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!