Laramie

Arrived about an hour ago.  Thinking about what to do tonite.  I could use a break from sleeping in the truck.  Actually what I could use a break from is sleeping in garden spots like where I am now.  The Laramie Flying J isn't as big or nice as the one in SLC.  I may hunt for something else, but its getting late here.  I have a couple things I want to do in town tomorrow. 

I did have a deja vu moment when i pulled in.  It was so much like the familiar Pilot at Fernley.

 

Update:  I'm feeling happier about spending the night here since I came inside and asked if overnighting was cool, and a very nice clerk said of course, made me feel especially welcome, suggested where I'd be most comfortable parking, and assured me it was safe.  What really did it though was that she told me there were AC outlets in the 24 hour restaurant I could use for the laptop.  This is good news indeed, because the battery was getting low and I haven't tried out the new 12-volt charger yet, seeing as how my two outlets in Goose are usually occupied.  I wanted to put up the big update for today before I hit the hay rather than doing it in the morning in order to try and be more efficient with time.  As I may have mentioned, the Mountain Kimmie Trucking Company is in danger of getting a very bad reputation for playing loose with the driver schedule.

 

There are so many photos I wish I could have captured on the drive from Salt Lake City to Laramie.  Leaving SLC the countryside was beautiful and green, with bright red rocks and soil, so vividly colored it is hard to belive.  In Wyoming, skirting the town of Green River (and the Green River itself is beautiful even viewed from the Interstate, a deep green color making it obvious how it got its name), the highway winds past fantastic rock formations in spectacular cartoon colors.  It is roadrunner and coyote country and I wouldn't have been surprised to see either of them.  The music I was streaming from Grateful Dead Radio was perfectly suited to the weird, fantastic scenery, a spacey passage that I can't give you details on because I was too busy driving and looking at the scenery (which would make my Dad happy) to note the show date.  Doesn't matter anyway, it only matters that I started to hit my stride, Goose had her wings under her and I was so happy to be back in Wyoming!

 

High mesas that drop away abruptly, wide views, and between Rock Springs and Rawlins there were many pronghorn antelope grazing or just standing like tawny statues in the late afternoon sun.  At one point as I came down a long incline I saw an enormous shadow cast across the road and on into the rangeland beyond, and then I realized it was a butte standing just in front of the sinking sun and casting that long, long shadow across the land.  And then I was in the shadow myself, the golden light dimming, and then out the other side, back into the light and on into the space and sweeping sky that is Wyoming.  Pump jacks off in the distance, sturdy range fencing, sage giving way to vivid green, tufted grasses, handsome cattle, and the warm, green smell of greengrass, the very same that Mary O’Hara wrote about in her book The Green Grass of Wyoming, third in the series that started with My Friend Flicka.  The smell is so noticeable after the arid desert, the land and climate changing steadily as Goose beats her way east.

 

Road work slowed things down some.  I’m finding that I’m good for about 100 miles of driving before needing at least a quick stop, and I hit a truck stop just before Rawlin for a fast break before getting back in the saddle.  The sun finally sank but the light stayed on and on as I approached what felt like the edge of something I was about to peek over.  It was the edge of my known universe, the point where I could look out over a part of the country I’d never seen, the other half of my country, as I think of it.  I’ve been to Wyoming, but not as far east as Laramie.

 

The last part of the drive to Laramie was in darkness, although the western sky was filled with incandescent light that lingered and lingered.  I noticed that Goose’s headlights need to be aimed, they are cockeyed and don’t light the road as well as they should, and they are a rather anemic yellow compared to modern high intensity beams.  I can replace the lamps with newer, brighter models, but I think getting them aimed will help.  I had told myself to get it done while on my last road trip, but of course in the huge list of things to do it got forgotten.  I do clean them thoroughly along with the windshield every time I stop for gas, so the problem isn’t dirt.  I may get the oil changed before the return leg, and might try to get them aimed up or even replaced then.

 

Pulled into Laramie just about ten o’clock.  I would have pushed on to Cheyenne, but there a few things I want to do in Laramie in the morning.

 

Today’s official soundtrack:  The Pogues “Rum, Sodomy and The Lash.”

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