Wednesday, April 7

Wednesday morning, I sit in the lobby of the Dude Rancher Lodge and sketch, sketchily. There is an auditorium across the street. Set into the walls are blocks with a pattern of four rhomboid shapes in a grid. Across the top and bottom of each block, sans-serif capitals spell LHS (above) and AUD (below). I discover what LHS stands for, and find myself unable to commit it to memory.

Through the same window, I can see a tree and a lamp post. They defy my pencil. Eventually, I surrender and turn to the details of furniture and fireplace paraphernalia. Shortly, my fellow travelers arrive and we depart the lobby for our final Montana breakfast.

At checkout, I realize that there are still three bottles of Corona, that piss-yellow cerveza mas fina, in my sink. The ice has all melted and the beer is probably skunked. I leave the bottles and my last sad dollar bill for housecleaning.