After all that fuss over the mold in my car, I knew I couldn't make it through another five months of Redmond rain. It was time to head home to the East Coast, where I could cuss my way through horrible traffic underneath blue skies again.
So I packed my stuff and plotted my eastward route. This being December, I figured I'd stick to the interstates--no sense detouring to parks when everything's closed for the season--and take I-90 to I-25 to I-80 to I-29 to I-70 to I-64 to I-81 to I-66 to home. Quite the simple trip, compared to how I'd gotten there.
And then I called my parents to tell them my plans. "Are you going to need tire chains for that?" my dad asked. "And what about the weather?" my mom added. "Is it safe to drive? What if you get caught in a snowstorm?"
Snow? Tire chains? I hadn't even thought of those. Nothing had frozen down in Redmond... but the Cascades were a completely different story. I looked into it and learned that Snoqualmie Pass (I-90's route through the range) had already received dozens of feet of snow that fall. East of there, I'd need to cross three major passes through the Rockies: Lookout Pass on the Montana-Idaho border, Homestake Pass over the Continental Divide, and Bozeman Pass east of Bozeman, MT. And, as I'd learned on my westward trip, the Great Plains were prone to blizzards and ice storms as far south as Kansas. Snow and sub-freezing temperatures were a certainty; the only question was how much I'd get... and whether my little front-wheel-drive sedan could make it through.
And various other landforms. Read on for trip reports, geography facts, hallucinated Pokemon, and madcap hijinks.
Showing posts with label NE. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NE. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 25, 2017
Thursday, September 22, 2016
High Point #34: Panorama Point, NE (5427')
It was on that long drive south through the High Plains of Wyoming that I finally got the hang of passing across the yellow line. The trick to it is to drift a little over the line so you can see around whatever giant truck or RV is blocking your way. If there's oncoming traffic, you can zip right back into place, but if not (and in Wyoming, there's usually not), you can go for it.
From the Black Hills I followed US-18 through Lusk (whose gas station was abuzz with motorcycles leaving Sturgis), then continued south down US-85 through Lingle and Torrington. Along the way I passed miles and miles of empty rangeland, sunbaked buttes, blizzard gates, and tiny towns that stuck out like oases from the prairie. I noticed that one such town, Hawk Springs, listed its elevation on the town sign rather than its population... because the former was the higher number? At Cheyenne I returned at last to civilization. I got a motel room and some supper, scrubbed off the dust of the Black Hills, and slept straight through to the dawn.
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The next morning I spent some time catching up on my online life (thankfully, there'd been no more attacks on my email account), then headed out around 11 am (still on Mountain time) towards the Nebraska high point. I-80 took me all the way to Pine Bluffs, a scenic little town along the WY-NE border. The Bluffs it's named for are a long row of pine-covered cliffs--a sort of Black Hills-lite--that drop from the Nebraska plains to the slightly-lower plains on the Wyoming side. I climbed the bluff south of town, followed its edge southward, and then veered east to cross the border. The gravel roads were lined with sunflowers--a theme of these Plains high points:
From the Black Hills I followed US-18 through Lusk (whose gas station was abuzz with motorcycles leaving Sturgis), then continued south down US-85 through Lingle and Torrington. Along the way I passed miles and miles of empty rangeland, sunbaked buttes, blizzard gates, and tiny towns that stuck out like oases from the prairie. I noticed that one such town, Hawk Springs, listed its elevation on the town sign rather than its population... because the former was the higher number? At Cheyenne I returned at last to civilization. I got a motel room and some supper, scrubbed off the dust of the Black Hills, and slept straight through to the dawn.
-
The next morning I spent some time catching up on my online life (thankfully, there'd been no more attacks on my email account), then headed out around 11 am (still on Mountain time) towards the Nebraska high point. I-80 took me all the way to Pine Bluffs, a scenic little town along the WY-NE border. The Bluffs it's named for are a long row of pine-covered cliffs--a sort of Black Hills-lite--that drop from the Nebraska plains to the slightly-lower plains on the Wyoming side. I climbed the bluff south of town, followed its edge southward, and then veered east to cross the border. The gravel roads were lined with sunflowers--a theme of these Plains high points:
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