Abbie's Real Life Blog

Click here to see the map of this leg of the trip!

This is the final leg of the trip.  Here are links to the First Leg, Second Leg (Part One), Second Leg (Part Two), and Third Leg.

The road, US Highway 26, climbs up into high country on its way out of the Tetons and into the Wind River Range. At one point I got out of the car to stretch in an area that still had a foot of snow on the ground on June 9. But then I started heading down and reached the town of Dubois, Wyoming.

I was not really prepared to hit such beautiful landscape outside Dubois, I’m sorry to say. I’m not sure what I thought I would see in central Wyoming, but what I saw was gorgeous. I love mountains, but I love ancient, eroded mountains even more, and it was so clear as I headed east that I was going through what must have been a spectacular range of ancient mountains. In and immediately around Dubois, they were eroded so that striations of red and white rock were easily visible so the hills looked striped. As I continued east, more colors were visible, and against the blue sky and green grass, it was quite amazing.

I continued east until the town of Shoshoni, where I turned north to Thermopolis, Wyoming, in a quest for Hot Springs State Park. Thermopolis is home to the ‘world’s largest mineral hot springs’. I had never been to a hot springs, and wanted to try it. I thought it would be a neat end to a visit to an area with so many thermal features.

But if I was not prepared for the pretty area around Dubois, I was really not prepared for the Wind River Canyon, through which the road between Shoshoni and Thermopolis cuts. I drove it at about twenty-five miles an hour, trying to pull over for any cars stuck behind me, but so entranced by the rocks that my mouth was just constantly hanging open. It was gorgeous. And there were signs, estimating age of the rocks, pointing to specific outcroppings. I was fascinated. Again, I have no idea how people live in that area without being regularly overwhelmed by the geologic history.

Thermopolis was a nice sized town and clearly had been making a tourist attraction of the hot springs for the past hundred years. In the state park itself, two waterparks operated on either side of a dour-looking, institutional State Bathhouse. The waterparks looked like they’d been built no later than 1940, and lots of families were entering and leaving carrying water toys. The State Bathhouse, on the other hand, looked like a place where someone might be locked up in a rubber-walled room and forced to take, at the hands of a cruel nurse, baths in a gleaming white-tiled bathroom. Guess which one I chose? The State Bathhouse, because it was free and looked serious about the idea of mineral springs.

The guy at the desk when I walked in was quite friendly, and when I had proved that I had no idea what to expect, he launched into a routine about what was available and what was not, and how it all worked. It was a free twenty-minute soak in either the outside or inside pool, both of which involved water of 104 degrees. They would rent me a bathing suit and a towel. Separate sign-in sheets for men and women. Women’s changing room to the right, please.

This is exactly the kind of thing I don’t tend to do on my own, but that was exactly the reason I’d come. I’d never soaked in a hot springs before, and I wanted to do it. I had brought a bathing suit and towel all this way just for this purpose (though I’d have been up for another swimming opportunity if it had presented itself, which it did not), so I pulled it out, went back in, signed up, and got changed.

The whole place smelled of sulphur. It had smelled of sulphur at Mammoth Hot Springs and in the geyser basins, and the smell had kind of overwhelmed me there. I rather thought it stunk, actually. But the smell here seemed more medicinal than unpleasant.

The water itself was very warm, hotter than any jacuzzi I’d ever been in. I could sit with water to my chin, but only for about half the time. Then I needed to pull the top half of my body out into the cool spring air, because it was too hot to endure for the whole twenty minutes. There were a number of people in the pool, but it was not full. I was interested in the mix of tourists and locals. Clearly I’d hit there at lunchtime when a few locals came to take a regular soak at the hot springs. They were chatty. It was pleasant.

I probably left the pool a couple of minutes early, but it was very hot in the water and I couldn’t quite bear it. I rinsed off the sulphur water and changed into normal clothes. I felt extremely relaxed, like after a good swim or a massage.  Outside, the cool air (probably in the mid-fifties) felt wonderful, and even though it looked like it might rain, I grabbed a picnic table and had lunch there at the state park, and then walked around for awhile.  Nearby, they’d created a travertine hot springs by diverting the hot water in a fountain on a platform in the park, where it made itself a natural travertine cone.

It was right about 1:00pm when I left Thermopolis, but I smelled of sulphur for the rest of the day.  And the feeling of relaxation lasted as well.  I’m so glad I made that stop.

