Like A Hurricane

After my peculiar night in Chadron, Ne, I was off to see what I really came to Nebraska to see, Carhenge about an hour deeper into Nebraska but on my way out too.

Not sure of the logic but a farmer got it in his head to bury and stack old cars in his field.
I first saw it when I moved to Seattle, I thought it would be poetic to see it on my way out. Come to think of it, the weather was wet and drizzly the first time I saw it too. It is pretty cool regardless of why it’s there and the weather you see it in.

It is a bit of a drive from everywhere and not really destination attraction. It takes all of 10 minutes to walk around the field so I would recommend stopping in on the way to somewhere else.

It was looking like it was going to be a rainy day. Next stop Cheyenne, WY. Another town in the middle of nowhere except it doesn’t look that way on the map. I really don’t enjoy putting gas in the car. Never have. But I have been trying to fill up every time I get to half full. I am easily able talk myself out of a fuel stop if I think the next big town is within a half tank’s distance. Cheyenne looked close enough so I just kept rolling.

I did not factor the headwinds that blow through that southern Wyoming corridor. And the summer construction slowdowns were another MPG burden.

There are no gas stations for miles on some of those roads and my fuel light went on about 30 miles out of Cheyenne.  It’s only a 14 gallon tank and I get about 20 MPG on the highway. I can’t imagine that the fuel light is set to go off at 1.5 gallons. I must have been running on fumes and good karma because I limped into the first station I came across and put 15 gallons in my 14 gallon tank.
I walked around Cheyenne for a bit, tried on some western ware (no, not chaps) but got bored pretty quickly.

I decided to drive my full tank of gas to Laramie, an hour on the Interstate west.

I have tried to avoid the interstates as much as possible on this trip. One of my travel theories is the wider the road, the less cool stuff you’ll come across.
This was an exception. There really aren’t any alternate roads between Cheyenne and Laramie. The speed limit is 80 and with the trailer. I am pedal to the metal topped out at 70 if I am going down hill.

By this time the black cloud I was watching all day our in the distance was upon me. There was heavy rain, gusty winds, lightning and semi trucks sticking to the 80 mph. Speed limit. There were no exits and pulling over to the shoulder is more dangerous than driving with truck spray limiting your view up ahead.

With the wind gusts and car speed it was literally like driving in a category  2 hurricane.
That was 30 minutes of white knuckle stress tried to keep on the road.

As I pulled into Laramie, the clouds started parting and the sun broke through.
I had dinner but definitely not much going on there since decided to push through. Ft Collins was just an hour down the road, so I decided to move on.

On my way there, I the black clouds were off in the not to far distance. On the bright side this rainbow, followed me for most of the way down.

I got into Ft Collins while it was still light so I took a stroll down main street where all the bars and restaurants are located. It stretches about 10 blocks so there were plenty of options.  I couldn’t help but think that it looked a but like it was overplanned  by the central bureau though. A little bit of soul was missing from it all.

I chose a bar with a nice porch to watch the people go by but was pretty embarrassed when they started playing the most obnoxious Hip Hop music I have heard without it coming out of a wannabe gangster’s low rider. I was embarrassed to be sitting there. I looked for another bar but nothing really connected so I headed out.  I was tired anyway after the dark and stormy day of travel.

It was a Walmart night.

When I crawled into bed, I noticed that the doors leaked through the storm. The mattress covers were soggy. I am not surprised since I didn’t build 100 mph driving rain  into the design.

Since then I have avoided driving during rain and everything has dried out. Here’s hoping for a drier summer than I have had so far.