July 19, 2007
The sun is just coming up into a clear day in Sheridan, Wyoming, and our plans are for mountain travels today through the Big Horns west and north to Red Cloud, Montana. Our road trip began on Tuesday morning after I had my last CBC in which I received normal blood count readings and my final shot of Neupogen. Our VW Gulf is packed with everything needed for complete comfort and delight, including a sack of meds and a portable refrigerator.
On day one, we ate our noon meal at a Wendy’s in Grand Island where there was a Wurlitzer electronic organ in the corner being played by an older man who then stopped to bus tables. When I complimented him on his playing, he was very pleased and said that he didn’t hear that very often. We both said to ourselves, “Well, that’s ONE job that we aren’t doing right now!” From there, we drove scenic Highway #2 going diagonally west north into and through the sand hills. This is entirely different country – rolling green vistas that compliment the sky and set off the occasional trees. It’s a beautiful drive with almost no traffic, and few towns. Our destination was Alliance, near the western border of Nebraska, and as the hours passed, it got very hot, reaching 100 degrees in the afternoon with beautiful cloud formations and rain off to the north.
We stopped for a hot snack and stroll in the middle of the afternoon at Mullen,NE. No one else was in the establishment, just the woman who made us a very good omelet and her six year old son who “helped” clear after we ate. Across the street, there was a former outhouse facing onto the street, with a dummy inside, and a sign on the front with the inscription, “Campaign Office in Basement”.
We concluded our day’s adventures by driving out of Alliance to see Carhenge in the evening. The gold wheat fields and green irrigated fields were beautiful in the late light, but the stacked, gray painted cars were a uniquely unimpressive sight. Apparently the builder of it did seek to match the same formations as Stonehenge, but without the history and the mystery of the original, it seemed to be just a gathering of old rusting cars painted gray. At a little café/souvenir shop on the grounds we were told that its 20th Anniversary had been celebrated in June this year.
Day Two: We determined to drive through the Agate Fossil Beds Nat’l Monument as we headed west, and to do so meant that we would need to drive a short way on a “gray” line on the map to reach the north/south highway. When we got to the indicated spot, we came to a little gravel road with the sign “Cut Across” and “Pink Schoolhouse Road” on it. Charles was very dubious because it is deserted out there with no houses or people. When I told him it was that or sixty miles out of the way, he said we’d try it. We commenced on a narrow, very rocky road going due west. There were yellow wild flowers on the road sides and small gray birds flew with us in an escort on both sides of the car. We couldn’t drive more than 25 miles an hour, and the birds flew beside us in a dipping flight; when one pair veered off, the next pair came, and this went on for the entire six miles. Charles said that perhaps they thought we were the ultimate mother ship bird and they were giving us due homage.
The Agate Fossil Beds were virtually deserted on this hot summer morning, the only other people present were a German speaking couple meeting us in the doorway. The path up the hills to the excavations had an orange and black sign, “Watch for Rattlesnakes”. We went inside and contented ourselves with looking at the video and studying the dioramas even though in the past, we were quite snubby about people who did that instead of experiencing the actual thing. There were rattlesnake skins lying about on their counters, and that alone was enough to encourage staying inside.
Unfortunately, dear little Gulf with its very low undercarriage was not prepared for Cut Across roads, and we dislodged the cover for the engine so that later, as soon as we drove more than fifty miles per hour, it flapped about. This meant that we had to find a garage with a lift so it could be mended. We limped along westward, becoming that older couple that people wish to shoot at because they are in the line of cars and trucks stacked up behind waiting to pass. I wanted to shout out that normally we were quite as speedy as anyone out there, but alas. . . When we got to Gilette, Wyoming, it was quickly fixed, and we speeded into the end of the day. En route, we passed the town of Lost Spring, Population, 1 (the sign really said that) and we passed over Dead Horse Creek and Crazy Woman Creek. Both of the latter surely had stories worth telling; the names indicating a bit about the land through which we passed.