The Long Road Home-Day 3

Getting up at 5:30 in the morning is not what I am looking forward to doing again, but at least the road is getting behind us and the French Press is there waiting for me when I do get up.

After slamming down a not so great breakfast, and Chris using the rolling desk chair as a luggage rack, we headed out toward the car.  Ms Vickey and Maj were doing just fine.  I'm always concerned that someone will kidnap her.  We do cover them at night, but some people are opportunistic and will steal any thing and every thing they can.

The temperature dropped dramatically during the night, so we were met with a lot of frost on the car and windows.  I was a little concerned that we had not removed the batteries from the scooters before we loaded them onto the trailer.  Hopefully, the cold weather will not drain them both before I have a chance to plug them into our charger.

Somebody is still sleepy......:-(.  Poor guy.........

Strange time of year when you are likely to see all kinds of ghoulish things hanging around......

Really?.......I guess I'm just not into that kind of thing......

The sun was beginning to come up as we traveled from Casper to our next destination......

And the temps outside caused me to wear layers of clothing......

Once the sun was up, you could see how beautiful the landscape really was.......

 There is so much land in Wyoming and a lot of it is farm land and "no man's land"........

The snow capped mountains were beautiful and a long way off.  These mountains are known as the Crazy Woman Mountains.  The legend says that after a massacre of her entire family,  the woman who was a member of the Crow Nation ran screaming into the mountains never to be seen again. It is widely believed by historians that this is just a legend and nothing more.

We needed to get some gas and it was evident that the prices were climbing up.  Ms Vickey got a fill up, but Maj had a tie down strap going across her in such a manner that would not allow her to be filled.  Seafoam was put in her tank as well.

Chris grabbed some quick pictures and headed back toward the car.  He reminded me of Big Foot in this picture!  hahahaha

Whooooooo hoooooo!  Getting closer all the time!

Getting pictures of beautiful trees from a moving car is not my specialty.  I tried to get these, but only caught a little of them.  We saw some much more colorful than these, but they swooshed by too quickly.

You gotta love this shot......

But cannot understand for the life of me why people want to live miles and miles from ANYTHING.  This is far too remote for my liking.

I was really trying to get this shot, but my camera just doesn't pick up that well when the sky is so blue and the mountains so white.  It seemed to have done alright picking up the blood splat on the windshield though....:-(.

Well, this one isn't so bad I guess......:-)

Lots of farming going on with these tiny little store thingees, but not really stores dotting the landscape.

 We reached Billings, Montana and decided that we would fill up now instead of in the morning.  The plan was to push on toward Missoula but my sweetie was exhausted and I talked him into staying the night here instead.

We got our room which was not to shabby, but ran into the same weirdness as at the last hotel.  And this time it's a different chain.

So, we passed the stuff through the window and begin to settle in.  Geeze, what's with these hotels without luggage racks???

oh well, another day and another 500 miles behind us.....:-). 

 See ya soon!

The Long Road Home-Day 2

We woke up to 36 degrees and quite brisk outside.  It was very dark and 5:30am.  The plan was to be on the road in one hour.  We made it!  Breakfast was gross, so after tossing that in the can, we headed out.  I was glad I had packed some heavy jackets for us.  I needed it.

First order of business was to get some gas.  There is so much land with nothing happening on it that it was hard to tell when we would run across the next gas station.  Better safe than sorry!

 The sun started to come up a while after we had taken off.  It was beautiful as always.....:-)

The sky went from an orange, purple-ish color to a light pink and blue.....very cool.

We came through Kit Carson, Colorado.  I had heard of Kit Carson, but didn't remember "what" I had heard about him. After plugging his name into the internet, I found this:

Christopher Houston "Kit" Carson was an American frontiersman and Indian fighter. Carson left home in rural present-day Missouri at age 16 and became a mountain man and trapper in the West. Wikipedia

There was a museum in his honor, although I have no idea what was so honorable about fighting Indians....

Across the road from the museum was this gated yard that had all manner of stuff that I would have loved to have in my humble garden back in Oklahoma...

We circled the block and took this frontal shot of the museum.  It was about 7:30am and it was closed.

I guess they really like the guy to have a town named after him.

