first day of the Trump trial.

8.15: Walk to the post office to mail books back to my home library. The window doesn’t open until 9, so

8.30: Walk back to my car.

8.45: Read about the Trump trial.

9.00: Drive to the post office and mail the books.

9.10: Read about the Trump trial.

9.15: Drive to the library. I catch up on financial stuff and email, and talk with the staff. Two pomodoros of writing.

11.55: Drive to the AA meeting. I find it this time.

12.00: AA meeting

1.10: Read about the Trump trial.

1.14: Decide I’ve read enough about the Trump trial

1.15: Gather goods for a picnic lunch.

1.20: Look for my plate.

1.25: Look for my can opener.

1.45: Find it and eat lunch (tuna salad, apple, cookie).

1.55: Read about the Trump trial.

2.00: Purchase some expensive shirts for $4 at a local thrift shop. They feel like they were left  by wealthy skiers who chose to abandon them rather than to go to the trouble to pack them when they returned home.

2.15 Return to library

3.45: Hit the road

Even in the parts of the US that might seem quite remote to the coastal elites, libraries exist, survice, and possibly thrive. As I drive north and west through lightly populated areas of the American west, I discover libraries in the small towns. Victor, Idaho (population 2157 in 2020) has a Valley of the Tetons library. Amanda Otto, granddaughter of football hall of famer Jim Otto, grew up there. (Amanda, a competitive sled dog racer, notably was cited by the Yukon Quest for her “exemplary treatment of her dogs.”) In Driggs (pop. 1660, and according to the National Geographic one of the ten best outdoor recreation destinations in the US), the tiny Valley of the Tetons library shares a building with The Old Livery on Main Street. Driggs is the home of Jeannine Davis-Kimball, who after completing her Ph.D. moved to study nomads. Her research focused on the “Amazon Tombs” which contained women along with their weapons and armor. The Clark County Library in Dubois (it’s county seat, if with a population of only 511) is sheltered by a single towering conifer.

Sugar City (pop. 1705) had a huge library (“serving the sweetest part of Idaho”) that in its industrial blandness looked to me like a server farm. Harvard Professor and MacArthur “genius award” winner Laurel Thatcher Ulrich was born there. Ulrich might be best known for her book A Midwife’s Tale, although she is probably more famous for her statement that “well-behaved women seldom make history.” She meant it as a statement of fact – that well-behaved women were not usually studied by historians – yet it came to be interpreted as a call to modern-day women not to be well-behaved. After this phrase became a part of popular culture – at Wimbledon, a tennis player had it emblazoned on her shirt – Ulrich wrote the book Well-Behaved Women, which tells the stories of women who did shape history: Rosa Parks, Christine de Pizan, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Harriet Tubman, and Virginia Woolf, among others.

Everyday on the road is like Christmas: it begins with anticipation, it proceeds with discovery, and it ends with fulfillment. And I find inspiration, today with the words of Professor Ulrich: “I don’t think anonymous people need to be included in the historical record just because of fairness or justice. Studying them more carefully makes for more accurate history.”

I would like to think, and so I will, that Otto, Davis-Kimball, and Ulrich enjoyed their small town libraries as they began their journeys.