Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado

 

What could be better than driving through Southeastern Wyoming?  Rolling hills of native prairie grass, only occasionally interrupted by farms and fields.  Cottonwood river-bottom forests in the low points.  The Laramie River.  Pronghorn, historic windmills, and endless blue sky.  Eastern Wyoming isn’t in-your-face, like Yellowstone in the other corner of the state, but it is wild and free and oh so open.

 

It was only 20 miles north on Interstate 25 before the right turn on highway 26.  Southeast into the sun the rest of the morning.  At Guernsey, the North Platte still flowing full.  Fort Laramie.  Fort Laramie is not in Laramie, it is east of Cheyenne on the Laramie River.  The Oregon Trail.  Register Rock, a 100 foot high outcropping.  Thousands of pioneers camped here and inscribed their names on the sandstone, dating as far back as the 1820s.  Historically significant artifacts now.  A graffiti rock, then.

 

Prairie grass going from green to gold.  The motorhome doing well for a heart-transplant patient.  Slow moving coal trains on sweeping railroad track turns.  The picturebook small town of Lingle.  Torrington, a big city by comparison.

 

At the Nebraska state line, the town of Henry, population 145.  Morrill, Nebraska, a shiny silver diner.  Scottsbluff.  Chimney rock.  A right turn at Oshkosh to head south back into Colorado.  Dryland corn.  Dryland corn sure looks different from irrigated corn.  Fields of sunflowers, and finally, Bonny Lake State Park.  A very nice campsite, and Red-headed Woodpeckers.

 

 

We did it!

We broke the gravitational pull of the Denver Repair Shop. We blasted out of orbit and landed 140 miles north in Wheatland, Wyoming.

Nice visit with Bill and Marge (of course). The farm looks the same.





It always feels good.

Tomorrow, more miles. A little farther north, then southeast through Nebraska (Scottsbluff and such), then south, back into Colorado, through Julesburg, Holyoke, and Wray, to stop at Bonny Lake State Park for the night.

The new motor is running strong, but with an intermittent shudder at cruising speed. I don’t think the engine and transmission are communicating as well as they should. I suspect we’re just missing a downshift point and lugging a bit on slight inclines. A manual downshift resolves it. No surprise that there is something to tweak. I suspect an adjustment will smooth it out when we get back to Denver.

Another busy day

We got the last piece of the motorhome repair done. We drove the rig back into Denver and got the clear rock-guard put back on the front. That’s the last piece. We’ve been back in the coach for two weeks, but now we’re *really* good to go. We need to put some miles on the engine before it’s time to leave the Denver area for the year; make sure everything is okay before we get too far from the shop that did the work. The perfect excuse. We’ll head north tomorrow morning to Wheatland, WY for a visit with Bill and Marge.

We hooked up the Jeep and towed it back and forth with us to Denver today. Have to make sure everything works. We filled up the tank in the motorhome. Haven’t done that since May. One more dinner at Becky and Brian’s house tonight. Taylor is not a loud person, but it did seem a few decibels quieter. A change in the dynamic I guess.

Anyway, we’re good to go. We’ll only be out on the road for two or three days, then we’ll be back to Chatfield by Matt’s house. Time to take in another gymnastics practice.


Evening at St Vrain:

Big day today

We helped move Granddaughter Taylor to Colorado State University about 50 miles north in Fort Collins. The whole family went. Becky, Brian, Taylor, Tony, Teigan, Conner, Judy, and me. We got to carry a lot of stuff in the Jeep so Becky would still have room for all the kids in her car. Jim and Joyce, the other grandparents came up later and brought the mini-fridge, microwave, and bicycle.

Taylor got admitted to the honors program. That put her in the honors dorm.

We’re very proud of her.

This is move-in day for Freshmen. The campus was a zoo, but a well-organized zoo. Booths labeld “Ask Me” on most every corner. Upperclassmen wearing distinctive shirts, roaming about assisting anyone who needed it. A gang of five helped us carry all of the stuff we brought, up to Taylor’s room on the 3^rd level in one trip. We got to meet the Resident Advisor on her floor. His name is Taylor.

This is what it looked and sounded like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76peH24A_iQ

And her roommate wasn’t even there yet.

Henry

Ta daahh!

Henry

We’re going to take Henry to the groomer and get him some eyeballs.

Economics 101

Remember the Health Care issue?  I don’t think it has been solved yet.  I could solve it though.  Check this out.  I see three parts to it:  Health care providers, insurance companies, and people.  Are they all necessary?  What if we got rid of the providers?  Can’t do that, then nothing would happen when people got sick.  The people pay for everything, either directly or indirectly, so we can’t get rid of them.  What if we cut out the insurance company factor?  The process could still work.  What does the insurance company do, anyway?  They take your money, pay a whole bunch of people, make some profit, then pass the rest along to the health care providers.  Let’s just take less money from the people and give it directly to the doctors and hospitals.  We just cut the cost of health care in half.  Health care crisis solved!

 

What did I just do, put a few hundred thousand insurance company employees out of work.  Oops.  There goes the economy.