But it was time to head south.  It was time to get serious about the drive, because the goal was to make it to Scottsbluff, Nebraska, by the end of the day.  I headed south again (through the Wind River Canyon, and I stopped a couple of times this time, but the weather was cloudy and the sun was high, so pictures were not really optimal) to Shoshoni, then east on US Highway 26 to Casper, Wyoming.  The highway there was only two lane, like in eastern Montana, but the speed limit is 75 and there is not much in the way of traffic.

The snow-capped Rockies are still in my rearview mirror.  Not for long!  On to Casper and Cheyenne. -2:35pm, June 9, 2010.

Mid-Missouri felt very far away there, but I was on target to be home the following evening.  The landscape here was still very strange- lots of sagebrush and buttes, and the valleys were enormous.  I loved it.  For a hundred miles I followed a huge storm system to the northeast.  I could see it in the distance, lightning and all.  It was really amazing.

Amused by Casper signs directing me to “Midwest”.  Okay, yes, that’s generally the direction I want to go. http://yfrog.com/4bnczdj – 4:37pm, June 9, 2010

Oh shit.  Midwest is a town in Wyo AND it’s in the opposite direction of the Real Midwest.  Sorry, Casper.  At least I spelled your name right.  - 4:46pm, June 9, 2010

After the above little mixup in Casper (which, luckily, I corrected quickly), I got on I-25 and the drive to the Nebraska/Wyoming border did not take very long.  I was either listening to the book Roads to Quoz by William Least Heat-Moon or rocking out to oldies and Motown, depending on the mood.  I could still see the giant storm system to the north and east.

I stopped for gas in Torrington, Wyoming, and here there were fresh puddles on the pavement.  I turned on the radio to discover that there were tornado warnings in the immediate area, and I considered stopping in Torrington for the night.  This probably would have saved some hassle and it’s not that far from Scottsbluff, Nebraska, but I was still hoping to make it to Scottsbluff for sunset.  So I drove right into the back of the storm system.

The storm system was ginormous and was dumping an amazing amount of rain.  It was also moving at roughly 40mph.  The rain was so heavy that I could barely see to drive, and I ended up pulling over on the shoulder for fifteen minutes until the storm got ahead of me.  I then literally followed the storm at about 35mph, slowing whenever I drove into harder rain, and in that way I followed the storm system into Scottsbluff.  It was kind of a crazy experience.

I hit Scottsbluff right at sunset, but the clouds were not quite pretty.  I drove through the monument area and sized it up, but I would have to return at sunrise.  It was pretty late at this point, and I had not yet found a hotel for the night.  I talked to my mom on the phone and to Tracy, and then finally started to get serious about a hotel.  I didn’t think it would be a problem.

I was wrong.  I stopped at two places, and both were full on a Wednesday night at 9:00pm in a town not on an interstate.  Very strange.  I headed towards the north side of town and stopped at a chain hotel which was also full and I had an irritating conversation with the clerk.  I simply asked if there was something going on in town that would be the reason that the hotels were all filled up, and the woman rudely told me that she “didn’t talk to the other hotels in town so how would she know?”  I was tired and this pissed me off, because I was asking if there was a convention or something else big going on, and she should jolly well have a clue about her own [small] town’s happenings.  It is her job, after all.  But I didn’t get rude, and then she made some comment about insurance adjusters and storm chasers and told me to try another hotel across the road.  So I did.  In this one, I could barely fit into the lobby because it was filled with two burly guys and a woman with a large video camera.  I quickly assessed that they were being filmed for a reality show or documentary of some kind, which didn’t interest me so much as irritate me, especially since there was no one behind the registration desk at the hotel.  When it became clear that this hotel was also full, I decided to head in the opposite direction of the storm and backtrack, possibly to Torrington if necessary.

Luckily, I found a room at a hotel in Morrill, which is a very small town in Nebraska near the Wyoming border, but which seems to get good business from people who work on the railroad that goes through town.  I am not sure if I got the last room or not, but it seemed that way.  I was very pleased not to have to backtrack all the way back across the Wyoming border, and I set about doing my backups and eating my dinner while watching weather radars on my computer as another storm system was heading in our direction.

I have had a weird obsession with tracking storms since I moved back to Missouri in 2006, not out of interest but mostly out of fear.  I am terrified of being hit by a tornado.  The fear has lessened slightly in the past few years, but it is still there.  I no longer wake to every single thunderbolt or drag my comforter into the bathtub at a sign of a tornado watch, but I do like to track weather radars on local news websites.

