Dreams, Moments, Travels
Sunday, we visited the California Science Center to see Body Worlds. We both enjoyed the peek into our bodies and had wished to visit a second time; maybe as it tours other cities, we will have that opportunity – it is well worth a visit if for nothing more than its tremendous educational potential.
Saturday, we took in Temptation 2004. This show was a Bollywood spectacular featuring Shahrukh Khan, Preity Zinta, Rani Mukherjee, and Saif Ali Khan. I don’t believe Caroline and I have ever been to a more culturally diverse event in our lives.
We had 802 miles to travel before getting home around 9:00 p.m., so we were on the road by 5:30, well before the sun made an appearance.
An hour later, we were yet to see the sunrise, but this was even better, a large flock of sheep ambling down the road. This is the kind of traffic jam we can enjoy.
Out of Baggs, Wyoming, and into Colorado on State Road 13. Yay, the sun has returned.
I will never accept the name of this chain of gas stations outside my reading of it as a 15-year-old, juvenile, dirty-minded idiot.
From Craig, Colorado, where we came and went, we continued south a while to Meeker, picking up State Road 64 west towards Rangely, Colorado.
Oh, do we really have time for these kinds of detours? Yeah, but what if we never pass through this area again? Will we regret not having stopped at the Waving Hands site? Okay, but just this one time.
From Rangely, we were driving straight south on the 138 until reaching Loma, where caught the dreaded Interstate 70 over to Cisco, Utah. Making tracks now.
The Desert Southwest comes back into view, approaching Dewey, Utah, on the 128 with a great drive along the Colorado River.
Near the junction where Moab, Utah, connects the Colorado River to Arches and Canyonlands National Parks. No time to fool around as it’s getting close to 2:00 p.m., except we are hungry and need to stretch our legs, so why not head over to Eddie McStiff’s for some hot lunch? Great, they are closed for Labor Day, so we went to the Mondo Cafe even though they don’t feature Eddie’s signature miso dressing.
Hole N” The Rock south of Moab is a place we’ve wanted to visit, but we never had time, so why not stop on this day when we only have 800 miles to cover?
Albert Christensen, who built this hole-in-the-rock abode, had a beloved donkey named Harry. While Albert and his wife are gone, Harry, the Donkey is still present in their living room as a stuffed sight to behold. It seems that Mr. Christensen was an amateur taxidermist who should have considered taking his skills to Hollywood to work in special effects for horror films.
We are near Mexican Hat, Utah, on our way toward Monument Valley. Those layers out there are one of Caroline’s all-time favorite roadside views.
There are things more important than showing you one more photo of Monument Valley that we’ve all seen before, but this menu at the Mitchell Butte Dinner on the road leading into Monument Valley will prove to be a real rarity. For Caroline and I, one of the treats of driving up this stretch of road was the vendors hawking Navajo arts and food items, but some years after this visit, in trying to modernize people’s experience here, the vendors were pushed out and their shacks removed.
In our book of southwest delicacies, the roast mutton and grilled chilies on fry bread is a treat we cannot pass up. Maybe we should have eaten a lighter lunch up in Moab so we could have shared three or four of these nearly burned, tough old muttons that require a commitment to eat. Rarely do we leave without a heavy-duty workout of the jaw muscles.
Almost exactly 72 hours after we left on Friday, we are reentering Arizona, having paid visits to New Mexico, Oklahoma, Colorado, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Utah. Almost home.
We are approaching the edge of the Navajo Reservation as we leave Tuba City and turn south towards Flagstaff.
What a glorious sunset to send us off with. Oh, wait, what’s going on up ahead? An hour after we left Flagstaff and just a bit south of Camp Verde, with only 90 miles left out of 2700 driven so far we hit a traffic jam. This is no ordinary jam either, as we are barely moving. Thirty minutes after we first stopped we reset the odometer to better monitor our progress. Time check 8:20 p.m. By 9:10 p.m., we traveled a total of 1.7 miles. 9:50 p.m., and we are 5.1 miles down Highway 17. It’s not until 10:25 p.m., two hours and 7 miles after things came to a crawl that this clears up, and we are finally on our way home in earnest with an hour to go before we arrive.
