8-4-07 1:28 pm MDT
This is just what I needed. A great road trip and I do love road trips. It’s a time to be alone with your thoughts. As I ride shotgun with my husband in his little green S10 pickup, the bed filled with camping gear…we just discovered we forgot our sleeping bags. Guess one of the kids will inherit the old bags we left at the house.
Seaboard Foods…..Gas pipeline?? What’s happening in the rural community , mile marker 305 on Hwy. 385 traveling through the corner of SouthEast Colorado. Enjoying the view of green pastures, horses drinking in windmill powered tanks stretched out in the middle of nowhere. The beauty of rural America.
The new little inexpensive cameras I purchased for our [Visual Literacy] class said memory full! Downloaded picts. What?? Only 13? Wishing I had brough the manual for this road trip! 1:42 pm.
Traveling a two lane highway with no shoulder and faded yellow lines. Bad pot holes filled in with pavement. Makes me wonder about the many miles of Interstate and the disrepair of our bridges and roadways. Frightening thought. Merging on to I-80.
Interesting rail cars. This part of Colorado/Nebraska has much more rail service than my neck of the woods.
Lodgepole Exit 8 miles. Listening to static radio and having to re-scan every 40 miles or so. Nothing out here but trucks moving cargo… Fields of corn tasseled out. It’s a different lifestyle for sure!
I’m still amazed at how green even this part of the country is. Who would imagine we are sucking our aquifers dry?
Wow. I’m impressed with the choices of camera settings on this little $124 Kodak EasyShare C653. Lots of learning in those little menus. Gotta love the power of photography!
Listening to my husband tell one of his motercycle stories when him and Jimmy McLelland rode one year to Sturgis. Rick’s Harley broke down out here in the middle of nowhere, 80 miles from Cheyenne, Wy. They were blessed to have broke down by the driveway of a Nebraska farming family who took them in like friends. The adult daughter went to town and bought beer and steaks and put them up in tents for the night. Wow. America…land of the beautiful. Jimmy…he’s gone now. 2:26 pm. MDT
Gurley, NE. Wow…wheat grain piled on the ground. More stories about the wheel bearing that went out of the QuinStar trailer of my dad’s in Alliance, NE. This was the year Rick and I pulled our motorcycle to the 50th Sturgis rally back in 1990. Oh the good old days of being young and wild and free. I am really going to have to record Rick’s tales. He is so good at remembering ALL the details. (smile)
The day the music died. I started singing Bye Bye Miss American pie…..a favorite song of our two young daughters, now grown. We used to crank up the radio and sing at the top of our voices. Oh the days…wonderful memories!
You and Kenny hauled your motorcycles all the way to Sturgis and never even unloaded them. Drove back home. “The technology they got…ya ought to be able to wake up your camera by just shaking it.” Quote by my husband. Great idea.
Just thinking how much further we’d have been had we gotten up at the sound of our 5 am alarm. But we just didn’t care. It was a leisurly, not a hurry in the world feeling. Something we haven’t experienced in a very long time and it was a wonderful feeling. God is good.
Mile marker 64… headed down Hwy. 385 and some great tunes playing on the old FM channel. The haze of the rolling hills of Nebraska in the distance. Oshkosh, NE 8 miles ahead. Missing the simple days when our own children were traveling with us.
We are at a crossroads in our lives. New to this thing call grand-parenting. Pumpkin Creek. How fun of a name is that for an old Nebraska creek-bed!
Will soon be arriving in Alliance, NE. The official “potty” break. (smile) Mile marker 93. No traffic problems out here as we speed across the plains of Nebraska. Mile marker 100. We are always amazed, driving through here at the number of trains and the length of cars! A mile of brand new empty railroad cars headed North and he’s a blowin his horn. Forgot how the how the hot summer days smell up a cattle yard. Just been gone a little over 2 hours with 265 miles on the odomator. Cole coming from up around Gillette, WY. Do we have abundance of this raw material? Ahhh, time to stretch the legs. Alliance.
On the road again. 3:45 pm MDT Chaddron—56 miles. Two hundred seventy miles and 10.83 gallons. Not bad. Large cup of iced coffee and a French fry at McDonalds and we’re good for another 3 hours.
Listening to NPR. Great content with chellist Eric Freedlander’s story. He mentioned the importance of being a good improviser. Great inspiration for teachers headed back to the classroom. We need to be more improvisational in our work with children.
I just heard my husbands story of how he is the owner of only one baseball card. It just so happens to be an unopened ”rooky” card of Barry Bonns. He said he’s had the card for about 15 years, found in a box of junk purchased at an antique shop in Quinter, KS. He’s about to one home run away from tying Hank Ernas homerun record. Very cool! Ticket to paradise? (smile)
Still reminiscing about days gone by. Motorcycle trip back in 1983. Oh to be young again!
Just picked up two sleeping bags and extra camera batteries at Wal-Mart in Chaddron, NE. Sixty miles to Hot Springs, S.D. at 4:55 pm on Saturday afternoon.
Hot Springs, S.D. 36 miles. Almost there…
Reminiscing … a Turner family reunion in Hill City, S.D. …a train ride with my mom and dad, a night’s stay at Mary & Dan’s…July of 2005.
Wounded Knee, S. D. Boy, it’s been awhile since I’ve read that book. The Black Hills loom in the distance, a blue haze overlaying the landscape.
Awning in the middle of the South-bound lane on a two lane highway right over a hill no less. About 200 feet was the motor home it belonged on. Glad it’s not us. I bet that sounded like the sky was falling. Eeek.
Oh boy….feedlot to the right. Oooeeee, does that ever stink!
It’s 5:40 pm. Rolling down the canyon entering in to the Black Hills. Did you know they are only 50 miles wide and 100 miles long? Looking for a campground. First stop right outside Hot Springs. Allen Ranch. Very cool place to stay. Almost spent the night in a Tipee. What fun. Camera was full so not as many pictures as I would have liked.
Camera note: At 6.1 MP I got 13 pictures on the internal memory. Set it to 4 MP, 20 pics to full.
On to Custer… The air is cool and collecting a few drops of rain on the windshield. Windows are down and there’s hardly any traffic. I love the smell of the air. Beautiful. Makes me want to watch Dances With Wolves again. Starting to see a few more bikes. Just driving out of the Black Hills National Forest. 6:22 pm.
Reminiscing about our trip with the girls to Jewell cave and 4th of July on Mount Rushmore. There’s an openness about the Black Hills that is inviting. Forgot the roll of toilet paper. We never traveled without it with the girls. (smile)
Starting to get hungry now. I passed on the Subway sandwich in Ray, CO. Wasn’t hungry and opted for a large diet coke.
Downtown Custer, S.D. at 6:41 pm. Missing the kids. Just drove past Mary & Dan’s old house. Quite a few bikes in Custer already. Roadpics.com..see yourself online was the caption on the van in ront of us.
Stopped to check on some camping cabins we spied in a roadside campground just outside Custer …. $22.95 for a tent site and $55 for a cabin. We may come back. Heading on down the road toward Hill City. Just passing by Carzy Horse Mountain. Hill City 9 miles.
I’ve forgotten how much it cools down up here when the sun starts to set. Just passed the Crooked Creek Resort...Turner reunion 2005.
Stopped at another camp ground on the outskirts of Hill City. Nice cabins. Checking on prices…oh dear, this ones $99. More than I wanted to spend but Rick was begging. Should have gotten money at the ATM. Okay…it’s worth every penny and there’s wireless access!!! I would highly recommend spending a night at the PineRest Cabins!
Sorry...no time to add links tonight.
Signing off for today….7:52 pm MDT
Love you all--Mom
