One More For The Road

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<title>One More For The Road: Wednesday, October 29, 2025 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

One More For The Road: Wednesday, October 29, 2025

 When there's a sale on gas station sushi, it's hard to contain yourself....

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's business and tourism reporter, Renée Jean

Renée Jean

Wyoming Life

Around Wyoming

A stoned Vietnam War lieutenant’s inside joke slipped right past Army brass and straight into history. 

The lieutenant, Joe McCarthy, slyly christened his improvised gun truck “Uncle Meat,” his favorite track on the 1969 rock album by Mothers of Invention.

“He used to listen to that while he was stoned,” National Museum of Military Vehicles owner Dan Starks told Cowboy State Daily. “It was his little secret act of rebellion to name his gun truck after a stoner album, and the Army didn’t pick up on it and never objected to the name.”

Today, the lieutenant’s inside joke lives on in a serious place. 

A replica of the gun truck is the latest new artifact at the National Museum of Military Vehicles near Dubois, which boasts the world’s largest private collection of military vehicles, with more than 500 that are fully restored or operational. 

“To be clear, the truck is a reproduction,” Starks said. “Gun trucks were all unauthorized weapons, improvised in Vietnam. None of them came from the United States and only one of them was ever brought back.”

The one surviving original gun truck is called "Eve of Destruction." It’s displayed at the Army Transportation Museum in Fort Eustis, Virginia. 

The rest of the gun trucks were all destroyed or left in Vietnam. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"The Road Called Ambush Alley"}]

Gun trucks tell a particularly poignant story about Vietnam.

At the time, there was essentially one road between the deep-water port of Qhi Nhon and the strategically important Central Highlands — Highway 19. 

It might have been called a highway, but it was more like a rough two-track. Just picture 110 miles of unpaved, mountain-hugging, jungle-choked dirt road with no shoulders, hairpin curves and 1-foot-deep potholes. 

This was the only route available to supply American combat forces in the Highlands.

“There was a lot of strategic significance to our being able to maintain a presence in the Central Highlands and keep the enemy from using it as a safe haven to launch attacks into other parts of Vietnam,” Starks said. “So, what the enemy figured out is, here we (had) all these combat troops (in the) Central Highlands and they realized, ‘Hey, we don’t need to fight all these combat troops. All we’ve got to do is cut the road.”

America’s convoys, meanwhile, were not set up to face intense combat, which made them sitting ducks.

“We’re sending 19- and 20-year-old truck drivers down Ambush Alley literally every day, and sometimes twice a day, on a 220-mile round trip,” Starks said. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"A Gun Truck Is Born"}]

One day, the enemy decided to close the route. That day was Sept. 2, 1967. In a particularly brutal attack, Vietnamese fighters waylaid a 39-truck convoy, destroying 34

“The colonel in charge of convoys had to send trucks right back down that same road the next day, and the next day, and the next day,” Starks said. “The Army doctrine was the security for truck convoys is a matter for military police.”

There weren’t enough military police, however, which meant the truck drivers were usually on their own. 

So the colonel took it upon himself to defy army protocols. He ordered some of the truck drivers to turn their convoy trucks into weapons. 

“He went to truck drivers and said, ‘Hey, truck driver, you are now a machine gunner',” Starks said. “They had no training. He just said you are now a machine gunner.”

But saying it wasn’t enough to make it happen.

“The Army wouldn’t issue him any machine guns, because it was outside of regulations,” Starks said. “So they had to steal them. They had to trade whiskey for them. They had to take them off of downed helicopters. And they had to make them out of spare parts.”

They also had to figure out how to create gun boxes on the trucks to protect those machine gunners, who would now become prime targets.

“They took these gun trucks and sprinkled them through the length of the convoy,” Starks said. 

When the enemy next ambushed the convoy, it was they who were surprised. 

The new strategy had gun trucks racing into the heart of the ambush as fast as they could go

to drive the enemy away. Everyone else was to drive out of the killing zone and get away.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Built By A Survivor"}]

The museum’s replica was built by a Vietnam veteran who was among the 19- to 20-year-old men who served on the original Uncle Meat. Werth’s service was in 1970/71. For Werth, building the replica was a way to remember his buddies and make sure their story didn’t disappear.

