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The stupid thing is, with all the weirdness at the Stanley, I didn’t even take a look around Estes Park that much. And it looked like it is beautiful.

Sure, I got a lot of beautiful lakes and mountains in Wyoming. And it’s not like I can’t come back if I really want to.

But I don’t think I’ll be staying at the Stanley again.

I forgot to tell you—when I was driving out of Wyoming, right near the highway was this enormous statue of a rabbit with antlers. One of those jackalopes, I think it’s called. Some weird Wyoming legend. I don’t really get it, but it’s kind of cute—a little antlered bunny.

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Where do people come up with this stuff? Bigfoot, the loch ness monster, jackalopes…and how do these ideas gain so much traction with the public? I mean, I know there’s actual myth and legends from different cultures and religions but that’s not what these are. These are…these are made up by somebody who tells their friends, you know? But what makes it so that those friends want to share it with their friends and so on and so on? How many potential monsters are out there ready to become myths and are just being held back by the fact that their creator just doesn’t have very many friends?

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Do you believe in stuff like that? The…legends, the urban myths? Ghosts?

I never really did. I like a good ghost story as much as the next person, don’t get me wrong, but it never struck me as…real. There’s way too much evidence to the contrary and I always felt that if any of it was real, no matter how rare it was, surely it would be unavoidable to hear about. Surely there would be real evidence. If people were experiencing real ghost encounters, there’s no way we’d all go about our business as if everything was normal. People aren’t that good at keeping secrets.

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But now…after everything that happened…

There still isn’t hard evidence. How much can I trust my eyes really?

There was already so much about the world that I didn’t understand before this and now I understand even less. And I fear I’ll never fully understand anything ever again.

So, I guess, sure, why can’t jackalopes be real? Nothing about this whole place, this whole country, driving around it, feels real. Nothing about my life feels real.

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