When it’s not even 6:00 a.m. yet, you visit Carhenge in the dark because it’s not really light out yet. I try to tell myself that being early is allowing me to capture these silhouettes instead of the cars in full daylight, like normal people.
These Nebraskans must be related to the people of Alabama, as who else erects rest areas like this? Well, when you gotta go, you just grab your German news magazine, climb the hay bail, and perch like nobody’s watching.
We just passed through Whiteclay, Nebraska, to get into a cold South Dakota and hope we never have to pass this way again. Next up was Pine Ridge, South Dakota, which I suppose is a kind of capital city of the Pine Ridge Reservation and home to the Oglala Lakota Indians. In Lakota, the reservation is known as Wazí Aháŋhaŋ Oyáŋke.
This is not the place to be on a gray, cold, and wet day as the place is already embued with tragedy as it was here that American soldiers killed nearly 300 Lakota, about half of whom were women and children. They were buried in a mass grave by American troops looming over them as conquering heroes, with more than a few being awarded medals for their efforts. It doesn’t matter that this was 114 years ago as I try to imagine how the survivors feel knowing my ancestors tried to extinct the bison and them after stealing their lands. If it were me, I’d probably have a chip on my shoulder.
For those who want to relegate this to ancient history, consider that Black Elk, born Heȟáka Sápa in 1863, didn’t die until 1950 or 4 years after Bill Clinton was born. Black Elk was a witness to the massacre when he was 27 years old, so we can be certain it was an image that stayed with him his entire life. He was also the second cousin to Crazy Horse, which is the monument that is the focus of our ultimate destination on this trip into the Great Plains.
The gloom is a kind of poetic wrapper for the gravity of what these lands represent, but we didn’t come up here to be depressed or feel bad. No, we came to Badlands to witness nature and to arrive wearing smiles to add some brightness to the day.
Doesn’t look good for taking a trail into the badlands of Badlands. Maybe the rain will stop and quickly run off so we can see more of this national park by walking over it instead of from our car windows.
Scenic, South Dakota, is home to the Longhorn Saloon that, while closed now, apparently allowed Lakota Indians in its establishment when it was still in business. From the zombie population of alcoholics in Whiteclay and a massacre at Wounded Knee Creek to reminders of our segregationist past, I’m not all that certain. I’m enjoying our visit to South Dakota this time.
There’s much to learn out here at Badlands but we don’t have access to any information about the land. While this looks like the banded layers of ash from volcanic discharge that fell on the area of Petrified Forest in Arizona, we don’t really know if this is the same process. It is pretty, though, even in the foul weather.
Yes, we want to explore below. No, we don’t want to do so in the mud.
Leaving the White River Valley Overlook in the previous photo, we are on our way out of the park and stop one last time before giving up all hope of the clouds parting and the sun popping out.
Hmm, I’d heard of this famous stop on the road; we’ll have to check it out.
Stepping back in time is a major theme of exploring America. What happened to those days of moving into the future? Wall Drug was mostly worth the visit, but it’s showing its age, making me wonder how many more years will it be able to hold on as an attraction that is likely more appealing to older Americans needing that nostalgic sense of another time and age.
Mount Rushmore offers up some side-boob (no offense meant) as we do a drive-by. To gather a glimpse was enough as we weren’t in the mood for crowds, and it wasn’t all that long ago that we were here for a more extensive visit.
The Crazy Horse Monument is what we really wanted to see until we got here and realized it was not something we needed to see. At least the sky is clearing. My feelings about the tragedy of everything out here are muddying my ability to enjoy myself. Maybe I’m just tired?
