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Down Day to update maps, blogs, and such

Since we’ll be spending most of the day in the Driggs library using the internet connection to update maps for the rest of the trip, I’ll post some pics of our journey through Teton Pass – where EM was born, in the back of a yellow pickup truck on state road #22.

Honest. At least that’s her story and the smile on her face makes it authentic!

It will always be gopher pass to me. The mother(?) gopher was so intent on pulling the yarn of a hat apart for nesting material – it totally ignored us. I almost stepped on the poor critter. It gets cold up here. Guess some good quality wool is worth the risk. 

Driggs is pretty cool looking, so I’ll post some pictures of town once I’m finished here. 

Up to West Yellowstone tomorrow – the floods and entry rules make it impractical for us to go into Yellowstone, so we are going around. Even with the restrictions, there are probably still way to many people there for us to feel the love. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Moose Road into the Tetons

We took the back road from Wilson into Tetons Park – Jenny Lake area. It was a very nice drive through the lower mountain among the streams, pines, and ponds that define so much of the low lands.  

Reminders of idiots are all around us – in the graffiti cut into trees, and people insistent on racing done dirt roads at 50 mph. 

 

 

The Tetons!!

Always amazing. Always beautiful. Always towering above the valley. Mount Owen is in the background, I think. Let Owen know that he is loved and revered in this place as well. 

 

 

 

 

Jenny Lake

Impressive staircase. We walked around the lake and just relaxed, avoiding the crowds  as much as possible. 

How do you share these wonderful places without destroying them or turning them into little more than Kodak moment sites? 

 

 

 

 

Uhh?

I only give them dollar bills. What they do with the money is their business. 

 

 

Bears, Moose, Fox, Covid-19 OH MY!!!

I didn’t photograph the Covid warning signs. Or the instructions in the pit toilets on how to sit, not stand on the toilet seat. See yesterday’s comment on the utility of signs. 

We did see a moose on the drive to Teton Pass – it was protected by 2 Wildlife Management Officers with the yellow lights on their trucks flashing. I would have taken a picture of them, but there was not a place to safely park and I didn’t want to start a fuss. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We Ride the Sky!

 

 

 

We spend the day on the gondola and trams at Jackson Hole, the ski resort. The top of Rendezvous Mountain was above tree line, cold and windy. I feel like Goldilocks on this trip – ‘it’s too hot, it’s too cold’ – often in the matter of a very seconds. Too hot – step into the shade. Too Cold – step out of the shade. Too hot – take your shirt off. Too cold – wrap your fleece throw around your waist kilt style. 

The view from the top of the mountain was – oh well, you had to be here. I cannot describe adequately the range of feeling and thoughts that the view from the top draws out of you – if you have the time to just sit and be for a few hours. 

My theory on erosion – small children’s propensity to throw rocks downhill.  Hope no one was below them. 

My theory on kingdoms – if we could just get a few hundred more men, this summer we could cross that river and take over all that farmland, and the women! Bet they are fat and sassy with all that green bounty and water over there.

My theory on WARNING signs – the people who lack sense never read them, the people who have sense don’t need to read them – why clutter up the landscape with them – they useless. (other than keeping sign-makers and lawyers employed)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Astoria Hot Springs

On the road again! Headed for a looooong soak in Astoria Hot Springs, then a few miles more to Jackson and the Tetons. 

Astoria has 5 pools, all about the same temperature, 102 degrees. Much easier to soak here and get a tan (burn). My belly turned bright pink like the trout! Awe gosh. I might finally be tanked up on my vitamin D. 

The RED double ‘N’ trestle  bridges that cross the Snake River are the signature of the Astoria Resort. 

After our soak, we headed up to Jackson. OMG! Not the Jackson I or EM remember. She was almost in tears. She lived and worked in up the road in Wilson. Jackson is pure, grade A number 1 tourist town! Shivers up our spine after a month of mostly peaceful, backwater, mild-mannered towns. Felt like NYC, not a mountain town. 

We stop at a few art galleries and bike shops, then fight traffic for an hour to go 4 miles to our, *sigh* peaceful campsite in the woods. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 

Pinedale, Wyoming – behind the Wind River Range and South of the Tetons

EM is back where she grew up. First time in 30 years. The town has grown, yet it still retains its small town, western charm.

