Wide Open Spaces

Another long day of driving. Woo, this country is big--my jaw spent the day dropped onto my chest as I traversed parts of the nation I've never seen from the ground. //And those deer I saw yesterday? Not. They were antelope. I thought they'd looked like strange deer, too chubby, and out in the open during the day, which isn't deer behavior. Anyway the frolicking flock bounded off away from the highway, obviously on their way to a play date with the deer. //Today's drive started about 7:30 in Rawlins, Wyoming. Shortly west of there, the landscape opens wide. It's called the Great Divide Basin, and lies up there about 7,000 feet above sea level. And it is about 100 miles in diameter. At 80 miles per hour, that's more than an hour to cross it. In the distance clouds and mist obscured the mountains, but I was puzzled by the many dark clouds. Not thunderheads, they were just long blobby things. As I approached the Bridger Power Plant, I was thunderstruck by the size of the smoke stack--and by the clouds of coal smoke it was belching into the sky. What I'd seen from the distance of close to 100 miles were the burps from that stack. With all the wind that Wyoming has, I wonder why (rhetorcially) there aren't more windfarms than there are. //The road twists and turns quite spectacularly around Rock Springs and Green River, goes back up onto a plateau, past an enormous wind farm (I only saw two in southern Wyoming) and on into Evanston. That town sits at 6,748 feet above sea level. From there it is about 80 miles to Salt Lake City, which sits at 4,266 feet above sea level. You do the math! //I-80 slaloms down down down from Evanston to about Park City, then climbs up up up to go through the Wasatch, then chutes down to northern Utah's floor, where it clots up with traffic. After 2-1/2 days without city traffic, this was not a welcome noontime...so I got off the road and had some lunch. //What happens then is revealed in the signs admonishing "drowsy drivers" to perk up or pull over and sleep. The road speeds west past the lake, out onto flat, flat, flat...er...flats. Salt flats. Aka the Great Salt Lake Desert, home to the DugwayProving Grounds and the Bonneville Speedway. Not a tree in sight; the tallest things are the fenceposts alongside the road. And the road is straight. For 50 miles at least, probably more. I wish I could say parts of it were pretty, but it's flat, the water--where it hasn't evaporated--is green. In the distance you can see mountains; in the rear-view mirror you can see mountains. But from the north to the south, all you can see is flat. //Eventually you reach Wendover, climb into Nevada (more rapidly than you climb into Wyoming from Nebraska), and gain another hour. Take that Daylight Savings Time! Again, I wish I could say it was pretty. The road is up to 6,900+ feet again, and everything you see east of Elko is the same shade of dry, dusty tan. Lots of rocks. I think Nevada wins on rocks, but it has to yield to Wyoming's wind. And mountain ranges, all running north-south, which means you chug up 'em and schuss down the other side. If Lewis and Clark had seen eastern Nevada, I think they'd have thrown up their hands and said, "If Tom wants it that badly, he can come claim it." //At Elko, the Humboldt River shows up, and you rub your eyes because there, on the hillsides, look! It's green! Vegetation follows the river, and even this early in Spring, there are signs that the desert is greening up. But lest the driver be dazzled by these glimpses of incipient seasonal change, the highway promptly twists and turns along the river canyon (Trucks Use Left Lane direct the signs--probably to avoid the fallen rocks at the side of the road), slams into a tunnel, bursts out at the other end...into the same dry, dusty tan back before the river came on the scene. //But to be truthful, not that I was exaggerating at all, but honestly now.... I am in complete awe as I drive. I have long known that these united states are many, collectively large, and shelter an unimaginable diversity of climate, flora, and fauna. And altitudes. And attitudes. On road trips northwest through the Dakotas and across Saskatchewan and Alberta, I'm continually impressed with the expanse of the Plains. But to drive where I've never been--even on an Interstate--is to be exposed to exactly what comprises those myriad differences. Whether these lands were wrested or ceded, they are magnificent. Wind erodes more than water, elevation and rainfall determine what vegetation will grow. We from the East, where water is plentiful, forget that. //So tomorrow I'll get to Carmel and see the Pacific Ocean. From 8,000 feet to sea level; from alfalfa to avocado! For the moment, I'll take my musing over to the comfy chair, read a while, and then go to bed. It's been an amazing day.

If today hasn't been a day...