“Logan lost a bunch of buddies in the truck ambushes back there in Vietnam,” Starks said. “And he was lucky to survive himself. 

"He came back to the United States 100% disabled and in the years he was working to recover from his Vietnam War experience he decided to create this reproduction of the truck he served in.”

Three friends were killed in ambushes that Werth survived, so he put their names on the truck. They were Michael Hunter, Richard Frazier and Robert Thorne.

“He used the truck to keep alive the story of these teenagers, making up their own weapons to try and stay alive,” Starks said. “And he wanted it preserved forever.”

Werth was approached many times by people who wanted to buy Uncle Meat, but he was never willing to sell it —  not for any amount of money.

After his death, he charged a friend with finding someone who would preserve it, and that’s how it has come to Dubois.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"A Rolling Fortress"}]

Werth’s attention to detail and the story behind it he worked so meticulously to preserve make the reproduction one of the best in existence, Starks said. 

“This shows you exactly what a gun truck looked like back then,” Starks said. “And I’ve got a lot of history on this from people who were there and commented to him about how perfect this reproduction was and giving him little tidbits of information to make sure he would get it exactly right.”

Uncle Meat was outfitted with four M2 .50-caliber machine guns — one on each side and a twin-.50 setup mounted at the rear. 

There were additional hand-held machine guns so that the gunners could hit targets that were too close or too low for the M2s to hit.

The gun box was double-steel armor, with a space between the plates that could be filled with sandbags. The cab was double-armored, too, and included ballistic glass windshields.

The driver had an M79 grenade launcher, with his own set of rounds, which included smoke to mark positions for support. The truck also carried rations, extra tires, tools and stretchers — because Uncle Meat doubled as both gun truck and rolling service truck for the convoys it protected.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Not Just A Relic"}]

Uncle Meat won’t be part of the museum’s regular display. It will be a rolling exhibit instead, for parades and touch-a-tank events where people are invited to climb into military vehicles or take rides. 

“We’ll keep it in our parade building so it will be well-protected,” Starks said. “And we’re going to drive it in the Fourth of July parade this year.”

The day before July 4 will also be an America 250 celebration at the museum, with free vehicle rides, as well as tank demonstrations, speakers, and other activities.

Telling the story of Uncle Meat has never been more important than it is now, Starks added. Vietnam veterans are in their 70s and 80s. They came home to a country where many did not honor their service. They were spat upon and called names such as "baby killer." 

“I know a lot of these truck drivers and a bunch of them ended up dying of Agent Orange and nobody knows their story,” he said. “They lived through all of this and it’s still haunting them.”

Starks wants as many of them as possible to know before they die what they did has not only been seen, it’s going to be remembered and honored.

What began as a stoned lieutenant’s inside joke has outlived the war — and many of the young men who rode in it — and found a lasting place in history.

Uncle Meat 20260328 110448 6 20 26

<title>Legend Of Vietnam War Gun Truck ‘Uncle Meat’ Lives On At Wyoming Museum | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The "Uncle Meat" gun truck is the latest important artifact at the National Museum of Military Vehicles in Dubois. “I know a lot of these truck drivers and a bunch of them ended up dying of Agent Orange and nobody knows their story,” the museum's owner said.

Legend Of Vietnam War Gun Truck ‘Uncle Meat’ Lives On At Wyoming Museum

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

A Casper man says he's being forced to part ways with his beloved Bigfoot-hunting rig at his wife's behest, blaming the vehicle's irresistible appeal to the opposite sex.

"I knew this day would come, but that doesn't make it hurt any less," Austin Griess wrote in a tongue-in-cheek Facebook post advertising his lifted 1984 AMC Eagle wagon for sale. "My wife is making me sell my lifted AMC Eagle because of all the attention it brings. 

"I only have eyes for her, yet this car seems to draw in way too many female lookers for my comfort."

Austin Griess found the 1984 AMC Eagle 4X4 Wagon on Facebook Marketplace during the dead of winter.

During the cold months he worked on it, installing a lift kit, tuning it up and making it reliable enough to serve as a daily driver. Then he said he turned it into a true “chick magnet” by added a modern stereo.

The goal was to debut the finished wagon with 150,000 original miles on it at a Memorial Day car show.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"We didn't make it in time for entry,\" Griess said."}]

"The payment is due here in June," he joked. "No trophy making a payment."

