Gosh! There's so many things that I've wanted to mention on here... now that I'm writing it, how do I remember them all?I drove all the way to Kellogg, ID, yesterday. Washington was pretty uneventful. Oh! But at I-90 after crossing the Colombia, we went up to the scenic overlook and hiked up to see the Wild Horse Statues. I've been by on the Interstate a bunch of times, but I don't think I've ever stopped! And that was after we had a brief breakfast in Ellensburg at 8 am. That's the earliest we've ever been there! But that's because we left home at 6:30 for an early beginning.
Jason took over driving at Kellogg and went all the way to Butte, where we ate dinner at Pizza Hut (salad bar!). I did some sleeping, but I was awake to see all the rain. And further into Montana, the thunderstorms and lightning. One bolt crashed down rather near to us. It was an immediate crash of thunder and it struck awe into all of us.
I took over after dinner and drove the Continental Divide at 6,000+ feet. The rocks apply named the mountains! So jagged and rough and gorgeous. Incredible to think of people crossing it in wagons! Our stay for the night was not too far away in Belgrade. Jason arranged for a free night's stay at this guy's house through an online service called "couchsurfing.org". I was rather skeptical, but it turned out just fine. Had a wonderful night's sleep.
As of today, we've come 730 miles (gosh!!!) and I ended up driving all of them. I'm taking a good, solid break from it tomorrow though! Our first stop was at The Little Bighorn National Monument... Custer's Last Stand. I'd been there eight years ago when our family last drove out to Minnesota. We saw bunches of different state license plates there, so we started keeping track. It's another good little diversion on a long road trip. Meg says we're only missing 19 or so. Wow, it was a lot of open road from there on! The freeway had a reddish color to it in Wyoming... and I'm pretty sure there were more cows there than people. :) We stopped for lunch at a "town" called Kaycee, where they had a rest stop. lol! Good thing we had lunch stuff in a cooler. There was a great picnic table in the shade and we made a marvelous meal of it. And then there was a lot more driving. At one stretch of road with construction, we were almost run over by a guy getting on. Thank the Lord, everything was fine. There were a few spots in WY that were pretty to look at, but they were few and far between. MT is much more interesting! :) I really enjoyed it when we got off the freeway a while after Casper and sailed along on a nice highway. We ran across an Army base in one *little* tiny town... and I shuddered at the thought of being stationed there.
Soon after we came to Fort Laramie. This was confusing, because we first missed the turnoff sign to the National Park. The town itself is about four blocks long with little businesses that were all closed. Thankfully, there was an outdoor map and we got turned the right way. The Fort itself was very interesting! They have the oldest known building in Wyoming, and a great little visitor center and gift shop. There are lots of buildings still standing and they've renovated the barracks (the oldest building) to be outfitted as if it was the late 1880's. Further down the road there is an old iron works bridge built in 1867 that we walked across and enjoyed.
Just across the boarder into Nebraska (wheee! we made it!) is Scott's Bluff, a landmark of the Oregon Trail and of the great pioneers. We saw it in the distance right away. It's very striking. Also made it to the center on time (before they closed), but after they had finished sending van tours up the bluff (you can't win them all). After looking inside (and getting a patch) we took a little walk between two walls of the bluff on the Oregon Trail. Just gorgeous! The sun was starting to go down and there were sunbeams streaming between the cliffs. Just perfect!
Another 20 miles east on the highway and we came upon Chimney Rock, another pioneer landmark and the setting of the Nebraska State Quarter. The visitor center there had long since closed, but we drove to the end of the road and found "Chimney Rock Rd", a dirt path getting us a little closer to the unbelievably skinny pile of rock. It really was an exceptional time to get there as the sunset in the west (behind the rock) had turned bright orange and purple under the dark blue cloud banks. Just stayed there and watched and listened to the quiet and the crickets in the soft breeze.
We decided to knock off a bit of tomorrow's drive, and kept going for quite a while in the dark. There were lightning storms all around us. While picturesque at Chimney Rock, all it was then was flashes of light in my rear-view mirrors and to my right far ahead. It was kind of a weary drive, but we made real progress. Tomorrow we're going to take it a bit easier and not be wiped out when we arrive... YAY!!!
Jp
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