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If I'm not mistaken, the last public statement that Forrest made to searchers was via Matt "Smell the Sunshine" during the Fenn Finale in West Yellowstone on Labor Day weekend. A week-and-a-half previously, Forrest had given Matt a letter to read aloud to everyone at the get-together, which was also later shared on Dal's as "The Squirt" on October 1st:
https://dalneitzel.com/2020/10/01/squirt/
It's a bit of an odd story about a day in West Yellowstone back before its streets were paved. Forrest is bothered by the dust kicked up by cars going back and forth in front of their motel "The Dude" and tries to suppress it by spraying down the road with a garden hose.
Enter "Elert Kosky" (whose name Forrest had previously spelled "Ellert" in his final Scrapbook 253 in late April this year). Elert (Alert?)'s real name was Eino Ellert Koski -- there's even a short loop road in West Yellowstone named after him -- Einos Loop -- and I believe he founded his own hotel on that loop back in the day. Anyway, Ellert apparently took some delight in foiling Forrest's dust-killing strategy by speeding back and forth in front of the Dude. Forrest paradoxically gets back at him by squirting down his brother Skippy's car -- presumably as some sort of "diabolical" proxy. Forrest closes the story with a request of the gathered searchers: that someone take a squirt bottle and wet down the pavement in front of the Dude sign. A triplet of kids does the honors (two of them wearing "slosh slippers" no less):
So what's really going on here? The title of the story seems to be a pretty straightforward hint for Yellowstone's geysers (and compressing a squeeze bottle of water is a pretty good analogue for what a geyser does.) He also mentions "Boundary Street" in the story, which plays into my WWWH which was on the boundary of YNP. We also have yet another instance of Forrest butchering someone's name, and that name containing LL, EL, ELL or ELLA within it. (Recall Richard Wetherill misspelled Wetherell in TTOTC and Orson Welles misspelled Wells in TFTW.) My take on all the LL names that Forrest mentions is that it's a hint for the double L's in both Yellowstone and Gallatin.
But the picture above is almost too obvious. Look where the kids are standing: on the yellow curb. They are literally standing on the edge of "yellow stone," squirting water onto the pavement -- where it subsequently halts -- just as geyser water does when it lands back on the ground. And not just the edge of yellow stone, but the corner as well. (Reminder: my WWWH was the extreme northwest corner of YNP.) And if that's not a clear enough message for water halting at the corner of Yellowstone, the big red STOP sign behind the kids ought to hammer home the point. Finally, what's at every entrance to YNP? I'd say The Dude sign is a decent stand-in for one of those big wooden Yellowstone National Park signs.
There are six entrances to Yellowstone, but only two are in what could be considered a "corner" of the park: the NW corner where the Gallatin River exits the park, and the NE corner near the MT/WY border following Soda Butte Creek. The other four entrances are on YNP edges. Only the NW corner has a canyon that formally begins right there on the border, allowing the first two clues (WWWH and "canyon down") to be contiguous.
https://dalneitzel.com/2020/10/01/squirt/
It's a bit of an odd story about a day in West Yellowstone back before its streets were paved. Forrest is bothered by the dust kicked up by cars going back and forth in front of their motel "The Dude" and tries to suppress it by spraying down the road with a garden hose.
Enter "Elert Kosky" (whose name Forrest had previously spelled "Ellert" in his final Scrapbook 253 in late April this year). Elert (Alert?)'s real name was Eino Ellert Koski -- there's even a short loop road in West Yellowstone named after him -- Einos Loop -- and I believe he founded his own hotel on that loop back in the day. Anyway, Ellert apparently took some delight in foiling Forrest's dust-killing strategy by speeding back and forth in front of the Dude. Forrest paradoxically gets back at him by squirting down his brother Skippy's car -- presumably as some sort of "diabolical" proxy. Forrest closes the story with a request of the gathered searchers: that someone take a squirt bottle and wet down the pavement in front of the Dude sign. A triplet of kids does the honors (two of them wearing "slosh slippers" no less):
So what's really going on here? The title of the story seems to be a pretty straightforward hint for Yellowstone's geysers (and compressing a squeeze bottle of water is a pretty good analogue for what a geyser does.) He also mentions "Boundary Street" in the story, which plays into my WWWH which was on the boundary of YNP. We also have yet another instance of Forrest butchering someone's name, and that name containing LL, EL, ELL or ELLA within it. (Recall Richard Wetherill misspelled Wetherell in TTOTC and Orson Welles misspelled Wells in TFTW.) My take on all the LL names that Forrest mentions is that it's a hint for the double L's in both Yellowstone and Gallatin.
But the picture above is almost too obvious. Look where the kids are standing: on the yellow curb. They are literally standing on the edge of "yellow stone," squirting water onto the pavement -- where it subsequently halts -- just as geyser water does when it lands back on the ground. And not just the edge of yellow stone, but the corner as well. (Reminder: my WWWH was the extreme northwest corner of YNP.) And if that's not a clear enough message for water halting at the corner of Yellowstone, the big red STOP sign behind the kids ought to hammer home the point. Finally, what's at every entrance to YNP? I'd say The Dude sign is a decent stand-in for one of those big wooden Yellowstone National Park signs.
There are six entrances to Yellowstone, but only two are in what could be considered a "corner" of the park: the NW corner where the Gallatin River exits the park, and the NE corner near the MT/WY border following Soda Butte Creek. The other four entrances are on YNP edges. Only the NW corner has a canyon that formally begins right there on the border, allowing the first two clues (WWWH and "canyon down") to be contiguous.
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