Friday, August 7, 2015

Montana Adventure- Day One

In reality I'm at day 6 but I've been too tired to blog.  Well, I have a draft going but think I'll be deleting that!

Quinn and I hooked up the trailer and hit the road by 10am!  It only took 15 minutes or so to hook up.   The hitch ball on the truck has to line up with the receiver on the trailer pretty much perfectly and that took some doing.  (Of course, some men came along to "help".  One of whom did not know how the whole thing worked! After explaining that I was learning they pretty much left me alone except for moral support.)  I decided, after much grumbling, to follow all the routing apps and take 1-29 to I-90.  I hate this route!  Before I even got to St Joseph the first hitch arrived in the form of a sign saying "Sturgis welcome center."  Oh, NO!  I had forgotten that the Harley Davidson Rally in Sturgis, SD is the first week of August!  Meaning that Harleys would be everywhere and camping places would be non-existant!  So. I decided to take US 36 across the top of Kansas.  My parents often took this route from Estes so I didn't think it would be THAT bad and I like back roads.  Well I liked this back road for about an hour.  Then I decided I'd go north and catch I-80 across Nebraska (I hate this route as well!) So I did, almost straight north where I ended up at Nebraska City on the west bank of the Missouri river, sigh.  Exactly where I would have been (hours earlier) if I had just stayed on I-29.  GRRR.

We stopped for two nights at Kearney, NE.

I didn't take any photos.  Contrary to popular opinion the Great Plains of the US are NOT FLAT!  Rolling hills and buttes are everywhere and most of them covered with corn.  I have no earthly idea what we do with all the corn grown in the country!  Kearney reminds me of Hays, KS - a town I love- although at Kearney it's corn and at Hays its wheat or sunflowers.  I don't know what either place will do when the Ogallaha Aquifer is completely depleted, perhaps there will be much cheap land then?

At Kearney, I beta read a book for Suzie O'Connell (Once Burned due out soon-very good) and reorganized the trailer.  Did not unhook.  Montana is a really long way from Missouri!

1 comment:

a good yarn said...

Well Gypsy Gail, the great adventure begins. Despite all your tribulations I wonder if the sky is full of stars at night where you are? That was the thing I enjoyed most about travelling around the country in a truck/trailer. You just don't get those star-filled skies in the city any more. Too much light pollution. I am surprised to learn that the Great Plains are not flat. It must be spectacular country - even with all that corn. Here is Oz, you would see wheat. I have seen a field of sunflowers and it's an extraordinary sight. It made me realise why van Gogh painted them. I look forward to the next instalment.