Every day somebody wants to talk. Happily fewer than i expected offer unsolicited advice. Some worry for me needlessly. Several times now someone has started a conversation by noticing my license plate and saying, “You’re a long way from home!” One guy thought i must’ve driven “a third of the way around the world, at least!” A lot of old guys talk to me like i’m their idiot grandchild, and i don’t mind one bit.

Bison (Bison bison) are also known as American Buffalo. It is okay to use either term. This is official technical information, please pass it on.

One day everybody at the bar wanted to talk to me. We were each of us alone on a Sunday, and i felt like singing Sheryl Crow: the good people of the world are visiting Yellowstone, waitin’ in line with their families, drivin’ slow in their cars…

The bartender was a classic story-filled dude who got excited to tell me all his national parks anecdotal horror. He’d worked in Death Valley, Olympic, and Yellowstone. People have died in incredibly freaky ways in at least two of those places, and he had a chilling bonus Grand Canyon story. When i went to the geysers later i thought about the awful accidents. i felt a boost of curiosity instead of realistically cautious, like when i wonder about what it’d be like to jump from somewhere too high, or drive my car off a bridge. Could i really just break through the crusty top layer of a hundred-degree, bubbling, acidic underground waterway? This is that “call of the void” thing that happens to everyone in some form: you experience thoughts of doing something horrific as part of your brain’s mechanisms to convince you not to do the thing. Seems like a weird glitch to me, but it works. i did not go near one steamy puddle.

i saw a dad visibly tense when his child put a small foot on the edge of the thermal pool boardwalk. His voice was calm and gentle though as he said, “We don’t step on that board, that’s the boundary.” It is with genuine awe that i admit that i don’t know how parents ever have a good time.

Recently though i did have the privilege of witnessing some parents making an intentional masterpiece of it. It seems like dreams coming true kind of just means you have more work to do, no matter what your dreams have been. But the work then doesn’t feel like it anymore. In this way i can understand how parents might enjoy themselves, abstractly. It makes me more excited to be heading east, where i’ll spend time with some old loves who have new babies.

The last time someone saw me near my car and noticed i was “a ways from home” i said, “Nah, she’s right here,” and patted Sorcha like a pet. That guy was visiting feral cats along the shoreline of Port Angeles, Washington. He told me about how he and his wife like to feed the cats, catch and fix them if they can, and otherwise let them be. Rock-dwelling beach kitties who hid from everyone, but came right out to eat snacks from this old man. He wanted to tell me about other things he’s done, like when he hitchhiked a lot of the same states i’ve now driven through. i wasn’t bored, listening to him. He surprised me finally with a $20 gift card for groceries. He said, “You always have too much when you don’t need it.”

One morning i met a man with a horse and we talked about Steven Rinella. i guess that guy lives in Bozeman now. My equestrian stranger does too, though the trailhead where we met was over an hour distant. “I like a quiet forest,” he said. i lent him sunscreen and he put on his chaps as we discussed big game and bear safety. He gushed about his love of this countryside, and i realized i was somewhere special, in yet another new way. Cowboy country, i am arrived. The horse did some business as they moseyed on along.

i get stared at often. Looking like i do, alone in places where most folks have company, it makes sense that people would wonder. i used to get really prickly at people like this. Turns out though that whenever i make defiant eye contact with a looky-loo, they immediately gush about whatever it is they were staring at. Ultimately most people who have “staring problems” actually have socially awkward problems. For real, i recommend everyone try this: be kind when you catch someone staring. i bet you a beer they were just admiring.

i was sitting in my car at one of the Columbia River Gorge waterfalls when somebody walked by then backtracked. “Are you from Maine?” i shrugged, truly in an effort to avoid getting tangled in the question, “Kinda.” This man then launched into the story of his experience on some hill in Maine that when you’re driving up it feels like you’re going backward but it’s an illusion. i had to admit i’d never heard of it. He immediately lost interest and wandered off.

At the Yellowstone gate the attendant noticed the pizza box on my front seat and joked that she’d trade me the map for a slice. Just when i had been wondering what the fork to do with my leftovers! i made her take two while we both giggled like we were getting away with something. i’m real amped to be able to share food again.

i pulled over at some turn out on the coast of Oregon to look at the sky. Next to me a Texan vehicle playing something loud and clubby pulled up and parked. Out the passenger side of that car, while i rummaged in the “back seat” of mine, a big man scrambled out. He was smiling, and without even meeting my eyes he offered me some kind of greeting. He, his companion, and i spent the next forty minutes laughing like old friends. They were coworkers who’d been on the road six weeks, he told me before she came around the car. Upon her arrival he excitedly demanded that she ask me how long i’ve been on the road. He already had that information and thoroughly enjoyed watching her jaw drop. We laughed a lot that hour together.

The massive Hoh Rainforest (WA) logs look so cozy all covered in moss. i found one that had been well-loved and stretched right out on it, looking up at the canopied overstory. i could have spent all day there, but the foot traffic was a bit much. One woman shouted at me, “I’m sorry, but you are life goals!” and it took me a sec to figure out what she meant. Another person i’d already met along the walk told me i looked great up there. My cozy log time didn’t last any longer than was fun.

In one day at Yosemite i overheard no fewer than five different people exclaim, “Maine!” when noticing my car. One particularly cutely high pitched voice was followed by an alarmingly comical, but definitely serious, two-syllable “Mom.” i swear i could hear the eye-roll. i got to witness a kiddo practically jump in front of my parked car, which i was luckily approaching. Turns out he’d been checking off the states and i was the first from Maine. i did see another Maine plate at Yosemite but i didn’t tell the kid that. i threw a fist pump instead, “i win!”

Strangers being “friends you haven’t met yet” is a terrifying prospect. i prefer strangers staying that way: regular, flawed, single-serving human interaction that is almost always kind and sometimes playful. To remind me of the friends i already have.