After dinner we finally headed toward the exit of the park. This time we were going to exit from the East entrance and drive for about an hour to the town of Cody, WY, where we planned to do the same thing as the last night. The day’s adventures were over we thought. And we were right. But the night’s adventures were just beginning. Just as we were exiting the park it began to rain. Now we knew that it rained in other places during summer, so intellectually we were prepared for this. Physically, however, we were not prepared. Jack was fairly certain that the he was going to end up soaked in his ‘waterproof’ tent if he tried to camp in the rain. We hoped that it would stop raining by the time we made it to Cody so that Jack wouldn’t be too miserable that night. Our fears were immediately not allayed by the fact that the rain very quickly became much heavier. What started as a few drops turned into a torrent. It was then that we made the discovery that our windshield wipers were not the most effective wipers you had ever seen. In fact, they stunk, although they were slightly better than our headlights, which are angled so as to point at the ground so closely in front of the car that their is very little time to react when something appears. Even the brights barely do anything, especially in heavy rain. Jack huddled over the steering wheel as we climbed into the mountains on a narrow, windy road, with rain pouring down, two windshield wipers flinging water left and right, but never quite all the way off the windshield itself, and two headlights that helpfully illuminated the ten feet of road directly in front of the car.

At this point, of course, the lightning started. Every few seconds, lightning would flash, and thunder would roll, but because we were crawling through a mountain pass, most of the strikes weren’t visible. Instead, they would light up the huge peaks and drop-offs on either side of the road that were invisible otherwise. Every once in a while, we would be able to see the strike, and it would light up the whole area, making it even more clear how perilous the road we were on was, and just how dim our headlights really were. Still thinking about his comfort that night, Jack, his eyes glued to what he hope was the road, asked Anna to check the weather in Cody and see if it was raining over there, and, if it was, whether it was supposed to stop anytime soon. Anna helpfully informed Jack that she had no service, so they would have to wait until they were out of the mountains. Now we really must commend Jeffrey for his valiant effort during this trying time. Normally, the cruise control didn’t work at all, but for some reason it revived itself for this trip, and Jack was able to park himself at 50 mph and focus entirely on steering, which was nice, too, because Jeffrey hates going up hills, and tends to not listen unless you put the pedal to the metal, and then the transmission freaks out and forgets how to switch gears. With cruise control on, the gas was applied to just the right amount to maintain speed up all but the steepest hills. Every once in a while, a passing lane would open up, and Jack would dutifully move into the slow lane so that any of the several cars that were lined up behind him could pass, but it seemed that none of them wanted to be the leader of the line any more than Jack wanted to be, and they all followed us into the slow lane every time this happened.

At this point, the next logical natural phenomenon occurred. A large orange road sign made itself visible during one of the lightning strikes, and Jack was able to read the words: “Caution. Active Fire Area Ahead.” Thinking he must have been mistaken, he continued carefully on. A couple of twists and turns later and a stretch of the mountain revealed itself that was blazing merrily away, adding a more constant, bright orange glow to the more variable white light from the incessant lightning strikes. We were now leading a massive line of cars in the middle of the night through a narrow mountain pass road during a heavy rain and lightning storm next to a wildfire, with no indication that a warm place, or any place for that matter, was waiting for us at the end. The whole thing was rather surreal, and incredibly epic. And all three of us, Anna, Jack and Jeffrey, made it out in one piece.