As a form of condolences for the Brexit vote, I waived Hamish and Angus's tabs from the night before and headed north alone. I prepared myself to be alone for a while, as this stretch was pretty desolate and everyone I'd already met should be far ahead of me now, along with the bulk of eastbound cyclists for this season.
My preparations were not needed. I stopped at Hatchet Lodge about 1/4 mile from my planned campsite, intending to use their picnic table to eat my dinner of granola with milk, a perishable luxury that I had picked up at the general store that formed the entirety of the town of Moran a couple miles back. I did not make it to the campsite.
There was some kind of party going on inside the lodge, so I found a place far from the festivities and sat down to eat. This turned out to be the employee break area. I chatted with a woman and her grandson, both of whom worked there, and learned that the party was for the marriage of the couple that ran the restaurant. One girl offered to grab me a beer from inside, and I accepted. This was alredy a success.
My tight cycling shorts -- Lance Pants, as the New Yorkers had called them -- began to feel out of place, so I changed into long pants and a collared shirt, which sounds awfully fancy for a tour until I mention the pants were zip-offs with cargo pockets and the shirt was short-sleeved, plaid, and torn.
I situated myself strategically near the main staff thoroughfare between the kitchen and the party, and it wasn't long before a tall man in Western finery -- tall black boots, tailored black jeans, white shirt with a bolo tie, and black ten-gallon hat -- strode out of the kitchen and shook my hand. This was the groom and restaurant proprietor himself, already somewhat drunk. He insisted that I "get a beer, get some food, and come party with us," a phrase that he would repeat many times that night. I went inside. Even the Brits, polite as they were, had learned that you don't turn down free stuff while on the trail.
I had the best meal of my trip so far, stuffing my face with beef brisket, ribs, and mashed potatoes with cheese and garlic. Beer was flowing freely at the bar, so it was easy to get a party prop to hold as if I belonged there. I tried unsuccessfully to talk to some older guests then met the girl who gave me my first beer, along with some of her friends. She had apparently sent the groom out to bring me in, and now that dinner was done, they had the night free.
The DJ played hokey western music to match the hokey western ambiance, and some square dancing happened while one guy, clearly a hotshot, threw some women around in one corner of the dance floor in a very violent rendition of two-step. They seemed to enjoy it. The girl who had engineered my entrance to the party mentioned wanting to learn to lead swing, so I offered to follow and we danced, much to the amusement of a few guys who seemed to be unable to decide whether this was terribly emasculating or some kind of power move. Regardless, nothing we could have done was more awkward than anything else occurring on the dance floor at that point.
As the night went on, young people from nearby resorts got off work and joined the party. The DJ adjusted accordingly, hopping forward in time from Achey Breaky Heart to Uptown Funk and eventually Daft Punk. I demonstrated that blues dancing worked well to club music. An older woman tried to encourage her daughter to dance with me. The daughter wasn't into the idea but didn't know how to refuse, so I offered to dance with the mom, which was clearly preferable to both of them.
Outside, a couple horses had joined the party, mixing easily with the guests and helping themselves to unguarded food. A young woman in a sundress hopped up on one, bareback, competently guiding it around by the base of its mane. Someone's dog was slowly and patiently stalking chislers, the local name for prairie dogs, that kept popping up around the lawn. Another dog obliviously and energetically tromped through the first dog's hunting grounds every now and again, clearly failing to understand that chislers were food, not friends. The newlyweds took photos silhouetted by the setting sun. I wandered between the bar, the dance floor, and the ongoing dog-vs-chisler drama, reasonably drunk and floating as if in a dream.
I danced more with the first girl I met, who had apparently worked out with the groom that it was cool for me to sleep in a thematically-appropriate teepee on the property, which had some bunk beds inside. At this point, she was very drunk. No one seemed to mind that she would just go behind the bar and pour herself, and me, whatever she wanted. She made me a drink that was "like, really strong", but I suspect someone handed her water when she asked for vodka. I returned her to her friends, who had obviously handled this case before, and went off to set myself up in the teepee. A fight was going on uncomfortably close to the entrance, though, so I killed a little time sitting by a fire first, convincing a worker from a nearby dude ranch to try biking across the country next summer.
Here are some final views of the Grand Tetons on the way out of the park, along with photographic evidence of the wedding, though I wasn't thinking much about photos for most of the experience.
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