No, I’m just disappointed in all of this. Even Mount Rushmore was carved out of mountains known as the Black Hills, which were sacred to the Lakota Sioux. The man who created the monument was Gutzon Borglum, who was a white supremacist noted for referring to non-whites as the “mongrel horde.” Then this monument to Crazy Horse feels like a cheap commercial grab where money and selling trinkets are the only thing being celebrated instead of offering something that should have the same respect of a church, but then again, the Lakota will never get government sponsorship to build a monument to someone it hated at one time.
That flap of hair from Caroline that I’m wearing makes my head look stranger than normal; as a matter of fact, maybe it makes me look fatter. Nah, I’m just fat, and Caroline is not tall, but the sky is blue, and we are in Wyoming, moving south again.
We passed through Newcastle, Wyoming, shortly after entering the state and took a note to learn who Anna Miller was. Turns out she was the wife of a sheriff who was the last person killed in the area during the Indian Wars, so instead of celebrating the brave countrymen defending their ancestral lands, we honor the marauding intruder and his wife by naming a museum after them. I need to hit the gas and escape our twisted history.
We are on the edge of the Black Thunder Coal Mine, one of the largest, if not the largest, coal producers on earth. How appropriate it seems that the black heart of the region is an open festering sore contributing to the fouling of our environment. My cynicism is not the best quality I know, but it seems to be all I have today.
Trying to chill in the beauty of things and be appreciative that we are able to see and feel.
We are passing through Casper, Wyoming, here at sunset, driving in the direction of Medicine Bow. Along the way, we are listening to someone reading from the book The Hiding Place about Corrie ten Boom and her ordeal as a prisoner in the women’s concentration camp known as Ravensbrück after helping Jews hide from Nazis.
It’s 10:00 p.m. when we pull into Riverside, Wyoming, to spend the night at the Bear Trap Bar & Cabins.
Saturday and the clock is ticking, so we are up before the sun and already on the road at 6:00 a.m. We don’t get far before we stop for gas at only $1.89 a gallon, fresh ice for the ice chest as we are traveling with food in the back seat in order to save time needing to eat at restaurants, and we got a coffee. Hey, wait a minute, didn’t I just say yesterday that we don’t drink gas station coffee? Sometimes beggars can’t be choosers, and knowing that on the roads we’re taking today, there’s not a chance of coming across anything better, we opt for something resembling coffee as we desperately need it after our brief five-and-a-half hours of sleep.
We’re more than 90 minutes further east in our journey when it occurs to us that the sections of Route 66 that are still out here may not always be so and that we should use this opportunity to check out the sights. This was part of the old town called Montoya in New Mexico.
Old Route 66 is being consumed by nature, and many of its remaining stretches don’t even look this well preserved. A few plants didn’t stop our exploration, but at some point, things got too narrow, dictating we turn around. A single bemused horse watches what must be some kind of routine as we tourists can go no further.
If you are traveling New Mexico Road 54, you’ll reach Nara Visa right before the Texas border, but Texas is not part of our travel plans, so here in this town that is mostly occupied by ghosts, we turn north onto the 402 along the eastern border of New Mexico.
Don’t be a douchebag and run over tortoises for your twisted blood sport; yeah, I’m talking to you pickup drivers who seem to aim for wildlife crossing America’s country roads. Instead, get out of your vehicle and help the creature across; it might help your ruined karma.
Further up the road from Amistad, where we had the tortoise encounter, we are stopping in Clayton, New Mexico, to fill up on gas, get another cup of coffee, and indulge in an energizing ice cream sandwich.
Should anyone else wonder what is to be found in Seneca, New Mexico, not to be confused with Seneca the Younger, this is about it. Maybe a certain amount of personal tragedy would play out if this were home, as besides some rough-hewn farming there doesn’t appear much else to do for those stoic enough to hammer out a living on this anvil.