We camp in the forest of aspen, pine, and cottonwood along the shore of Freemont Lake, the mountains of the Wind River Range in the background. 

I sleep in while she bikes to old haunts – the sandy beach of the lake she swam, new bike trails in and around town, and high school and other places special to her. 

Eventually I meander into town to get a haircut and rendezvous for breakfast (at 11 or so). 

As I talk with the barber, I am reminded of all the people I have met over the last month that are rabidly anti-leftist democrats and especially the senile old fool in the white house. Their contempt and rage at the crap going on in the name of ‘saving democracy’ is real and as an authentic a truth as any of the alphabet soup crowd.

I fear for our future. Purge seems a more likely resolution rather than the reconciliation that many call for. Balkanization of the country may be in the interim, but purge is always the final solution of balkanization. My question – which side will win? 

We shop. We swim at the Aquatic Center – amazing place with a Yellow Submarine, indoor slip and slide chute, a lazy river and warm hot-tub. All the young pretty girls in bikinis give EM green dreams. She dreamt of one of them naked on my lap! I, in contrast, dreamt of being back on the road, past and future sights to be seen. (I know I have a good thing – experience and season trump inexperience even in tight skin.) 

The Museum of the Mountain Man is wonderfully done. Another short era of the west that we have made seem so long in our history by our retelling of so many of the stories in book and movie form. Fun Facts: 

       – most mountain men were clean shaved – Indian wives preferred clean to whiskers

       – Jim Bridger was one of the party that abandoned the man mauled by a bear and left for dead in the Revenant. He intended to kill Jim when he healed and caught up with him – about 2 years later, but Jim was only 14 at the time so he forgave him. Jim died at the age of 32, possibly at the hands of hostile Indians. His body was never found. 

      – Beaver hats, all the rage of high fashion, drove the trade that trained all the mountain men in their skills and knowledge of the west. Their knowledge would be put to good use when beaver pelts collapsed upon the introduction of silk, by becoming professional guides for western migrants and the Army supporting their movement.  

      – All things repeat – China/silk, blows up the western economy circa 1840. 

We finish the day with a trip out of town to the Herd Drift. A natural choke point between the Duck and Green Rivers, antelope have been hunted here for over 6,000 years as the rivers converge, they force the herds into thick groups making hunting easy. There is an antelope bridge over the highway to facilitate and reduce vehicular impacts with antelope during the migration season. 

This area was the venue for 6 of the 16 annual mountain man rendezvous. 

Finished reading ‘The Trojan War’. Only winner was Aeneous – he left Troy for the mountains the day before the sack due to arguments about what to do with the horse.  He wanted to burn it on the plain. Wise man. He becomes future king of a smaller Troy. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Itchin

We got to Rawlings. EM is itching to get home – Pinedale, Jackson, and the Tetons.

We tour the New Wyoming State Penitentiary (it was closed in 1981, ‘New’ is in reference to its “New” in opening in 1901.) Sorry. No pics. Jails all look the same to me and they are depressing and inhumane. I am for  punishment – isolation from society until you learn to behave, in the form of self supporting penal colonies or penal farms – both of which people wiser (?) than I have decided are inappropriate. Note: same wiser (?) folks are apt to approve just letting them run free in the streets now days – Cali, Portland, NYC, etc. 

We decide to hyperdrive across the South Pass and get EM home to Pinedale. Along the way we will cross several traditional migratory routes – the Oregon Trail being one of them. We can see wear and tear from the wagon wheels and campsites along the way. Lots of open, dry, high, plain.

Took almost a full tank of gas to zig-zag north, then south, then north again to use the wagon pass. As the low gas light comes on, I think of our prior adventure on the road to Custer, South Dakota. 

We are now deep in the west. Roads are guided by mountain passes and gas can be few and far between – and thanks to the wisdom of our current lords – close to $6.00 a gallon.

As isolated at it is – it sure beats the hell out of driving on Interstate 80! We wouldn’t have seen Red Canyon – scar of a fault line exposing the red clay of the Appalachians eroded to what was the ancient sea of the west – until the great lift!

 

 

 

 

Saratoga – home of Hobo Hot Mineral Springs

And – ‘where the trout leap in Main Street’. EM biked into Saratoga across the high plain. The North Platte runs, or meanders, through town such that they have a big island park and two main bridges to get across the river. 