After months of wrenching and modifying the Oldsmobile, he said that his wife has had enough of competing with the AMC for attention.

[{"type":"text","text":"“The wife just kind of had enough of me at that point,” he said."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"So, the Eagle is now looking for its next owner."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Finding Bigfoot"}]

Along with making whoever drives it irresistible, "This would be a perfect Bigfoot hunting rig,” said Griess, adding that his day job is in sales.

[{"type":"text","text":"The four-door Eagle is rugged, practical, and weird. "}]

"That's the ideal car to take your wife and two kids and throw all your crap in the back, go to the mountains for a picnic, and go fishing" says mechanical philosopher Ron Gordon. 

The Eagle is powered by a 4.2-liter inline-six engine shared with old Jeeps.

The original muffler is still hanging on, although Griess admits it's become a little rough around the edges.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"It's a little bit raspy,\" he said."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Perfect For Wyoming"}]

Long before crossovers filled dealership lots, vehicles like the AMC Eagle were doing much of the same work.

Ron Gordon owned an auto shop in Big Piney for 15 years and has spent nearly 70 years around cars. When shown photos of Griess’ golden Eagle, his first reaction was blunt.

"One of the Lee brothers made it: Ug Lee or Home Lee," Gordon said with a laugh.

[{"type":"text","text":"But beneath the humor was genuine admiration."}]

"It was a pretty unique car in its day," he said. "It was the first real sport utility vehicle on the market."

[{"type":"text","text":"The Eagle debuted years before today's crossover craze."}]

It combined station wagon practicality with four-wheel-drive capability, making it particularly appealing in places where winter weather and rough roads were facts of life.

"It'd be good for anything from going fishing or to sheep ranch," Gordon said.

That versatility made vehicles like the Eagle a natural fit in the Cowboy State. 

Griess agrees, calling it "the perfect Wyoming car — great for snow, inclement weather and getting off the paved roads."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Before SUVs"}]

To understand why people get nostalgic about station wagons, Gordon said you have to remember what Wyoming life looked like decades ago.

[{"type":"text","text":"Then, a trip to town wasn't a quick errand."}]

"It was 60 miles to go buy groceries," Gordon recalled. "When you got in the car to go someplace, it was an event."

Station wagons weren't fashion statements, he added, "They were tools. They hauled groceries, hauled kids, and camping gear." 

Gordon remembers one summer when his family traveled to Idaho, where his father was working in the mountains.

The family camped, and he and his brothers slept in the back of a station wagon.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"There was a bear come in one night,\" Gordon said."}]

The animal poked holes in juice cans before dogs chased it away and up a tree. Looking back, Gordon laughs at the memory.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"I guess the station wagon was a safe haven for me,” he said."}]

For families throughout the West, station wagons were simply part of life before minivans hit the scene.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"Everybody that had a big family had a station wagon,\" he said."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Time Machine "}]

Griess was born in 1988, but said he grew up surrounded by remnants of the decade. 

His parents were older. His uncles still wore the giant mustaches that survived long after the 1980s were over. 

"Life was simpler back then," says Griess. "If you wanted to do something, you just did it." 

[{"type":"text","text":"The AMC Eagle was meant to embody that mindset. "}]

"It just screams going out and camping with just the necessities," he said.

Music helps complete the vision. The Eagle has speakers — of course. Its soundtrack, according to Griess, has plenty of Molly Hatchet, Ted Nugent, and old-school rock.

It’s the kind of music that sounds best with the windows down and a dirt road ahead.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'Let The Eagle Fly'"}]

Selling a lifted 1984 AMC Eagle won't be easy. Building it was part of the fun, said Griess, and bringing it to life was the reward. 

"It's hard to part with,” he added. "But when you have limited space, you've got to let go sometimes. Let the Eagle fly free."

Its next owner will get a lifted station wagon, a conversation starter, a piece of nostalgia, and a camper.

Or, as Gordon puts it, they'll get exactly what station wagons were always meant to be, "a helluva good car." 

AMC Eagle IMG 5493 6 20 26

<title>Casper Man Selling His 1984 AMC Eagle 'Chick Magnet' Because Wife Wants It Gone | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A Casper man says his wife is making him sell his beloved Bigfoot-hunting rig — a lifted 1984 AMC Eagle wagon with 150,000 miles he says attracts too much female attention. "I knew this day would come, but that doesn't make it hurt any less,” he said.

