Nebraska, Wyoming

As I’ve mentioned, the Internet has been hit or miss, and my original intent of stopping at a coffee shop for an hour, sipping a nice Latte (please be a dear and insert the right little like above that) – well that idea has not happened. On this leg of the journey I’m focused on one thing. San Francisco on the 20th. So I’ve had some hefty days. Monday alone was 500 miles, which is way too much for one day. It was through Nebraska, I wasn’t missing anything.

Working on this journaling my initial thoughts of *not* listed departure time and temperature, oil level, average length of hair, etc. turned out to be a good decision. I find all that stuff amusing, but who needs it?

Getting the initial posts out of the way was easy, but the posts while driving (or is it just one?) have been a source of anxiety. And we know part of this trip is not having more anxiety. It’s that I felt compelled to post Every Single Day, and just wasn’t making it. So I figured I’d do a twofer to get caught up. But really, I just need to post when I can, write when I can, and put together a nice narrative for you to enjoy.

That said, let’s talk states! We left off at dawn in..

Nebraska

It was pretty early, at least an hour before the alarm was set to go off. Around 5:45. Yeah, I know, that’s normally bedtime. I think I was just excited to break camp and see how that goes. First this I did was make coffee successfully – yay! Packing up was good, except I was on the road by 7, which seems like a really long time to take to pack up. Future days would be better. While I wasn’t in Nebraska yet, I was minutes away. Also, I have not found a way to gracefully get out of the tent.

I don’t know if I told this already, pretty sure I did. Enjoy it again! When I was in high school my brother graduated from an Army school in Arizona. He had to drive his car back from AZ to MN and my Mom thought it would be a good idea for me to accompany him. No idea why. Anyway, of the elements of the trip I remember are seeing the Untouchables in the base theater with him and his friends, driving through the rockies with Billy Joel’s “The legend of Billy the Kid” and classical music, and driving across Nebraska. It was like someone was just running past you with all the same scenery each time. The only time we stopped overnight on the trip was in Nebraska. I was barely awake, the cones on the highway were. a blur. We were weaving a bit. So he just picked the next hotel and there we were. Next day, more of the same. The parts I don’t remember? Not my first plane right, but certainly my first alone, any kind of grauation they may have had,

Back to the cornhusker state. It’s not completely flat, there are rolling hills. In fact the “big deal” in Nebraska are the sand hills. They’re hills made out of sand, and they’ve covered in grass. They have an awful lot of them. And often they just look like a hairy Windows background. Pretty, though. When there are up and down hills, they tend to be twisty, like if Bug Light decided to make twisties. Adding to the boring is that there are no pullouts, no rest stops, no tourist buildings. Just road.

I have this medical device implanted in my body, and it does a thing every five minutes. If that thing is uncomfortable to doing something annoying to my voice, I can use a magnet to pull a reed switch in the device and it skips that 5 minute cycle. When they implanted it, I got a bot with two moderately large and extremely powerful magnets, along with a belt clip and a watch band thing. Super ugly and large and obnoxious. For the last however many years I have had the belt magnet on me. It works for the task intended, but it’s also a great thing to fiddle with. If I needed a token like in the movie Inception, this would be the one. Bulky though. In thinking about the watch band, somehow I thought maybe someone had a magnetic ring. And they did. It’s a magicians thing for palming coins. Rare Earth, baby! So I’ve been buying and losing and buying and breaking (brittle) rings from Amazon for a long time. They’re cheap, like $7 each.

Now, I’ve lost the belt clip, but it always shows up stuck to a seatbelt or inexplicably in a pocket. And I’ve lost the rings – they’re easier to lose because they’re smaller, but also the fit has to be right. If it’s too lose you’re going to lose it, or it’ll fall off and shatter on the floor. The thing is, I’ve never lost both at the same time. And idiot me didn’t bring a back up ring. So when it fires I sound like Saw Gerrera from Star Wars. I’ve talked to many a clerk in the last few days where I talk to them normally and then all of the sudden I’m hoarsey mchorserson. I get funny looks.

Tonight I stopped at a hardware store and got some magnets, superstrong tape, and velcro. Taped the magnet to the velcro and BOOM problem solved. Though not elegantly. It’s ugly, it itches, and I assume now that I have a solution that works (it just worked! Yay!) I will find the other magnets. Would be great..

Let me complain a little bit. Small towns, would you please just tell us how slow you’re going to make us go? Don’t try and fool us into 50mph and then on no how about 35mph but really we mean 30 mph PSYCH IT’S 25 MPH SUCKER!

On the nature front, not a lot of excitement there, except I saw a little gray fox standing by the side of the road and darted when I passed. Pretty cool since they’re mostly only in Nebraska and don’t hang out on highways much. The campground the night before was beriddled with cottonwood trees, and I don’t think I’m going to get all of the cotton out of the car. Come to think of it I was looking for a tissue today and came across some cotton. I’m just now remembering that’s Actual Southern Cotton. The bugs on the road were really bad, so I ended up finding a car wash which took care of that. Two days later and I’m looking for another car wash..

Was in a much deserved (after a whole night of camping) hotel for the night, loves the bed, the shower, the flushing knob. Miss the challenge of it all, the. sounds, the smells. “Breaking camp” in a hotel is just as time consuming as a campsite, apparently. Pack everything, get it to the car, and reconfigure back to camping ready for the day.

The morning was well under way when I headed for Scott’s Bluff National Monument. I drove on the Oregon trail. At least that’s what the parks called it. I was *so* excited to use my parks pass for the first time. Bad news – it’s free. Hit the visitor center, gift shop (magnets), then off to drive to the summit. (Their words). I thought it was going to be a short nothing road, but it ended up being super twisty. And tunnels! They had tunnels! And not just boring straight ones, but tunnels that had curves, some sharp, in them. I would love to be able to drive up and then back down that road with no other cars. It would be twisty fun!

The view from the top was as you would expect. Very far away things, but also some closer things that were pretty. Look at the picture below to see just how FAR you could see. And I’m going to curse myself here but I’m not sure if it’s because I’m applying to logic and research to some of these places but I just don’t see the crowds I expected. I was alone on top of the Bluff for a good amount of time. Crazy.

Little Observations

Cherry Dr Pepper does not improve Dr Pepper.
I could listen to Barber’s Adagio on loop forever.
Old windmills doing what old windmills are supposed to do.
The car just asked if I wanted to take a break. Bragging point or bad sign?

Wyoming

The route really just glanced off Wyoming. I stopped at a visitor center / state info place that had a monument to Lincoln (his highway is here). He looks so sad. It’s his head on a pedestal. Like someone carved the head and then just abandoned it.

Wyoming was pretty flat, but there are mountains in the distance, and they are striking and beautiful and many have snow. I still don’t understand what a port of entry is, and why they have some not even on borders.

Wyoming infrastructure when it comes to roads is excellent. Everything you wanted in Nebraska you can find on this side of the port of entry.

Health wise, the noises my body makes when breaking camp will be revealed. My shoulder and that whole area is doing okay, taking the muscle relaxants as needed. Depression is still riding shotgun along with whomever that person is. Sullen teenager has be thinking of one of my kids. We’ll see.

My favorite thing of beauty? I’d say the fox. He was a cool dude.

Tomorrow: Colorado and beyond! (hopefully)