It’s not even lunchtime as we enter Oklahoma. The first time we passed through this state was over by Kerrick so today had to be somewhere else, anywhere else other than that. Not that Kerrick was somehow bad, boring, or otherwise undesirable, but we have this thing of trying new roads as frequently as possible, so here we are out on one of the four western Oklahoma state lines.
Note from November 2023: I’m reviewing blog posts with the oldest dates, and when I got to this post, this image from Kenton, Oklahoma, had no text. I’m aghast that I could have made this oversight while my editor (Caroline) failed to let me know to add something or other here. Well, here I am, good at casting blame but poor in offering context, so it goes.
It must have been prairie gas or some other deliriant that caused us to miss our road north as we blew right by it and are now going south toward Boise City, Oklahoma. Lucky us that the space looks bigger than the reality of what it is and we are only about 15 miles off-track.
Home of the Rockies and the Mile-High City of Denver, the San Juan Mountains, and the Durango steam train that brings visitors to Silverton. And then there’s the eastern side of the state.
Welcome to the Great Plains, where this side of Colorado is as flat as a board, but at least there’s one tree.
Caroline claims to have seen a tumbleweed, but I see nothing and just keep driving.
Time stopped for this car, this barn, that home. The weather comes and goes, as do the grasses and trees, but people abandoned hope that this would be the place of their dreams and are no longer tending to their futures. These are our time capsules of another point in our history.
The first things that come to mind in Eastern Colorado are not head-sized sunflowers. At the moment, they and Caroline’s smile are the brightest things out here.
Somewhere between the fields, we crossed into Nebraska and an endless sea of corn.
Thirty minutes after entering Nebraska, we are crossing the North Platte River. It’s late in the setting sun’s routine of disappearance, but that doesn’t stop Caroline from scrambling down the hill to stand in a shallow braid of the river. This is the first time ever that my wife has stood in a river in Nebraska, and hopefully not the last.
For orientation purposes, we crossed from Julesburg, Colorado, into Nebraska, where the 11 became the 27 on our way to Oshkosh and further north to Alliance, where we had to call it quits due to fatigue. Dinner was at the Wonderful Kitchen Chinese Restaurant; that’s how tired we were. Our motel was the Rainbow Lodge. Neither place was great, but how amazing is it to end your day with ideas of rainbows and the things that are wonderful?
It’s Friday afternoon at 4:00 p.m. when we head out for our Labor Day celebration that is taking us on a crazy journey all the way to South Dakota and back by Monday night. Over the course of this out-and-back marathon, we’ll travel more than 2,700 miles or 4,300km.
We know this road well but feel the need to snap a photo along the way from time to time, so if in the future we no longer have the capacity to travel as we do, we’ll have these visual and written reminders of thousands of random spots along our path.
By 6:00, we passed through Flagstaff. By 7:00, we stopped in Winslow for coffee, but the one shop that sells the stuff was already closed, and we don’t do gas station coffee. From time to time, in the distance, we see flashes of lightning, but we never find ourselves in the thick of it. Shortly before midnight in New Mexico and on the other side of Albuquerque we pull into the Sunset Motel in Moriarty for a night of sleep.
Dream Note: I wake just after 5:00 from a dream featuring guidance from God to stop traveling with fear. It told me that my afterlife would be a composite of places seen, dreamt of, explored, and feared. I had input into what could be my version of hell if I allowed fear and anxiety to be drivers over the course of my life. To some degree, this reminds me of the story from the Robin Williams film What Dreams May Come that I watched six years ago. In the dream, I’m an infant learning to navigate an infinite space that doesn’t conform to the physics of our world. I’m being encouraged not to give in to fear as I fly, levitate, and careen wildly through my universe.
I’d like to add that this dream happened three years before I started sleep therapy using a CPAP. During these days of such fitful sleep, I was often startled by the vivid, nearly lucid nature of my dreams that were often happening near the edge of my waking state from not breathing and my body’s desperate desire to fall into a deep sleep as soon as I rested my head.