Hobo Hot Springs was hades hot! Main pool – 109 degrees. Second pool – 113 degrees. Lobster Pot – 116 degrees. Yikes! Batman! All to hot for us. We went to the outlets on the Platte and settled into a much more reasonable 100 degrees with cooling water nearby. The distinct smell of brimstone made me yearn for home. If only my satanly father would call me home. (EM punches me every time I say that.)

Camped by the lake just outside of town and were treated to white pelicans, fishing and floating on the waters. After all those brown pelicans of the outer banks, it was odd to see snow white fisher-birds with black tipped wings. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EM’s day off?

When she’s not on the bike, she’s still working on ERP software implementation back at home. 

Once I get all my blogs updated, and bills paid, I’m going to sit on the balcony overlooking main street and pretend I’m the Sheriff.

My people will know they are safe just by my calm, alert, watchful, demeanor as I contemplate each person and action going on in town below. 

 

 

 

 

EM continues the climb up the Poudre Canyon to Cameron Pass

This is a wet, forested, green environ. The Poudre is like a Savage on steroids for you kayakers in the audience. It just keeps giving more, and more continuous wave trains and complex, class 3+ spots of skill required excitement! 

The falls look pretty sketchy! Walk around time!

Spending the night and next day in Walden – River Rock Inn – very pretty inn in a rustic critter décor style. Plenty of room and wi-fi to get this blog updated. 

Town pushes it’s per capita Moose sightings – EM saw three on the way in. I’m counting mosquitos – only the dead – numbering in the hundreds as they swarm in attack formations each time I roll down the windows and have to go outside. 

This valley is IRRIGATED. Lots of water for the cattle, moose, and blood suckers. 

22 miles left in CO. Then into Wyoming – tomorrow. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Night in Ft. Collins – headed into the Rockies today! 

When EM saw me standing by the road, ready to take off my last article of clothing, I think she thought it was time to get off the plains before I went totally feral. It’s always difficult for me. The west seems to bring out the wild child. 

We took hyperdrive from Stoneham to Ft. Collins. 

She was right. Water broke the spell the plains had cast. More disappointment than relief to me. I liked the feeling.  Water has made it recede. 

Rehydrated at a cool Poudre Ditch play park, it was actually chilly with the mountains of the Front Range above us and the cold melt water on our legs. 

Ft. Collins is a city fat with water. Enough to waste it. Very deceptive in it’s layout also. It hides all it’s commerce, warehouses, malls, etc., behind a veneer of trees and bushes. Pretty, yet hard to find stores for resupplying our adventure. 

The people with agendas, in such a rush to get somewhere, is strong here also. It’s too hectic. Gotta get my shit and get on the road. Track down EM ahead on her bike. 

Heading up the Poudre River Canyon – into the mountains at last. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the Plains of Colorado

HOT. DRY. WINDY. AGAIN. 

I think I lived in an environment like the grasslands of western Nebraska and eastern Colorado in a past life. Long, long, time ago. So long ago I have no conscious memory, only a ‘grandmother cell’ that has been triggered with our journey across the vast, open, hot, dry, windy expanse of the plains. Only the feeling of this place exists. No memory.

Shade less, scorching heat, endless hot breath of wind, miles and miles of grass undulating, shimmering waves, giving the appearance of a great brown/green serpent writhing across the landscape. 

As the sound of my sandaled feet crunch on the crisp vegetation, sand, and gravel punctuates the rustle of the wind through the grasses, I feel overdressed. I should be naked, letting mother wind caress every inch of my skin. Carrying away every bit of moisture from both me and the land. 

A feeling of dissolving into the great expanse of wind, sky, grass envelopes me. 

Freedom. 

 

 

Threshold of a Dream

HOT. DRY. WINDY. AGAIN.

That’s all you need to know to be a weatherperson out here. Perhaps in the winter it changes to COLD. WINDY. SNOW. AGAIN.

It did rain for a few minutes this evening. You couldn’t tell by looking at anything except glass or a hard metal surface. The water disappeared into everything else and was gone in a minute or two. It did cool the place down to the low 80’s. 