Casper Man Selling His 1984 AMC Eagle 'Chick Magnet' Because Wife Wants It Gone

Business & Tourism

Business

On summer nights just outside of Powell, headlights still crest a small rise and swing past a hand-lettered marquee leading onto a wide gravel lot. 

The families in those cars will spill out of their trucks and SUVs with lawn chairs, blankets, and sleepy kids in pajamas.

Some of the locals go so far as to bring full-size couches in their pickup beds and camp stoves to make s’mores and other snacks as the overhead sky darkens and an impossible sweep of stars begins to shine.

Then, as it has since 1949, the screen at the American Dream Drive-In will flicker to life at what is Wyoming’s last, bonafide drive-in movie theater. 

The owner, Kathleen “Pokey” Heny, didn’t set out to become the owner of this American treasure. 

She and her husband built a home across from it decades ago — when it was called the Vali Drive-In — primarily so they could see Powell’s landmark Heart Mountain from their windows. 

It just so happened that they were also right across from the drive-in as well, a place Heny remembers fondly.

“I have really good memories of going to the drive-in as a kid,” she said. “I’m one of seven children, so we’d float up in the station wagon in our jammies and pop our popcorn at home. 

"Probably only twice a summer, but I just love the memory of that.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Best Seat"}]

Heny and her husband cleared a line of sight to the drive-in’s big white screen from their property so they could watch movies from their garage. 

“We could sit in the garage and watch a movie across the road,” she said with a chuckle. “And now you can tune your radio into it, so if you don’t have a speaker, you could listen to it on your radio.”

Then one day in 2004, her husband returned from the lumber store with a rumor that was about to forever change Heny’s life.

“I heard the drive-in is for sale,” he told her. 

“Well, I have to buy it,” Heny recalls telling him. “I don’t want it to get knocked down. I don’t want it to become obsolete.”

Heny had no idea what she was getting herself into at the time. 

She’d never owned a business, and she didn’t know anything at all about the movie business.

“At that time, it was reel to reel,” she said. “You actually had to splice the movies and put them together.”

Her first years were also lean — heartbreakingly so.

“There was a huge learning curve. I was happy to have 10 cars a night,” she said. “We really thought we were doing something if we got 15. 

"So just trying to get it up and running, and figure out how to run the movie, order the movies, use a movie broker.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Steep Learning Curve"}]

Dusty pickups and kids in pajamas are at the core of Heny’s successful business model, which packs in as many as 150 cars a night in the summer.

While many of the nation’s remaining 370 or so drive-in movie theaters have leaned into attracting tourists, Heny has instead leaned into community.

“What we did to build it back up is just changing it to become family-friendly,” she said. “I learned that the ones who spend the money are the parents. The teens? They don’t spend as much money in the concessions, which is where you’re going to make your money. 

"You don’t make money on your ticket sales at the door, because that’s what goes to the movie industry.”

That dynamic means Heny is not showing movies with “R” or “X” ratings. It’s strictly PG-13 and on down.

She’s also learned not to shoot for the latest blockbuster right out of the gate.

“If was to show let’s say, ‘Toy Story 5,’ which is playing right now, I’d have to keep that for three weeks,” she said. “Well, three weekends in a row at the drive-in isn’t going to be successful for me.”

Eventually, she’ll bring that move in, but she’ll wait until it’s been out for a while. 

“Then I’ll get it on what they call the break,” she said. “And guess what, they’ll come back and watch it a second, sometimes a third time.”

Movie producers wouldn’t let her drive-in have such a movie anyway, she added, because she’s only open three nights a week.

“They can put it somewhere like Billings or Cheyenne and run it five times a day,” she said. “So that’s kind of how the drive-in business works.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Eternally Vintage"}]

The beating heart that is keeping the American Dream alive when every other drive-in in Wyoming has died goes back to the post-war golden age of drive-in movie theaters. 

Land was still abundant and cheap, and it was newly accessible thanks to a new post-war highway system. 

The economy was booming. Moms and dads had real, disposable income that could be devoted to entertainment. And there were also lots of moms and dads — so many that their children would become known as Baby Boomers. 