After driving a while longer, we decided to get some gas.  It was really brisk out and I almost decided to take my potty break after the sun warmed up the place a bit more...but alas!  It was not to be.....ha.

You know it's cold when you see Mr. Chris rooting around in the car for something a bit more appropriate to where for the temps......

Ms Vickey and Maj almost dissappeared into the hay load on this truck.

That's more like it.....:-).  Nothing like a quick change in the bathroom.

gassing up and getting ready to go again.....

We FINALLY made it to Wyoming and talked about how far we would continue before stopping for the night again.

It's amazing how these rock thingees are formed.

Some of them have the strangest shapes....!

Chris was exhausted and I don't like him drinking those overloaded energy drinks.  It was time for me to drive some and let him sleep....

It was less than 5 minutes and he was out like a light.  I decided to try to take a couple of shots when it felt safe to do so.

I managed to get a few pics like this one......

I loved this, but was not able to get the whole thing because it wasn't my day to die....haha

I had tried for the longest to get pictures of the many trees with all of the fall colors, but always spotted them while I was already passing.  This was the only one I was able to get.  Sorry about the reflection of the dashboard....:-(.  I got a little "hinky" trying to drive and take the shots.  So, I decided to put the camera down.  This was the last "moving" shot I took.

Chris slept for about 45 minutes and then took over driving again.  He'll see what I had been doing all that time when he sees this post! hahaha.  We finally reached Caspar, Wyoming and checked into a hotel.  We found out AFTER checking in that they had no luggage rack!  ??????  What hotel doesn't have luggage racks????  THIS ONE!  Alrighty then....got a plan be that we can work.....haha.  I took the screen out of the window and had Chris pass me the stuff through the window.  Who needs a luggage rack anyway!

After getting our overnight stuff in through the window and replacing the screen, we settled in for the night.

Our plan is to try to make it to Butte, Montana tomorrow.  It will be another early and very long day.
See you there!

The Long Road Home- Day 1

After spending an enormous amount of time trying to get ready to leave, we still left 2 hours later than expected.  But we had managed to get the car serviced, all (or most) of the garden plants and furniture tended to and family and friends kissed goodbye for now....:-(.

We pulled off the after a little bit of travel to take this picture since I forgot to take pics of us loading everything.  After all, it was still dark when we started loading.  Ms Vickey and Maj were a bit of a challenge to load this time for some reason.  But we got it done with the help of two others.

It wasn't long at all before we were in Texas AGAIN since we had to go that way to get back.

You may have remembered this little town from an earlier post this year.  Or was that last year??

The town is small but the city hall was huge.  Or maybe it was the courthouse.  Not sure........But I liked the sign they put in the front.

Here is a close up.  Don't mess with Texas!!  haha

We used to have a store by this name many years ago in Lawton.  I wondered if it was owned by the same people who had the other store.  But we didn't go in.

It was time to leave Memphis and continue our trip.  We stopped for gas a few times and I decided to try this spicy mango stuff that I saw in the store.

hahahah......He's not too fond of it.....

Well, it was a bit spicy along with some sweetness and a touch of salt.  AND IT WAS SOUR!   That was the part that got me....haha.  It has chili powder and chili flakes on it as well.......smokin!

We had to make quite a few "potty stops" for reason.  But since we have just under a month to get back, we were not really in a hurry.  I took a picture of this field of cotton as we traveled along. 

Then we noticed that "Maj" was leaning toward Ms Vickey and looking like she was going to fall over, so we had to stop again to fix that.

Not long after we came to Dumas, Texas and made a quick trip inside the Welcome Center.

It was tiny, but at least it was there for those traveling through to stop and stretch their legs and ask questions if need be.

They had this placard outside giving a bit of history of the area........

Here's my man looking like......my man.........:-).....hey, hey, hey......

We thought we would say howdy to ya'll before we got back in the car........:-)  "HOWDY!" 

And Finally after 8 1/2 hours of traveling, we reached our destination for the evening.....  

They were capturing the wind to use for electricity....  or something like that.  I often what it would be like to ride one of those things.......hahahahaha.  With a helmet of course......:-).
 

After looking at the choices we had for hotels, we settled on the Days Inn and settled in for the night.  

Goodnight and stay tuned!