I watched the western horizon as pale, pastel blue turned into deep purple and the glitter of the night glow of Stirling began to express itself. 

One thought kept repeating itself in my conscious. 

‘On the threshold of a dream.’

On the threshold of which dream? This trip is into day 33 – hardly a threshold. Anticipation of the Rocky Mountains? We are getting closer. We should be able to see mountains tomorrow? 

Or an older dream? Or a dream yet to be dreamt?

On the threshold of a dream. Perhaps going to bed and dreaming will help clarify the thought. 

 

 

 

HyperDrive

We started the morning in McCook with a campground rescue. Most towns have a place transients can camp. Conditions range from a bare spot, to full electricity, sewer, flush toilets, showers, and running water. Many people work in one town during the week and staying at the campsite, then go home, several hours away, for the weekend. 

John had a flat on his Trailblazer. He seemed very frustrated. Like everything had gone wrong in his world and he was stuck. He couldn’t get his jack under the car. He couldn’t find his wrench to remove lugs. He didn’t know how to drop down his spare. Since EM was still sleeping at 5:30 am, I decided to go Boy Scout and help out.

Put my jack under the SUV until it was high enough to get John’s jack under. Jacked her up, another neighbor noticed the conundrum and lent a lug wrench the right size (mine was too big). Got the wheel off – pulled out a nail – which wasn’t in straight enough or deep enough to make a hole. I hooked up my compressor and we filled the tire to 45 psi. Soapy water revealed no leaks.

Why did it go flat? Perhaps the travel Gods were testing our mettle this morning and seeing my puncture repair kit, decided to throw in the towel?

Once all was restored, John seemed in much better spirts. He offered to run out and get me a breakfast taco at Taco Johns. I thanked him for the gesture and declined. I don’t eat that much anymore and I knew EM would want breakfast today.

It also felt like accepting breakfast would change the experience. I helped because John seemed out of options and defeated. I know that feeling. Depending on the issue, it lasts a few seconds, or years. I thought as I walked to the van, ‘I can help someway. I have tools and energy and spirit to help.’

My reward was helping another man to experience that even when you’re cornered, your back is to the wall, and the ceiling is caving in — there is almost always a move that can be made to escape, fix it, or live enough to figure it out another day. 

That was reward enough. Just the satisfaction of movement. A bit here. A bit there. OH! That worked. Let’s try………..

Thank you, John. Travel well and safe. 

101 degrees. Headwinds 20 to 30 mph. Dust. Dust. Dust. Everywhere. We took the hyperdrive to Holyoake. 

You can predict the prosperity of a town on the plains, by the number of rail tracks going thru, and the count of modern grain silos along those rails. Image shows 9 of 100+ silos?

The other image title: abandoned to the dust, wind, and sun. 

 

 

 

 

 

Prairie Museum – McCook, NE

Bison statue outside the museum.  Serves as a reminder that when we celebrate something – it is often dead. Look at how much York is celebrating MANUFACTURING with all the industrial artwork downtown and Manufacturing Day. Manufacturing Day was everyday, except maybe Sunday.

 

 

Near by

Kool-Aid was invented near McCook. The gents tried to ship by rail their 6 fruit flavored drinks that they concocted in their pharmacy. The bottles leaked and much like any parent who has allowed their small children to eat or drink in the car, the railroad was quite put out by the sticky mess the heat expanding, leaky, corked bottles, made all over the cargo area of the freight cars. The brothers converted their liquid gold into crystals. Magic crystals. An empire was born!

The original pharmacy has been moved inside the museum – yes – it’s not much larger than a generous shed or small garage outbuilding compared to todays standards. 

 

 

 

 

 

Jesus

Many items in the museum I remember from an earlier time in my life. This image looks a lot like the one I remember hanging in the front of the Paddletown United Methodist Church. 

Tools and discarded farm implements that we played with and lost in the 500 acre wood are here on display. 

Once again begging the question with which we started our journey – when does trash become history?

 

On that note: 

I ain’t trash. I’m HISTORY! Walking history!

 

 

 

 

By Train, By BUs

Rows and rows of benches like this one were in many of the bus and train stations that crisscrossed the east. I remember sitting on them in places like Augusta, Philly, NY, Boston, Toronto. 

