The First Night in Stanley

We made our bed out of backpacking mattresses and sleeping bags, like true middle-class vagabonds. The Williams family cooler multitasks as the kitchen dinette set, coffee table and extra seating, and our apartment door is the only one in the complex that has mini Basque flags strung across the eaves leading into the kitchen/living room.

Most people here are missing teeth and I can’t really figure out why. I always pictured Stanley, Sawtooth City, and all those little places to be filled with people like us—city folk who yearn for peaks and hikes, and don’t mind schmozzing rich people to do it. But I guess we are oinly the summer crowd. The real winter-overs, the people who comprise the 100-person demographic of Stanley, stick around teven during the times when all there is to do is drink. At least during the summer, you can boat while you drink. So, hats off to the toothless, I say.