Note: five spaces followed by two virgules (//) = paragraph break. //OK. Back to the blog. Things started calmly enough this morning in Lincoln, Nebraska. Foggily, but calmly. It was the weather that was foggy--I slept well and felt great. The temperature sign read 32, but I think it was warmer than that. Still, the fog was high--letting in just a bit of sun. It's hard to determine the position of the sun when the air is simply glowing. The road was dry, the visibility good. //East of Kearney I-80 runs alongside the Platte River. While, no, you don't see a lot of the countryside from the Interstate, you do see some of it. Trees to the south said, "Here is the river," and the sky was full of ducks, songbirds, and what I thought were geese. Glancing to the stubbled cornfields on the right, I was thrilled to note that the fields were filled with grey birds. The second glance confirmed that they weren't geese or wild turkeys. They were Sandhill Cranes! Mile after mile of them! //Somewhere in there around North Platte, it started to rain, then snow was added in. It all stopped in less than 10 miles, and by the time I reached the fork where I-76 splits off to head for Denver, the sun shone brightly, wind stirred the branches of roadside trees, and puffs of clouds floated across the sky. //I continued on I-80 West (new territory for me), which promptly began the 150-mile climb from about 3,200 feet to 8,640+ feet just east of Laramie. The landscape holds little more than snow fences sheltering large wind-corniced snow berms, chapparal and rock, dust and rolling open land. Even cattle avoided it. I came down from the height into Laramie, finding a gas station right away. I mentioned yesterday that MSCARLT was running low in the water--well, pushing her uphill and into the by-now-very-strong wind took a lot of gas. //If I'd given any blithe thought to plunging into uncharted territory (to me, anyway), I was quickly disabused of that notion. While I'd smiled benignly as I zipped across Nebraska's Mud Creek and noticed sweet towns named Hershey, I was now playing with the big boys. I jolted across Knife River and widened my eyes at signs for War Axe. West of Cheyenne, more signs admonished "Possible High Winds Next 5 Miles." Repeatedly. Every 5 miles there was a new sign covering the Next 5 Miles. I don't know--maybe it's better than seeing a sign saying "Possible High Winds Next 72 Miles." Oh, and those big overhead signs that usually post Amber Alerts? "Slick Spots Ahead," they announced. "Blowing Snow." "Light Trailers Not Advised." We are, for brevity's sake, ignoring all those signs saying, "Road Closed Ahead When Lights Are Flashing. Exit Here." //I thought again of the insouciance with which, from the comfy depths of my couch, I paged through my road atlas--hmmm, I'll go to California first, I mused. It's interstate all the way, no prob. There's a certain amount of the Honey Badger in that comment (see YouTube...if you can get past the cobras, it's worth it). Wyoming? March? Ppffff. Honey Badger don't give a shit about that. //Of course, Honey Badger never accelerated downhill into the wind either. One thing Wyoming's got a lot of is wind. This place is definitely not for sissies. //So here I am in Rawlins (the temperature sign said 55, but I don't think it was that warm), two nights into my trip, relaxing before bed. I gained an hour today, ...and gosh, I almost forgot to mention that I passed through Sidney (New Braska), home office of Cabela's. //To think I said one doesn't see much from the Interstate!

Day One, Addendum

I am SO SORRY! I didn't realize that the returns at the end of the paragraphs didn't work. Will try to edit! Oh, ick, English major panics at huge long paragraph!

D minus 8

Saturday's dinner party is over, and now I can concentrate on amassing the stacks of stuff I will tote back to Alaska for my second summer on staff at Camp Denali/North Face Lodge. My second summer of living in an indescribable national park (although that doesn't stop me from trying to describe it). My second summer of testing my limits of physical endurance.

No, I'm not climbing up anything or trekking from point A to point B. I refer simply to working 10-hour days this far into my sixties. While the job description is different this summer, I will be in the same location, and I'm hoping that more hours hiking on days off will balance the increase in time spent at a desk in the office.

Like last year, I'll be driving the formidable Miss Scarlett, my red Honda, All. The. Way. To. Alaska. Unlike last year's direct trip northwest, this year's route detours to Carmel, California, and thence north through Oregon, Seattle, (to visit friends and relatives) and British Columbia. I'll pick up the Alaska Highway at Fort Saint John, BC, ending up in Anchorage on the 11th of April.

There will be some who'll gasp and groan at my planned 14 days on the road (come to think of it, so do I, just a little). But just remember that I absolutely love to drive, love to absorb everything I see around me as I go, and yes, I really do enjoy days in the solitary bubble of my car. It's delightful to chat with people I run into along the way; it is instructive to see that others respond happily to out-of-staters at gas stations, restaurants, motels.

Others will ask if I listen to books on tape (no, too distracting), or to music (occasionally), or the radio (NPR is right there at the left end of the FM dial). Often I sing. I make up songs or just dootle-doot-do a tuneless melody. Invented conversations bounce around my cranium, and many of them end up on paper. At a friend's suggestion, and because some of those particularly scintillating inventions bounce right out the window, this year I'm taking a small tape recorder with me. It will sit in the gearshift console, right next to the Nalgene bottle of water and the travel cup for coffee.

Blog postings will come fast and furiously while I'm on the road--they're my conversation at the end of the day, full of observations, random thoughts, even a bit of insight. It's amazing what the brain conjures up while you're alone in the car for nine hours at a stretch. As I did last summer, I invite you to follow my blog for details of "retirement" in the far north. It's the best way to keep each of you current (sort of) with what's going on in my days.

Excelsior!