RV travels part 7

[Lakota Wolf]

Part 7 Wyoming. To Nebraska.

After spending the rest of the day at Little America, and over dosing on all the bling bling chrome and blinky lights,, its time to relax the eyes and check for holes in the eye lids. Gooood morning,, in the middle of the night. Yup, its just after midnight, stars are out, the truck stop still bustling with travelers, and sounds like a good time to put some more miles under the ole truck. I secure up the ole RV,, and head inside the truckers area and pour me a tall, real mans sized coffee cup,, to go.

I pay the clerk and head back out in the brisk cold air,,, It being somewhere in the low teens,, slight North-Southerly breeze.

In other words,, I havent a clue which way the wind wants to blow. I fire up the ole truck, and sip my coffee as it warms up.

I chuckle at the lil puffs of steam escape the sip hole in the coffee cup.. yes,, it doesnt take much to amuse myself. Truck is warmed up as I slowly cross the parking lot,, taking a last look at the big boys candy land. Just in case you miss stopping here,, up the road a ways is Cheyenne,, and there, they have a smaller Little America truck stop. Just in case your feeling bad about leaving this one.

The advantage of driving at night, is less traffic and is some what more relaxing of sorts. I get on the ramp heading east,, with Cheyenne in my sights and away we go. Ho hum,,,, yes,, it is rather boring as each white lane stripe zips by with the occasional patch of snow and ice. Up ahead is Rock Springs,,, yup, That is one big city with a whole 3 lights and a stop sign clearly visable from the hwy. Its really hard to believe they have a North Rock Springs. hmmmmm..Imagine that?.

Anywho,,  still very uneventful along this stretch of hwy.. Wyoming is a very quiet lonely state,especially at night. Just the hwy, illuminated by the headlights and the sillouettes of a few rock formations in the distance and the occasional on comming headlights. I stumble across a town called Wamsutter.. yea,, I chuckled to at the name,, but they did have a clean well lit fuel stop,, pretty much 40 miles PAST the point of no where. A quick top off of the tanks,, a refill on coffee and a potty stop,, its back on the road again..Nothing eventful as usual, till I see the road sign,, Arlington, next exit.  Hmmmm did I spazz out and end up in Virginia?  Just an F.Y.I. there is an Arlington Virginia,, and apparently here in Wyoming to... who wouldda thunk it?.. Any who,, we zip right past and continue the ho hum darkness journey,,,, This state has to end sooner or later,,, Its nothing like Texas where it takes you a day to just drive halfway across it.

After what seems like a full c/d track,, Laramie is on the horizon.,,, Seeing the fuel is still holding good,, I drive past and through Laramie with Cheyenne just up the road a ways. Again, the roadway is quiet as I almost have all the words of all the songs on this c/d in the player and i think I am almost ready for kereoke night.

I pass through the stretched out town of Cheyenne which does look pretty under a light snow and bright lights. As you get nearer to Nebraska,  Pine Bluffs is the last place you can get that forgotten trinket with the name Wyoming on it.. basically a coffee cup,, shot glass or spoon. P,us they have some good coffee at the fuel stop. Real friendly folks this far east. After you leave there,, Nebraska is approx. 7 minutes away. As you cross the border,, Wyoming fades into the darkness and Your officially in Nebraska. Heres some useless trivia for you travelers that you can bore the kids with.....Nebraska is the only state where they build fire engines.. seriously.. Not to many people know that. See,, ya lernt sumpin. Now dont get me wrong,,, But Nebraska is soooo flat,, I once pulled over to make sure I wasnt halucinating. Houses are like 10 miles apart, making it a nice place to live if you dont want close neighbors.Its a very pretty state during daylight hours,, but at night,, all you see is white lines on the patches of pavement that isnt covered in snow and the occasional farm house along the way. Have I mentioned,, its snow country up this way in the winter time? Which a question comes to mind... when snow melts,, where does the white go?  Anywho,, I cruise till the fuel guages are reading both at half a tank, and I pull off at a rondom exit to another place that takes you to said no where U.S.A.,, quick tank top off,, potty stop and I still have coffee. A walk around the truck and trailer,, alls good, other then road grime as thick as a detroit phone book caked down the sides and front of the trailer. A quick tail light wipe down, and we are good to go. Yes its cold.. I believe its below zero, because what ever moisture is supposed to be in the nose is now frozen. and quite possibly an ice sickle on the end of my nose. Back on the road,,, uneventful as it goes,, Im getting better at singing the songs on the c/d that I have memorized, almost word for word.. I then realize, Im just a stones throw above Colorado.. yea,, Your driving above the continental divide. From Big Spings to North Platte, you will pass several small towns,,, not quite as desolate as Wyoming and the first leg of Nebraska. Here in Nebraska you will come up to Lincoln and will have to head north a ways through Omaha to continue on I-80 East. and Des Moines,,Iowa, is a good place to pull off and grab some rest.

[Russell E Johnson]

This sounds more like your kind of driving, 700+ miles as opposed to the 105 miles you drove the day before.  Little America, WY must be quite a place for you to stop there and spend so much time looking at all the bling LOL.  One thing about going across Wyoming and Nebraska it is the same whether it is daytime or nighttime, there is just about the same amount to see, nothing but flat land broken by trees.  The trees are the only thing that keeps one from seeing yesterday leaving and tomorrow coming from the same vantage point, it is much like Eastern Arkansas LOL.  It takes a while, but eventually, if one lives in the Midwest long enough, you finally start to see the beauty of this part of the country.

I cannot wait to hear of your experience traveling through Omaha, NE during the day. It has the most crazy freeway system, I think the people who laid out the freeways in LA must have been smoking that wacky weed when they did the freeways in Omaha. It is another place that I will go out of my way to avoid. And to add to the confusion is all the road construction going on there. But at least Nebraska is working on their roads, unlike Arkansas. The worst section of I40 is through Arkansas, pot holes and rough sections (read multiple mini pot holes across the highway) that will rattle your fillings loose and screw up a front end alignment in no time flat.

Just as a side note, we were about 5 miles north of Omaha on I29 with the MMP when it broke down and we sat on there with cars and semis whizzing past us at 80 MPH for 5 hours because Good Sam Roadside Assistance could not find a wrecker service that would come and tow us to a repair facility. Not a good time. But eventually we were towed to a great repair place they got the MMP fixed and replace the starter that died while we were at the repair facility. We got ready to go and the starter did not work, turned out it was cooked because of the the heat from the headers and the fact that the heat shield had not been replaced from a prior starter replacement.