If you miss your connecting flight, does your checked bag miss it, too?
Surely not. It wouldn’t make any sense to take the time to find the checked bag deep in the underbelly of the plane and drag it out after a passenger failed to get to the gate before they locked The Door.
Still, the pessimist in me just couldn’t believe I was going to find my suitcase at the Bozeman airport at the end of this spontaneous road trip from Salt Lake City. That would be too easy. Airlines don’t make anything too easy.
Somehow I believed getting to Bozeman sooner would increase my odds of being reunited with my luggage, so I ignored my desperate need for sleep even as it began to cut my brain out of the equation and go straight for the eyes. My lids began to droop, briefly at first, always a bit longer each time, until with a jolt that almost ejected my soul from my body I realized I’d been driving with my eyes closed for two full seconds.
Two seconds is a long time even if you’re not navigating Yellowstone National Park in the dead of night, alone, with snow whirling all around you and nothing but bears and moose for miles.
I had to pull over. I couldn’t pick up my suitcase if I was dead.
The ten or so minutes between deciding to rest and finding a place to rest were hell. Suddenly the shoulder shrank to nothing, and the state highway became an endless tunnel without intersection or exit.
Finally, half asleep, I saw an exit with a sign declaring “Food [nothing]; Gas [nothing]; Lodging [nothing].” I needed none of those things.
I navigated the icy exit ramp and pulled my rented SUV over next to a stop sign at the ghostly intersection of two unpaved roads. Dark shapes directly across the road hinted at some sort of warehouse or hangar. There were no lights, certainly no humans. Perfect.
Crawling into the back seat with a moan of anticipation, I stuffed my spare jacket under my head and knew I’d be deeply asleep in seconds. I didn’t care how long I slept, assuming some rural LEO working the graveyard shift would come along to roust me in due time.
The silence was incredible. The snow still fell to mute out any errant nighttime noise. My car’s engine clicked and sighed as it cooled. A pair of headlights washed over me and disappeared, leaving me momentarily surprised that anyone else was awake at this hour, let alone driving.
Slipping away, cold and cramped but gloriously happy, I heard one last annoyed click from the engine before the silence returned.
I was unaware of time passing. Either I was asleep already and dreaming, or my mandatory rest wasn’t going to turn into a nap after all. That was fine, as long as I could close my eyes.
When the silence was broken again, I at first took it as evidence I was dreaming. It wasn’t tires on sludge or a clicking engine or the mild wind driving the snow. It was a coyote.
Judging by the sound, it was right outside the front passenger door. Made sense, really, that in this deserted backwater the critters would be curious about this interloper.
My feeble efforts to dismiss the sound as nothing even close to a threat vanished in a heartbeat as the sound reached my ears again and something struck me.
It wasn’t a coyote. It was a person making coyote sounds.
It took me probably three full seconds to climb back into the front seat, turn on the car, and drive away. I never glanced toward the source of the noise, never saw anything, and was grateful for it. As wide awake as though I’d slept nine hours and woken to a warm sunrise, I made great time for the rest of the trip and got to Bozeman just as the airline’s service counter opened. My suitcase was there waiting for me.
It may not be the last time I miss a connecting flight from Salt Lake to Bozeman, but you can bet it’s the last time I drive alone through Yellowstone National Park on a snowy night.