2000-09-14 - 22:41 MDT

September 14, 2000

Trekkin'

A longwinded meeting in Cheyenne today necessitated a car trip up I-25. One hunded miles or so. A trip I have made many times in the past, it used to be very boring. Today, a bright sunny day, not too hot, surveying the "human infestation" each side of the highway. The towns that have always been there are there still. But strangely, to me anyway, are these patches of new houses bunched to the right and left along the way may be the vision of the future I guess -- one long string of town from the New Mexico border to the Wyoming border. It used to be a vision of great gobs of mile after mile of nothing but miles. The one saving grace was and is that the mountains to the west are usually in plain and beautiful sight. Now, pondering about each new sight, and speculating, the reason for and the use of such.

One sight along I-25 I still like is that strange outcropping of rock each side of the highway not far from Cheyenne. Heather and I stopped once, seems that I read a sign that said this was the scene of a war between tribes, or else a camping place along their yearly trail. Unexpected in the rolling hills and really not akin to any nearby formations, like a scene from a fairy tale just before the ogre makes the scene.

A very long day of necessary business, a boring spending of hours of time doing the tedious. The bright spot was lunch time when we were taken to a Chinese restaurant, some of us had the buffet style lunch and Heather and I ordered from the menu. Extremely fine cashew chicken was our pleasure, and everyone else liked what they had. Next time up there, that will be a high spot of culinary recreation for us.

In recent years we would edge around the southwest part of the city to pick up I-80 west and we hadn't seen town for ages. Today we passed the Capital of Wyoming, with the statue the woman who brought the privilege of voting to women, some time in the late 1800's. A hilarious remark by one of our crowd was, "Of course women got the vote here years ahead of everyone else, there were so few women that we had to give them what they wanted. Oh, what lengths men went to in those days to keep the opposite sex round about.

The city looked as if it had just been washed and hung out to dry in the Wyoming breeze. It sparkled and shone, with neat well cared for yards and shrubs surrounding nicely painted homes. It was so different from the dusty, seedy town it seemed to me to be when I was a kid.

Our business satisfactorily completed, we had the great honor to make the trip back to Denver during the afternoon rush. On our way we saw the bumper to bumper traffic headed north as we passed Windsor and Fort Collins with it's big brewry near the highway. By the time we neared Denver the south bound traffic was thinned a bit.

Gee when I was young what a long, long and adventurous trip it was. Usually stopping at least once along the way to patch an innertube and pump the tire up. Eating packed lunch along the side of the road. Tires and inner tubes then were not very lasting things. By the time we got as far north as Johnsons Corner (which used to be an oasis on the prairie) had gas, soda, peanuts and candy. I think back then there was a mechanic around and tires, fan belts, oil and other auto stuff was available, a grease job and oil change could be had I think. One of the pleasures was reaching that lonely, barren place without mechanical troubles and just stopping for gas and soda pop.

So arriving home I marked that little bit off the calendar and hope that I don't have to return for a lot more years. I prefer heading west into the hills and leaving the prairie to the ranchers, jackrabbits, antelope and the occasional jackalope.

This dreary trip which was traversed by amusing our selves being humorous about things was probably what the Boers in South Africa referred to as trekkin'.

Blog