I was also having trouble with my cell phone clock.  Western Nebraska should be in Mountain Time, but my cell phone was telling me that it was an hour behind Mountain Time, which was frustrating.  I wanted to set an early alarm to get to Scottsbluff soon after sunrise, but I had to do some math to make my alarm (I had been using my cell phone as an alarm clock for the whole trip) work correctly.

So when I finally went to sleep, it was with my laptop open to the weather radar.  I was feeling some anxiety about both the thunderstorm and the fact that I wasn’t confident in my alarm clock.

At some point in the night, probably when an early alarm went off that was clearly too early, I knocked my laptop off the nightstand and it crashed to the floor.  When I picked it up, it was making weird sounds.  Even my sleep-addled brain knew this was a problem, but the computer seemed to still be working. (It wasn’t. The hard drive was corrupted and I spent the rest of the next week getting everything back online. I’m still working on it. But! I had backups! As I’ve mentioned throughout this story, I was making backups as I went, so I didn’t lose any of my photos despite the fact that the hard drive went down for the count.)

I finally accepted an alarm that went off around dawn, and I was able to get my shit together and check out of the hotel.  It was a beautiful morning with clear skies.  I headed right back over to Scottsbluff, Nebraska, where the road goes straight through a break in the buttes.  I had a really good time shooting at the Scottsbluff National Monument, but I didn’t stay around long enough for the monument offices to open so that I could drive the road to the top.

Pretty morning in Scottsbluff after a night of thunderstorms.  Excited to finally see the buttes here after planning for so long! – 9:04am, June 10, 2010

And it was a lovely morning for it- blue skies against red rock and green grass. – 9:04am, June 10, 2010

I was feeling pressed to get on the road east towards home, and I still had a few more stops to make.  Chimney Rock is outside of Scottsbluff on Nebraska Route 92.  I did not stop at the Chimney Rock park site, but took pictures from the best angle I could find.  Then I continued on to Bridgeport, Nebraska, where I stopped for gas and ice before taking a little trip south, out of the way, to view Courthouse and Jail Rocks, of which there was not really a very good view from the road.

I knew it was starting to get late, and I had about twelve hours of driving ahead of me (with the time change), so it was time to get serious now that Scottsbluff was behind me.  I would get to stay off the interstate only for a couple of hours as I followed US Highway 26 southeast to where it joined up with Interstate 80 at Ogallala, Nebraska.  US-26 is a scenic road that follows the paths of the Oregon Trail and the Mormon Trail.  Such a pretty road!  Nebraska, your scenic byways are very scenic.  I am a fan.

But when I hit I-80, the scenery went bleak.  I guess it probably follows the Platte River Valley for a good while, and it is flat and not very interesting.  I was really disappointed that I didn’t give myself an extra half day so that I could have stayed off the interstates all the way through Nebraska.  I missed where the sagebrush flats and buttes of the West give way to the rolling countryside and farmland of Iowa and Missouri.  I enjoyed so much the geology and landscapes of my trip up until this point.

But I needed to get serious, and interstates are serious driving.  For hours and hours, I drove across Nebraska, listening to music and the Heat-Moon audiobook.  It was not unpleasant, but it felt long in a way that none of the rest of the driving had felt (okay, possible exceptions made for other interstates I drove, such as I-90 from Billings to Bozeman or I-25 in Wyoming; interstate highways suck).

Yay, Lincoln, NE at rush hour! -5:01pm, June 10, 2010

I crossed the Missouri River at Nebraska City, the only time I crossed it on my way home to Columbia.  After all of the Lewis & Clark book and the Missouri Headwaters experiences and thinking of it every time I crossed one of its tributaries (the Yellowstone, the Gallatin, the Madison, etc.), I was excited to cross it here in my own territory.

In Missouri!  It was 39 degrees in the Tetons yesterday morning.  It is 80 degrees here in MO.  http://yfrog.com/mh2baj – 6:20pm, June 10, 2010

I decided to take the northerly route across Missouri via US Highway 36 to Macon and then south on US Highway 63 instead of the interstates through Kansas City, which felt out of the way, though I think it would have been slightly faster.  I enjoyed seeing north Missouri in its pretty summer glory.  It felt lush and green after the mountains and valleys of the West.

At about 10:30pm, I drove into my garage at my own house.  It was weird and strange and new in that way that things can be when it’s been awhile since you’ve seen them.

Home!  4362.7 total miles, seven states, 13 days, nine motels, and every meal eaten out of coolers except one.  It was an awesome trip. – 10:46pm, June 10, 2010

It was.  It was an awesome trip.  I had a wonderful, wonderful time.