These families wanted fun, family experiences, and they had cars with lots of flashy chrome to show off to their neighbors, who were also at the drive-in chasing the same thing. 

The dynamic fueled nearly 4,500 drive-in movie theaters at the height of the sector between the 1950s and 1960s.

“This was originally built in 1949 by a man who had been back East and gone to a drive-in of sorts,” Heny said about the origins of the American Dream. “It was just a big, white sheet stretched across some trees and he just watched and watched.”

The man was so enthralled with watching movies this way, he came home and built his own drive-in theater right next to his property. 

Heny still has many of the speakers from the original drive-in, and she still uses them. 

“I always tell people these are 1949 monotone, metallic-sounding speakers,” she said. “It’s not surround-sound stereo. It’s a little buzzy, but I still like to listen on the speaker.”

She also still has the original popcorn machine. 

“We gutted it and our candy is displayed inside the glass part of it,” she said. “I wanted to keep that a part of the drive-in.”

She kept the patio so people could sit and eat there if they wanted, with tiny tables. 

The drive-in has become known for its cheesy fries, but also offers burgers, hot dogs, donuts, big soft pretzels, popcorn, and ice cream sodas. 

“We still have the big marquee out front, with the letters where you have to climb up on the marquee to put the big plastic letters up,” she said. 

Over the last 22 years that she’s owned the theater, Heny's had the occasional guest suggest that she should just get rid of things like the marquee or the old-fashioned speakers. 

But there’s no way that’s ever happening.

The classic metal speaker boxes aren’t some kind of issue to be fixed The marquee is, in her opinion, a masterpiece. As are the retro Formica countertops in the concession area, which she and her sister spent hours scouring the internet to find.

“I find it funny when kids will say, ‘You know what, you should knock this down and make it more modern,’” she said. “I’m like, ‘It’s a 1949 building. It’s a very ’50s vibe, a very ’50s-diner-type vibe. It’s red, white, and blue. It’s the American dream.

“This is your dream to come to the drive-in,” she added. “Modern? No, that would take away from what it is.”

Heny doesn’t have to look too far to see that she is right. 

Her drive-in routinely has upward of 100 cars a night, often more. She’s drawing people in from all over Wyoming who want the vintage experience of a retro drive-in movie theater. 

Some of them like the experience so much, they have made her drive-in a tradition every summer.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Surviving The Digital Age"}]

Among these is Jeff Ernster of Laramie, who bills himself on Facebook as the 

. He is a fan of all drive-ins in general, and a big fan of Heny’s in particular.

Because the drive-in’s core business is local, it’s got a huge social atmosphere that draws people in.

“It’s just so much fun watching everyone,” he said. “You get to see the kids running around playing out there, and adults as well. It’s just a whole different atmosphere.”

Heny’s drive-in has faced its share of challenges surviving in the modern age. 

In 2013, it was dealt a near fatal blow when the movie industry decided it would release no more reel-to-reel films. That meant everyone had to go digital. 

“The digital projector cost me more than the entire property did when I bought the drive-in,” Heny said. “I think that’s a big reason a lot of drive-ins, which are owned by mom and pops probably in their late 70s, disappeared. 

"They were not going to be able to afford going digital, so that’s probably why they shut down their drive-ins. I’m guessing that’s a big reason a lot of them went dark.”

Heny pushed to pay that expense off as quickly as possible, and managed it in five years.

“My concern with going digital was how soon are we going to have to buy another upgrade?” she said. “But so far, knock on wood, we’re good. We’ve been using the digital for 14 years, so it’s still going strong.”

The toughest challenge, though, is one that’s playing out even now, and that’s the competition from streaming platforms. 

“The digital world, unfortunately, is happening all around us,” she said. “So that’s the hardest part. When I got 'Mario Galaxy,' for example, that was already streaming by the time I showed it. 

"But I still had a good turnout. So that’s our biggest challenge, is just getting people to come out and support instead of saying, ‘Well, I’m just gonna watch it at home.’”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Bull Can Get Real Mean"}]

The American Dream in Powell, Wyoming’s last operating drive-in theater, has survived since 1949 as a retro experience for movie-goers. The current owner bought it in 2004 just to save it. “I didn't want it to get knocked down," Kathleen Heny said.

One More For The Road: Wednesday, October 29, 2025

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