Flashback: August 10, 2008

I am going to keep re-posting my adventure notes from my first cross-country roadtrip adventure, at least for now. It's been interesting reading them, three years later, and musing upon the ways I've grown and changed, but also exulting in the journeys I've taken and the things I discovered and noticed even then. Driving across the country in a moving truck is a decidedly different adventure than driving around the country in my car just because I feel like it, and I can definitely sense that stressful energy while reading these older posts. However, in the name of posterity, and because of how significant this maiden voyage was in my life, I will continue the trip down memory lane (how many metaphors about travel can I squeeze into one sentence? Just try me!). I am so happy that this adventure brought me here so that I can continue to have more and more adventures!

Oh, yes. And I am planning a few adventures for the coming weeks, so you will soon get more current updates from your adventuress!

=========

day 2: cheyenne, wy

[10 Aug 2008|07:22pm]

i try not to judge, but cheyenne is not the most beautiful of towns. of course, this is after a full day of driving through the mostly-barren south-mid-west? i don't know the name of the region we're in, technically. but it's all mostly the same looking. the occasional truck stop or gas station or, rarer, rest area or small town, speckled throughout dry, rocky terrain, some tumbleweeds, etc. not much else. we had lunch at the first rest stop on I-80, just before we hit wyoming, and that was somewhat pretty. large reddish rock formations and clear blue skies. the part of the rockies i remember from montana. speaking of which, crossing the rockies was rather underwhelming. i guess we crossed at a less, well, rocky spot, but it was mostly an hour of slight but constant uphill and then suddenly, a sign saying "summit of the continental divide"! like they say in dumb and dumber, these mountains aren't very rocky! also, i decided that whoever named the "rocky mountains" could have come up with a more descriptive term. i mean, um, yes, mountains are rocky. that's nice. i slept soundly last night, so that was extremely lovely. we got up early and had continental breakfast. it's silly how staying at a motel that charges $20 more than listed is all worth it because they offer about three bucks' worth of breakfast. but it was still nice, though i wished i had soymilk for coffee and cereal. then i drove the whole way. we crossed into utah, where they felt like having eight miles of road construction where there was only one lane at a time, over and over again. stopped to go to the bathroom at a gas station, because both utah and wyoming are pretty short on rest areas, like i remembered from drum corps. filled up gas in ogden because we weren't sure when we could next. after ogden we switched onto I-80 and this is a highlight BECAUSE.... I-84 dead-ends into I-80, which means that we traveled the entire length of I-84 on this trip! we had a high-five in the cab about that. the other highlight of the day is that we are STILL following the oregon trail exactly. in reverse. we keep crossing rivers that i remember from the game. that's pretty sweet. we also found several rock stations in wyoming, all of which have the same call numbers as eugene radio stations. and we discovered the university of wyoming. it's in laramie! who knew! we asked the front desk lady if there was a store nearby and she pretty much looked at me like i was crazy. too bad for her, it's 2008 and i can search on google maps, and i found several grocery stores that only took a little bit of driving through town and had ample parking. take that, front desk lady! we went to safeway and i bought a little thing of soy milk, and more capri sun to drink with lunch, and razors since i left mine in oregon because i want to be able to get on the plane. but my legs are extremely hairy. we walked from safeway to find food, and it was thoroughly depressing. walked past a lot of scary looking bars and men in trucks drinking crown royal and honking at pedestrians. i had another gift-card subway sandwich and subway is doing a peel-off game similar to the old mcdonald's monopoly games, and i won another subway sandwich! so hurrah! double free! then we were going to go to sonic but decided that sonic is pretty sketch if you're not in your car. the inside reminded me of a bus station bathroom. so we went to a place called taco john's/good times which was kind of like carl's jr/the green burrito. and walked back.

we are resting now. we stopped driving a little early today because the next real place we could stay was three hours farther, including a time change, so that would make at least four hours later we'd be getting in, and that would have made it hard to get up and have a productive day in the morning. tomorrow is cheyenne to des moines! des moines is about five hours from chicago so the next day we can get up in the morning and drive to chicago. woot!