Road Trip

One day when I was in Arizona, M mentioned that he had found a dozer blade in Nebraska and he was going to have to go get it.  At that time, we weren't sure how I was going to get home from Billings after I flew in there.  I told him that if he picked me up he'd be halfway to Nebraska so we could go from there.  I did not know what part of Nebraska we were headed to, and M neglected to tell me it was only about 40 miles north of the Kansas state line.  Someday I will learn to keep my mouth shut and not be so practical or ask more questions before I come up with these good ideas.

I arrived in Billings on the night of January 2nd (flight was late again, but only an hour this time).  We were on the road by 7 am the next morning heading south through Wyoming pulling a 32-foot gooseneck flatbed trailer on our way to Imperial, Nebraska.  It had snowed overnight, and we ran into some ice just across the Wyoming border and began to think it was going to be a VERY long trip.  Thank goodness we ran out of it pretty quickly and had good roads and weather the whole rest of the way.  It was so cloudy that I couldn't see the Big Horn Mountains until they peeked out of the clouds.

R gave M a Tom-Tom navigation system for Christmas so he thought it would be a good time to put it to use.  We quickly found out that it needs to be updated and that it gets confused.  South of  Douglas, Wyoming we got off the interstate and angled down into Nebraska.  I was wishing I had mobile internet so I could google some of the places we passed, like Fort Laramie.  There was a historic site there, but I didn't know the significance.  I came home and looked it up.  That was where the United States government signed a treaty with the Sioux in 1868 where they agreed to settle in the Black Hills area of the Dakotas.  When gold was discovered there all bets were off, however.

We went through Torrington, Wyoming and soon arrived at Scottsbluff, Nebraska which I found out was a significant landmark of the Oregon Trail.  There are a lot of interesting rock formations.  It would be fun to hike there.

We decided at that point that we had made a mistake getting off the interstate.  We may have been saving miles but not time as we had to slow down and go through so many little towns.  We were hoping to get to Imperial before closing time so we could get loaded and make as many miles back as we could.  We could see that we were cutting it close.  So, we headed south to Kimball and got back on the interstate, through Sidney (the worldwide headquarters of Cabelas) and then on to Ogallala, then south to Imperial, arriving about 5:00 pm.  We had been in touch with the salesman all day so he knew we were on our way and knew when to expect us.  They were nice enough to hang around a little late to get us loaded and strapped down, and then we were off again.

As you can see, the load was hanging off a bit on both sides so we made the decision to stick to the interstate and avoid the 2-lane roads as much as possible.  We stopped for fuel and some KFC and were back on the road with Cheyenne, Wyoming as our destination goal for the night.  We made it there about 10 pm, but then decided to keep going to Wheatland.  M wasn't sure he wanted to navigate through traffic at night in Cheyenne to find a place to stay.  We stopped at the first motel we saw in Wheatland, a Motel 6.  Sixteen hours and 650 miles later.  Appropriate since we were there about six hours. Parking that trailer was an adventure in itself.

We were on the road again by 6 am, hoping to get home before dark, heading through Douglas and up to Gillette.  There we refueled and grabbed breakfast and headed to Broadus.  It was a good feeling to cross back into Montana to roads we were familiar with.  There was a lot more snow, however!  Grabbed sandwiches and fuel in Miles City and headed north.  To avoid truck traffic on a narrow highway we took the scenic route through Fort Peck and back roads from there home.  It occurred to me that during all the years that I have lived here close to Fort Peck I never knew the history behind it.  I found out that it was originally a trading post on the west bank of the Missouri River and later an Indian agency.  It was eventually abandoned because the river was undermining the bluff on which it sat and it crumbled into the river at some point.

Crossing the spillway at Fort Peck Dam

Substation at Fort Peck

Fort Peck Dan Powerhouse

We arrived in Richland at about 4:15 pm, safe and sound 1500+ miles (1800+ for M), 26 hours actually on the road, lots of gas station food, and 160 gallons of fuel later.  I like to say it was a good bonding trip for M and I.  I felt like I had been gone for so long, and we had a lot to catch up on.  It's been go, go, go for the past month, and we are both ready to stay put for awhile