Notes from the Road - Day 3

2/1/04 10:55pm Casper, WY

Where to begin? I had decided to make a short day of it and not leave Denver until I’d driven around town and seen a little bit of it. I checked out at 11:00am and headed for downtown. I’d passed Mile High Stadium on my way to the hotel last night and intended to get a picture of it, but somehow I missed it. I did see Denver Coliseum, which is mostly underground, and Coors Field, however. Since I had passed by Colorado Springs and Pike’s Peak in the night, I wanted to get a picture from Denver if I could. Luckily for me, the sky was clear and Pike’s Peak was visible from Cheeseman Park. Before stopping there, I walked by the capitol and the Denver Art Museum. They’re in the process of constructing an addition to the latter that was designed by Daniel Liebskind, whose design was picked for the rebuilding of the World Trade Center in New York. At the moment, however, the Denver Public Library was the more interesting building, a patchwork of colors, shapes and ideas that looked like a Frankenstein dollhouse. Cheeseman Park was a bit to the south, and free to the public, with breathtaking views of the Rocky Mountains, including Pike’s Peak. The only blemish is an apartment building blocking part of the view. I encountered the same problem in Sydney, Australia, where developers had put up an apartment building on the path leading out to the Opera House, effectively blocking the view of it from the city center.

I left Denver about 1:00pm and, looking at the map, was reminded that I had passed by Littleton, Colorado, on the way in last night. I looked for some kind of memorial listing on the maps and in the literature, but if there is one, I couldn’t find it. (Author’s note: I found out later there’s one in the works, but construction hasn’t begun yet because of funding problems.) Then again, how would that affect the kids going to school there, a constant reminder of the senseless deaths of several students just like themselves? There’s a dynamic at work in places that witness great pain and sorrow, where the victims and their families feel the need to be remembered struggling with the need to move on. I think the reminders tend to win out in the short term, leading to the permanent memorials. By the time the people of a place of tragedy need to move past it, they’re too late. Their homes, and so their lives, have become inextricably intertwined with it. I see this becoming ever-more prevalent in the future due to media saturation of this type of event.

My next stop was Cheyenne, Wyoming, where I realized I’d have the chance to photograph a second state capitol in the span of about three hours. When I took the exit off I-25 that was marked for the capitol, I almost incorrectly turned left under the highway before noticing this would have taken me directly to a checkpoint for entering an Air Force base. I quickly corrected and found Cheyenne to be about the size of Waco, with the smallest capitol building I had yet seen. Despite its stature, however, it had a gold metallic dome, like Denver’s. I have a feeling this is a common feature.

Continuing north, I watched as a giant grey layer of clouds moved in from atop the Rockies to the west. I was struck by the perfect golden grasslands all around blown by a chilling wind. The sun was still breaking through, and it was only around three in the afternoon, so I took the turn leading to Fort Laramie Historical Park. On the way, I came to the small town of Guernsey, which advertised its own historic places. Following the brown signs a short distance from the town led me to two very interesting finds. The first was the Oregon Trail ruts. Guernsey was located along the trail that pioneers had used to cross the country from the 1820’s to the 1860’s, ending when the transcontinental railroad was completed, cutting the trip from 4 to 6 months to just two weeks.

Along the river was a series of soft granite rock outcroppings giving way to the trail. So many thousands of wagons had crossed that exact spot, they had worn deep ruts into the stone itself. These ruts were no more than five feet wide, which means the wagons must have been pretty cramped for the families that chanced the trip. A local man and his two daughters were also walking the ruts, and he was describing to them how he used to come here when he was a boy. Because of the nearby water supply and flat areas surrounding the rock formations, this area was extremely popular and frequently used for setting up camp, which leads me to the second point of interest, Register Cliff. Following the same road that had led to the ruts (and past an army base), led me past many small cliffs and crags of soft sandstone. The final one in the series, ending by the almost-dry river bed, was Register Cliff. Here, thousands of names and initials had been carved into the soft rock, some as high as twenty feet from the ground. There was also a shaft leading into the monolith, but it was blocked off. On the face of the cliff were dozens of circular, brown, mud nests that I could only guess were used by birds, only the openings were at the very bottom of the things. The logistics of how they got in and how the nests were designed were beyond me. Many appeared broken, exposing a completely blank, smooth interior. To the right of the information shelter, behind a fence were several graves of those that had not survived the journey west. In one year alone, 5,000 of the 55,000 who tried it died on the way. I resisted the urge to “register” myself along with the others who shared my journey in the past, but many of my fellow travelers had not. There were names carved with dates in the 1990’s right alongside those from the 1800’s.

