Winnemucca, Winnemucca, Winnemucca
- Oscar the Pooch
- Nov 17, 2025
- 7 min read
The real reason we were in the Outback of Nevada was because we both wanted a reason to say Winnemucca. Try it: Winnemucca, Winnemucca, Winnemucca See? It sounds like laughing at a Fozzy Bear joke!
The Wagon found an old abandoned highway a few miles outside of Winnemucca¹ and rolled off the freeway in search of a place to spend the night. This twin pair of dusty lines may have called itself a “highway,” but there wasn’t a scrap of pavement on it. It looked like it hadn’t seen four wheels since it was the most feared section of the Oregon Trail.
A herd of deer grazed on the grass strip between the wheel tracks and the Wagon halted to give them time to scatter. When the road was clear again, Mom looked through all the windows and into all the mirrors. Instead of ordering the Wagon to giddy up, she pushed the all done lever instead.
“This is silly. Ain’t nobody coming down this road tonight. Let’s just camp here in the middle of the road.”
“Hey, Mom. What do you call a blind deer?” I wagged at the herd grazing a short sprint away.
“I’ve heard that one before,” she said with a groan in her voice.
“No-eye-deer!” I brayed. “Winnemucca², Winnemucca³, Winnemucca⁴!”
She didn’t laugh for some reason. She just clicked the leash on my collar before opening the door.
The next morning, Mom tickled the Witch as she drank her poop juice, still searching for somewhere to go. “I guess this trail is fine. Everything looks the same around here, so we might as well go somewhere that’s easy to drive to.”
“What does it look like?” I asked.
Mom looked out the window on the side that didn’t face the freeway. “Like that.”
I looked at the grass and hills for something to say about it. “Oh,” I said.
¹ One Winnemucca! ² Two Winnemuccas!
³ Three Winnemuccas!
⁴ Four Winnemuccas!
“Something looks fishy about the driving directions.” She nudged the Witch to see what she had to say for herself.
The Witch’s screen looked back at her blankly. After a moment, the Witch said innocently, “You will arrive at seven thirty-two a.m.”
“It looks like the route stops a couple of miles from the trailhead,” Mom interrogated.
“Oh goody!” I said. “Extra hiking.”
“You are on the fastest route,” the Witch promised, without mentioning it was Opposite Day.
“I have a feeling the directions aren’t taking us to the trail at all,” Mom said suspiciously.
“Oh goody! Exploring!” I cheered, forgetting what happens when the Wagon explores.
She may have had an inkling that something wasn’t right, but Mom follows the Witch’s orders as obediently as The Wagon follows Mom’s. The Witch pointed the way, and Mom followed instructions as if hypnotized. She aimed the Wagon back onto the freeway and did as she was told when the Witch commanded her to exit. When the Witch announced that our final turn was imminent, a sign appeared to mark the way.
“Whoopee! We’re going to make it after all!” I panted. “What does the sign say, Mom?”
“It says Buffalo Canyon.”
“Hooray! That’s right, right? What were you so worried about? I knew everything would work out in the end.”
“But we’re supposed to be going to Horse Thief Canyon…” Mom said, almost breaking the Witch’s spell, but not quite.
“After they mounted a thorough search for the horse, and a respectful time had passed for grief, I bet they adopted a buffalo,” I concluded. “Hey, what’s the difference between a buffalo and a bison?”
“I told you in South Dakota, I have no idea.”
“Wrong joke. The right answer is that you can’t wash your hands in a buffalo. Winnemucca⁵, Winnemucca⁶, Winnemucca⁷!” She wasn’t laughing, so I hinted, “Get it? Bison? Bason? Wash your hands? Like, because of the boogeyvirus?”
⁵ Five Winnemuccas! ⁶ Six Winnemuccas!
⁷ Seven Winnemuccas!
Before Mom could laugh, the Witch interrupted, “Turn here!”
“Yeeeeees, Masteeeeerrrrrrr…” Mom didn’t-say. The Wagon pitched two-leggedly off the highway and halted nose-to-latch with a gate so suddenly that I flew from bed to the copilot’s seat.
“Oh no!” I wagged. “Once the horse was abducted they must have tightened security.”
“It’s only closed with twine,” Mom observed. “Why would they have a sign on the highway if it were private? I think the gate is for cows.”
“Are the cows the ones stealing horses?”
“No, dufus. It’s so the cows don’t escape.”
“What do you get if cows jump over a barbed wire fence?” I panted. I could hardly contain the punchline long enough to let Mom guess.
“I don’t think cows can ju—”
“You get udder destruction! Winnemucca⁸, Winnemucca⁹, Winnemucca¹⁰!” I was so pleased with myself that it didn’t matter that Mom wasn’t laughing.
