I was in a meeting yesterday when someone texted me that the pharmacy was open. I rushed over as soon as I could. Co-owner Lisa Bailey, who was standing on the boardwalk in front of the store, smiled at me.
It’s true: The pharmacy is open, in what website developers would call a “soft launch.” There’s no ice cream at the fountain, no greeting cards, and no gauze pads on the shelves as yet. But I’ll be darned if you can’t get a prescription filled in Dubois today.
When we first heard that a pharmacy was coming to town, we didn’t really believe it. That old sign “Dubois DRUG Sundries” (with its implied lie) had hung above the store so long that we no longer even saw it. We knew that all you could buy in whatever store was there would be hats, purses, and ice cream. The explanations to tourists were awkward.
The misleading sign went up in 1964, when new owners began to operate the “drug store” without a pharmacist for the first time since it opened 1932. I guess “drug sundries” was meant to signify over-the-counter pills.
When we first moved to town, you could actually buy nonprescription pills and first-aid supplies in the store where Ian and his wife sold mostly ice cream cones and souvenirs. Later, Fawn opened a sandwich shop and curio store called Serendipity at the site. When her family left town, Grandma Kathy and a friend reopened the ice cream fountain, selling all sorts of vintage items on the side (but no pills).
Briefly there was a pop-up Christmas shop in there. But never, we knew, any drugs or even any Band-Aids. You got Advil at Superfoods. Real medicines? The Walgreens in Riverton would mail them over, or you could drive an hour to pick them up.
An actual pharmacy coming back to main street in Dubois, after a half century? It seemed too fantastic to be true.
It was true that Wyoming passed a law last year to allow telepharmacy — prescriptions filled by a pharm tech, working online at a satellite location, linked to a licensed pharmacy somewhere else. We know Dubois has the digital mojo to support such an operation (after all, Mountain Sage Clinic already offers specialty visits online), as well an eager supply of customers. But a pharmacy here? Really?
Ladders appeared inside the old drug store, and some painting went on. But then, for many months: Nothing.
“Are we ever going to have a drug store?” I asked Reg, the property manager. He would smile and shrug.
It seems that staffing problems back at Frontier Pharmacy in Big Piney delayed the grand (soft) opening in Dubois, but at last Lisa and Rob Bailey, a licensed pharmacist, are open for business here.
Yesterday, Rob seemed to want to assure me that he has the right intentions for our old-West town: He talked about where he found that vintage “prescriptions” sign back in his home town of Palmer, Nebraska, and the charming old American Greetings display yet to appear. But when a neighbor peeked in the door to say welcome, I knew that the broad smile on her face wasn’t about greeting cards.
“Tell everyone our phone number is simple to remember: It’s 2400,” Rob said. “And it’s really easy to transfer your prescriptions over.”
The counter and stools are still in place, and ice cream may actually return too, once they figure out all those food-service regulations. But the Baileys already know all about medications, which is what really matters.
© Lois Wingerson, 2018
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1. We don’t dress this way as part of a historic re-enactment. This is really how we like to dress, and for good reason. We wear brimmed hats and long-sleeved shirts for protection against the fierce sun. We wear vests because it’s just enough to keep us warm in the high-desert cool. We wear jeans because they’re comfortable and sturdy. We wear boots because they keep the rocks out. (Here’s what I might be wearing today, if I hadn’t chosen a different shirt, vest, and jeans.)
4. We do not “farm” deer, antelope, bighorn sheep, or other animals you may see behind fences near town. This is actually the wildlife you have come all this way to view. They come here of their own free will, probably because they like it around here as much as we do. They leap the fences, live in peace with the livestock, and like to graze our fields. (Please drive with care.)
6. Dubois does have stop signs.“There’s not even really a stop sign in town,” Jeda Higgs said on the video “
8. Winters aren’t brutal in Dubois (generally). Last winter may have been tough, true. But in general, temperatures here are several degrees warmer than in Jackson. Most of the snow (usually) gets dumped on that side of Togwotee Pass or on the Pass itself, giving us wonderful opportunities for snowmobiling and snowshoeing. The dry climate keeps winter temperatures surprisingly tolerable. And the air is magically clean.
