Rolling With It
So we hang out at Roy’s folks’ place for a few days, fix the car (Advance was cool, exchanged the part with no questions, the new part and its performance is a later post), and hit the road. First stop was Mason City to visit Mike and Kelli (and Jack the Dog). Did you know they have a Wright house there? It’s moved to a new location, which seems pretty weird, since he was so particular about house placement. They also had a cool neighborhood with other prarie style houses. Want.
After Mason City, we started out towards the Badlands and the Black Hills. Rain. Rain. Rain. Wind. Trucks. Apparent tornadoes. Rain. Wind. The car, however, performed like a champ. (again, I’ll leave the crunchy details to Roy) We call ahead to Roy’s kin in the Black Hills, and are cheerfully informed that it’s been snowing for a day and a half, and the power is out. We were in the vicinity of the Missouri River and decide to take a detour down some 2 lane route south across South Dakota and most of Nebraska. (did you know Nebraska has this funky marshy area with sand hills and pelicans?)
Getting to North Platte took the rest of the day, so we stopped, had some local Mexican food, and settled down to camp at Lake Mahoney, because you can’t beat $7 a night. This morning, we took off bright and early from camp, and hit 80 west. After about an hour, and eating breakfast at a random truck stop (these rock so hard!) just over the Colorado line, we hit snow. Nothing major, it was the light, dry, tiny kind. So the pavement was dampish, it stuck to the grass, and we couldn’t see the mountains as we approached Denver, but that was about it.
So now, we’re in Denver, camped out in Roy’s little brother’s living room, drinking beer, and telling stories. Due to the snow, I think the 80 route is scrapped…so we’ll probably drop back down to New Mexico and take some variant of the southern route. Or not.
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