“Enough with the puns already,” she groaned, climbing out of the Wagon. I was pretty sure it wasn’t to get away from me.
⁸ Eight Winnemuccas!
⁹ Nine Winnemuccas!
¹⁰ Ten Winnemuccas!
She untied the gate, and once she’d led the Wagon through, she tied it shut again with a bow. Now we were on a car trail that looked like it hadn’t been used since dinosaurs drove the earth. We bumped and jostled down a road that was no more than two marks in the grass, sometimes tilting to drive on the not-road when the ruts were so deep that they would have given the Wagon a fatal wedgie. Occasionally, there was a thump and a bump when a rock gave the Wagon a kick in the crotch and Mom groaned as if she were the one who’d been kicked. After the longest two-mile drive in history, a giant mud lake stole the wagon trail from in front of us.
“I guess it’s time to continue on foot,” Mom surrendered.
“How far is it to the trail?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Based on the map, I’d say it’s a good 4 or 5 miles that way.” Her eyes pointed past the puddlake, beyond where the tracks faded to distance and a mountain’s outstretched foot blocked the view.
“But there’s a mountain in the way.”
“I’m pretty sure we’re one canyon over from where we wanted to be,” Mom shrugged. “But there’s no way we would make it all the way over there with the road in this condition.”
I was about to ask why we didn’t go back to the other perfectly good road that went in that direction too, but she distracted me by opening the Wagon door.
While Mom prepared the packpack, I scoped out the spot where we’d run out of road. The Wagon straddled a tuft of grass with shoulder-high pile of dirt crowding the wheels on one side and a tree-bush scratching at the doors on the other.
“What if somebody comes to check on the horses?” I asked. “They won’t be able to get around the Wagon.”
“The chances of somebody driving this far into the middle of nowhere, choosing to pull off the highway exactly here, untying the gate, and driving 2 miles up that pile of rocks you’re calling a road on a Tuesday morning in the middle of a worldwide lockdown is basically nil.”
“How do you know? I bet if you went potty right now, somebody would turn up in time to see your butt.” It’s a scientific fact that as long as two living humans are in the same woods, one of them will turn up the moment the other thinks that she’s alone.
“I just know. Anyway, I have no idea how we’re going to turn around. If we hike from here I won’t have to figure it out until later.”
“Are we trapped?”
“I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”
Mom strapped on the packpack, hung the leash around her neck, and we set out to capture some horse thieves.
Before long, the road-like path curled and hid itself between the toes of the mountain. We followed it inside.
The trail was marvelously horrible. It was the type of path that leads to a monster’s lair—the kind of monster who is so vicious that he crunches the bones of any hiker who ventures to visit. Oily-grey rocks stabbed out of the ground, shedding flakes the shape of razorblades onto the surrounding dirt.
The sky was a dark scowl, and the wind blew us relentlessly deeper into the canyon. I searched the heavy, dark clouds for flying monkeys large enough to steal someone’s horse—or a dog and his Mom in a pinch—but all I saw was a mountain wearing sky-colored camouflage squatting mominously behind the near peaks. I might have doubted that I saw it at all, except for a few speckles where its rocky thorns sliced through its invisibility cloak. I sniffed the wind for the scents of horse, or buffalo, or monkey, but all I smelled were carrion and predators. I had never felt such exciting suspense in real life, so I ditched Mom and ran up the trail, listening for a “Fe-fi-fo-fum” rumbling down the canyon.
The trail skulked over slate and through winter-dead trees, crossing back and forth through a dreary stream. I expected to find something that would spook Mom around every turn, but after a few miles, we still hadn’t found any cyclopses, orcs, or horse-chomping monsters to turn us around. I crossed the forlorn stream yet again to the first real pile of white dirt big enough to roll in. When I stood up again, Mom was still on the far side of the stream, looking like a sharp rock had let all the air out of her.
“Come on, this way.” I ran in an encouraging circle around the white dirt to show how the trail didn’t go through it.
“I’ve had enough. I don’t want to run anymore.” She paused to show me what not-running anymore looked like.
“We can slow down. I don’t mind hiking,” I said agreeably.
“I’m just tired, and this wind is getting to me.” Mom looked like she’d been carrying a very heavy burden around her neck, and no longer cared about finding a way into Mordor. “As much fun as it is to explore, sometimes I wonder if being on top of something is really the best way to see it. You know?”
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. The best way to see a thing is to smell it, and you can’t smell it unless you’re practically on top of it.”
Want to keep reading? Grab Oscar’s book, No Place Like Alone on Amazon.
