HEADING WEST, AUG. 1-6, 2009

 

We hugged Ben and Emily good-bye at the wedding and set out the next morning to start our journey west.  It feels so good to be on the road again.  We were home all summer with Hank’s surgery and rehab.  In fact, when we began packing the coach, we found that wasps had built many nests under our awnings, in our mirrors and in our furnace vents.  Wasp spray took care of that!

We spent our first night in Des Moines, Iowa.  There was a Nascar race nearby and all the campgrounds were quite full.  Lots of well-kept farms and tall, tall corn along the highway.  We are traveling an average of 300 miles a day.  It’s nice to settle in early afternoon and have a chance to relax or explore the area we are in. 

Next night we stayed at Windmill Recreation Area in Gibbon, Nebraska.  We had this spacious park almost to ourselves.  We rode our bikes in search of the windmills featured there.

Speaking of windmills, we began to see many modern-day windmills dotting the plains the further west we went.  They made me think we were in a Stephen King story with monsters marching towards us.

The farms gave way to plains and rolling foothills and we commented that we understood the term “big sky”.  It’s amazing how far you can see in every direction.  We settled in Cheyenne and went into the city to visit the Big Boy steam locomotive and railroad museum there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please read Hank’s blog at rvthereyethank.blogspot.com to read his commentary on the engine and museum.  Both were very interesting and demonstrated the important role that the railroads played in settling the west.

We encountered our first antelope, heavy winds, dust storms and a 5% grade in Wyoming.  We also began to see numerous huge snow fences and can only imagine what winter must be like in these vast, open areas.  They even have gates to close the expressways in case of bad storms.

 

We spent 2 nights in Lyman, Wyoming and took a day to explore Fort Bridger.  The early fort and settlement have been rebuilt and made real what life must have been like for the early pioneers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seeing the covered wagon made us realize these families traveled west in a vehicle that isn’t even as large as our living room in our motorhome.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are a few of my favorite “on the road” photos—literally taken through the front windshield of the motorhome.  Hope they will give you some idea of what we’ve seen during this first week of traveling west.