The Bighorn Medicine Wheel (2011)

The rock circle is about 80 feet in diameter, with 28 'spokes' radiating from a central cairn, five cairns around the rim, and a sixth slightly outside the perimeter.

US Forest Service photo.

"We dare not ever insist upon sticking to the plan."

On the occasion of my seventy-fourth birthday today, The Muse and I plan to visit the Bighorn Medicine Wheel, a Plains Indian artifact and sacred site located high in Wyoming's Bighorn Mountains, just south of the Montana border. This location could not be less convenient, for it seems well off every well-beaten path. Still, The Muse and I have been wanting to visit this place, and it seems fitting that it becomes the object of my birthday celebration.

We are toodling home from a family function in South Dakota, where The Muse was raised. After a few days immersed back into her old family trance, the chance to toodle around rural Wyoming seemed attractive. We drove nearly four hundred miles yesterday, first across a saturated landscape of corn and bean fields, then, after crossing the Missouri, across the grassland prairie of the Northern Cheyanne River Rez and into the beautiful Wyoming Black Hills. We lost an hour buying lunch at the only place to eat we'd seen in the first three hours of driving. We took our regrettable sandwiches to that town's park looking for some shade, and found it. The food went down sideways, so we treated ourselves to ice cream before heading out across a vast sea of grass.

I was dreading the hours it would take to cross that barren landscape when we happened upon a disabled vehicle with its driver's door open into our lane. I slowed to a stop behind the car, and a young woman approached, saying she needed a jump. Yes, she had cables. I managed a U-turn on the highway and nosed into the front of her car. Her grill was secured with baling wire. The Muse noticed the vehicle had no license plates, either. The young woman said the car had just died. It wouldn't jump. She concluded that she was probably out of gas. Producing an oversized gas can from her car's trunk, she instructed the young man with her to stay there while we went to get some gas. A short drive took us to a trading post where the gas sold for nearly fifty percent more than it was selling for outside the reservation. She bought ten bucks' worth, and we returned.

Filled, her car still wouldn't start; it just clicked when she turned the key. So, I negotiated another U-turn and we hooked up the charging cables again. With her pumping the gas, the engine finally caught and we detached. I followed her for a few miles until she turned into a development. I honked as I passed.

She introduced herself as Virginia. When she learned we were from Washington State, she reported that her daughter was stationed there. She didn't look nearly old enough to have a daughter of military age. I don't look old enough to have a military-aged granddaughter, either. She said she owned horses, which were far more reliable than her car. "They don't need fences. We free-range them. They stay close and always come when we call." She complained that her horse eats her flowers and even knocks down the fences she erects to protect them. That whole interaction consumed less than half an hour, but it reset my expectations for the drive across the reservation. I felt as though I knew a little more about what life might be like there than I would have had I not stopped to help.

This explains why we toodle. We could have, and have in the past, chosen to take some road more commonly traveled. We were on a lonely road, one that could let us glimpse what life was like there, rather than merely facilitating our anonymous passage. We were not placed here to remain anonymous. We are expected to stop regardless of how inconvenient that might seem. We rearranged our carefully packed load to accommodate Virginia and her oversized gas can. Everything that has been rearranged can always be rearranged again.

Who knows where our toodling might take us today besides to our objective? The story's not yet written and only just barely planned. We could spend the rest of the week just investigating the Bighorns, but we have obligations at home, and we're already eight days gone. I will compromise on some of what I proposed for routes, and The Muse, our navigator, will insist on what ultimately works. Toodles work best when interrupted, even when disrupted. We can never know the purpose, whatever we plan. We dare not ever insist upon sticking to the plan. Happy Birthday to me!

©2025 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #FollowingChapters, #PureSchmaltz