I wonder if they still exist, or have been replaced by the more utilitarian seats that populate our airports. 

My last train ride was in 1986. Pip – you were on it, with Rich and Russ and your mom and I. We slept in a sleeper car on our overnight ride from Harrisburg to Chicago. 

My last plane ride was in 2017? Can’t stand the ride or security theater that one must participate in to ride. I’d much rather hit the open road and drive like we are doing now.  So much is missed flying over drive thru country. 

 

 

Harr’s drive in

They had a movie projector like this. They still might. Remember the old guy smoking the fat stogie in the doorway to the projection room? He’s half-in to keep an eye on the projector, and half-out to watch the show. 

We’d go early to get a good up-front, right under the big screen, spot to watch the double headers.  Burgers, hotdogs, soda, popcorn, and BOCCE!!! were in order, becaauusse….. EVERYONE LOVES BOCCE!!!!

Kids would come over and ask, ‘Whatcha playin?’ 

‘Bocce,’ we’d say.

‘What’s Bocce?’

‘Come play with us – everyone looooves Bocce,’ we’d reply.

We would play, sometimes nearly a dozen kids with our 8 aluminum, made in England balls that PIP and I lugged all 50 pounds of which home from our trip to the United Kingdom in ’99, sharing, passing them back and forth so everyone could join in the novel, exciting fun.  

EVERYONE LOOOOVES BOCCE!! at least until the movie begins. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Harr’s Drive In

Often you got multiple shows for the price of one.  On special evenings it would be a dramatic show of full-moon-rising, dark clouds and lighting rolling along the jagged horizon of South Mountain, too far away to hear the thunder, too far to rain on us, but close and bright enough against the deep purple evening sky to hear Harry say – ‘they’re taking pictures up in heaven this evening’. 

Hope you’re in the pictures, old friend, along with the others we know who are now gone from this plane of existence. Miss you all. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rigors of the Road

 

 

 

Dometic (rant)

Our electric Dometic CoolFreeze gave up the ghost last night. It is dead with an inch of melted ice-no-more water in the bottom of the freezer side. It is 5 years old. It’s been used a lot. I can forgive. I cannot forget nor forgive Dometic for its website and Covid induced destruction. 

Dometic has at least a dozen ‘service dealers’ listed in the Denver/Ft. Collins area (future stop for potential repairs?). Half are no longer in business. the other half are no longer Dometic dealers. One could give me an ‘appointment ‘ in October. 

‘October 2022’, I presume, sarcastically. 

‘Oh! No, Sir. October 2024.’

I now have a veery expensive ice chest. And we still enjoy ice!

 

 

 

Arapaho – Pool

We went swimming to cool EM off after her hot, dusty day on the road and to cool me off of 3 hours of trying to repair or replace the cooler. *SMSH* Waste of my time. 

The pool was grand! A young girl asked us to play ‘no touch’. The object of the game was to keep the beach ball off the surface of the water. Kinda like volleyball with no net. We had so much fun, my wrists were sore later that evening. 

When we said we had to leave, we were asked if we were coming back tomorrow? I explained we were not, and why. 

She said, ‘Well on your way back home, stop in and tell me what the west was like.’

I didn’t know what to say. I felt so many thoughts, I didn’t know which one to pick.  I don’t know were to begin or how to describe the flood of emotion I found myself in. So we’ll leave this as a memory marker and come back to explore more deeply on another day. 

 

 

 

Welcome to Paradise

Arapaho City Campground was awesome! Shaded concrete pad, flush toilets, shower, clean and well maintained, quiet, breezy, cooling off with sprinklers keeping the grass green, while robins alternated hunting bugs in the damp soil, hopping into the shower stream to cool off, and hopping away from the stream so as to not get too wet and cooled. Almost as good as our own chicken tv, yet no Grand Dame to come roost beside me while we watched the show. And then…….. memories of Medicine Bow, Wyoming – as the first train blew its horns and rolled through town for 10 minutes. 

Laughed so hard, I hurt myself. 

Hey! Pipster! 66 and STILL not sleeping in no stinking Holiday Inn Express on MYYY freakin’ vacation!!!!  Love you, baby.   : ) 

 

 

 

“The Future”

Close up – not so sure it is much better than the current state – especially when millions of these will be on the skyline.