We knew beforehand that a Google team was coming to Dubois to watch the Eclipse. But only weeks afterwards, when I saw their 
But they also wanted to watch the eclipse together in just the right location, “not so much for the project as for the experience,” said astronomer Laura Peticolas of University of California-Berkeley, one of those who dreamed up the project in the first place. (That’s Johnson and Peticolas in the image, watching with wonder from the top of the Scenic Overlook, as totality was fading.)
I asked Johnson whether the ride over from Denver had been boring, after he got this side of Rawlins. “It may be boring for you-all that live there,” he replied, “but it was beautiful for all of us. Much more beautiful than Boston [where he lives and works]. I would love to spend unlimited time there.”
For a long time I have been hoping to see two new kinds of shops in town, and here they are. Maybe this came about because I finally got around to reading a Harry Potter book, and some magic rubbed off. (Or maybe it’s not about me at all.)
As I told Sandy yesterday, this answers my dream that Dubois would have what I’ve seen in so many other small towns on my road trips: A shop that features art and craft items by local designers.
As the official host for the many cyclists who spend a night at St. Thomas church while passing through town on cross-country bike treks, John quickly saw potential in the idea.
Like two famous Wright brothers a century ago, Chris Wright was attracted to mechanics early in life. Growing up in a small California town, he and his friends built bikes from trash parts left in alleys. They saw to it that no kid in town was without a bike.
The bike shop opened in early May. John said they made 11¢ on the first day. (I didn’t ask what on earth had that price tag.) Not many touring cyclists reach Dubois in mud-and-slush season, and the startup was scary. But by the third week, he told me, “the floodgates opened.” (I don’t think he intended a metaphor; the 
Chris pointed out a vintage red-and-yellow model sitting outside the shop, waiting to be picked up. Its owner got it as a present for her ninth birthday. She wanted it tuned up so she could ride it again — at the age of 75.
If you want to sell stuff in Brooklyn, you’d put it on Craiglist and hope somebody legit would be interested.
You can put a little notice in the For Sale section, on the tightly packed front page, for free. Or you can make a flier about your tag sale, drop off 402 copies at the VFW (why 402? Don’t ask), and for a small fee it will be distributed to stores and offices around town along with everything else stapled to the front page.
What’s really going on, I mean. Not just what you see in the Frontier.
“Need a fix!”
I dropped into Tammy’s new salon again for a manipedi. (I’m the daughter of a Nebraska farm girl; I learned the term only a few years ago in New York City. It means manicure and pedicure.)
I would wait till I got back to New York, where manipedis are essential to normal grooming if you don’t want to feel like white trash. Back in our Brooklyn neighborhood, there’s literally one nail salon per block. They’re even more prevalent than Starbucks.
Given the ugly smashed nail (it makes Tammy’s tummy hurt to look at it), we decide on wacky dark teal polish that looks close to black. As she works, we discuss how she came to open the salon.
The time-honored place to announce items for sale, along with tag sales and events such as wine tastings and art shows, is the Roundup (aka the “poop sheet”), put out weekly by the VFW and delivered to shops around town. We always pick up the Roundup on Wednesday or Thursday, and scan it eagerly.
I sat at the Nostalgia Bistro one recent evening, waxing nostalgic about our wonderful trip to Sicily. I was remembering another restaurant, in the ancient city of Siracusa. We had been celebrating our 40th anniversary.
Unlike that night in Sicily, at the Bistro I always recognize the person who’s “going to be my server tonight,” and they recognize me. I can joke with Bigi or talk with Norman about something that has happened recently in town. They’re friends.
My husband has observed that Dubois is missing a Thai restaurant. But I like the Thai steak salad at the Bistro so much that I have to resist defaulting to that order every time.
For a larger variety of choices or a more exotic option, we can always travel to Jackson or Lander, which takes about an hour – not that much longer than a trip into midtown Manhattan from our former home in Brooklyn. But there’s no reason to travel all the way to Jackson to spoil ourselves. The new restaurant at Turpin Meadows Lodge, closer than the entrance to Grand Teton National Park, served up the best meals we’ve ever had on that side of Togwotee Pass.