I noticed I was losing the light, but then the sun broke through once more and lit up the face of the cliff for several minutes. I thought to myself, “This is a gift,” and quickly snapped a few pictures before another cloud front just behind the first put the sun to bed for the night. I walked a short trail around the other side of the cliff and saw a jackrabbit that blended in so perfectly with the surrounding rock and weeds, it could only be seen when it moved. This was the first non-avian wildlife I had encountered, since the squirrels in Denver were of the variety that stand six inches from your feet and beg for food like a pet.

As dark settled in, I made my way back through Guernsey, past the rolling hills to I-25. The sky was enormous, and mostly covered with the blackest, most foreboding overcast I can remember. I stopped in Douglas, Wyoming, for Subway, marking the third day in a row I had skipped lunch and had a fast food supper. It’s fast becoming a routine, and I can only hope it helps me shed a few pounds, but I doubt it. I was maybe halfway between Douglas and Casper when I saw the second example of wildlife on my trip.

The speed limit on the interstates in Wyoming is 75mph, so I was going about 80mph when a large, thickly furred, low-walking animal barreled directly in front of my car and was promptly plowed under. It had come from seemingly out of nowhere, and disappeared just as quickly. When it hit I felt a hard bump, but the car didn’t slow down because I was using the cruise control. I hadn’t even had time to hit my brakes. I didn’t get a good look at its head, so I don’t know what exactly it was, but I’m told there are no wolves in this area, so it must have been a very large coyote or dog. Whatever it was, it was low enough to the ground that it didn’t damage the grill or headlights. It did take out part of the plastic bumper and crush the oil pan, however. For about a minute after the hit, I thought the car was alright, but then I noticed the heater was blowing cold air, and a light on the dashboard had come on saying to check something. This was about 6:45pm, and the stars were already out in the night sky.

About ten minutes later, the cruise control kicked off and I started losing horsepower. I had to floor it to make it up slight hills, and there was a new sound to the engine. I started praying I would make it to Casper before the car died. The last sign I’d seen said 21 miles to Casper, and I’d covered a few miles since then. Around ten after seven o’clock, the oil light and battery light came on simultaneously, and the engine stopped pulling. The car was still on, but I was slowing down, so I pulled over to the side and called roadside assistance. My cell phone cut off twice, so I had to keep calling and getting reconnected with the same guy. After I got everything set up, I hung up the phone and shut off the car. The outside temperature in the car’s digital display read 22 degrees, and I was told it would be at least 40 minutes. I left my reading light, the hazard lights, and the headlights on. When I shut the car off, the strange new sound slowed until I could tell it was a fan hitting something else with every turn. About five minutes later, the headlights went off on their own and wouldn’t come back on. Thankfully, the hazards were ok.

I had two jackets in the car, along with a blanket and some food. I got out of the car and popped the trunk to get a flashlight, in case my reading light went out. The stars and moon were a beautiful glowing white, but the wind was unforgiving, and I quickly got back in the car after surveying the damage. I laid the jacket I wasn’t wearing over my legs, and the blanket over that, then picked up my copy of Salem’s Lot and read a couple of chapters while I waited. The tow truck driver showed up around the time promised, and by 9:15pm, I was at the Showboat Motel in Casper. When I called home, my dad said the Patriots won the Super Bowl by a field goal. Nobody else I’d talked to had been following it. (Author’s note: No one mentioned Janet Jackson’s breast, either.) Tomorrow, I’ll get another car from the Casper Hertz office and recover a few things I missed from the other car, which was dropped off there after I was deposited at the hotel.

It’s funny, I had thought to myself that I could have saved myself the money and taken my own car on this trip, and how annoying it would be if I never saw any snow. That’s karma for you. I’m glad I let the Hertz agent talk me into getting their insurance for it.