June 29, 9:47 am
I could grab your attention by starting out with something like … sh*t happens. Cuz it does but dog poop (which has been stepped in and rolled in) in a car is not a good thing. But, I’ll get to that later!
We have arrived in Denver!!!!!
The entourage of freaked out animals and myself left our cute (very pet friendly) Cozy Inn east of Des Moines mid morning. We got a much later start due to trying to get 3 dogs fed and walked and into the car and the car packed and something for breakfast (for me) all without losing a dog or my mind. Mobes was pretty out of sorts and panicked.
And all I wanted was a Starbucks. No such luck.
We rounded up the wagons and headed westward again under gray skies and a brisk headwind. I knew it was going to be a blustery go of it down the highway but at least it wasn’t hot and muggy with a blaring sun (that would come later).
For some reason (my guess is fatigue or anticipation – or both) Iowa seemed interminable. We were 90 miles east of DM for what seemed HOURS. I felt for sure we had somehow driven onto a very large “moving sidewalk” and were staying in the same place! But DM finally came and went as did the rest of Iowa – eventually … but, at least, it was a cool drive and the low, blue-gray clouds made the contrast between the greens of the fields that much more noticeable. Nothing wrong with having a pretty Iowa farmland scape as scenery for mile after (even interminable) mile.
As we headed on the farms dotted the wide open spaces on either side of the highway and we could see far and wide – farms and trees clustered together, dotting the hills and valleys. And it was SO green! The sun would peek out from time to time and shine down upon an area, like its own private spotlight for the moment, and the area highlighted seemed to sparkle and changed from emerald to lime green when the sun kissed it. It really was a pretty drive accentuated by the sweet meadow grasses that perfumed the air. Luckily for us we were able to appreciate them with the windows down and the winds in our hair/fur. It was luscious. It also made me miss Tim … he would have known if it was Timothy or alfalfa or clover we were sucking in through our nostrils.
Around mile marker 80 to 70 and then again another 20 or so miles westward were wind farms. We passed one of the blades being transported and it was huge! The ten miles of windmills were beautiful to drive along … dotted along the hills and highway were 100 or more gigantic, gleaming white tri-bladed sentinels standing guard over all that was earth and air. They made the semis driving eastward look like small toys in comparison to their hugeness.
Towards Council Bluffs the topography changed, again, and instead of rolling hills the area was more like an array of terraces – all covered with green … crops or meadow, but it looked like some advanced terracing carvings of ancient gardens or gods. It was quite pretty.
And then we crossed over into Nebraska. I am not a fan. Never have been. I know people who have lived in Omaha and I have one question for them … WHY? It is just so awful. The whole I-80 corridor still, after all these treks across America that I’ve taken over the years, has yet to present to me some redeeming factor! The landscape flattened out and, except for a brief showing of some sand hills further west, it is flat and old and everything looked beat up and tired. Gone were the tidy, pretty little farm houses … old ranches and industrial steel farm buildings and sand pits and cattle replaced them. Accompanied by really horrible, eye-stinging, breath-holding cattle smell.
There were a few times when I did my best impression of Shelly Winter’s Poseidon Adventure breath-holding feat … but she was much better than I was … and I’d have to come up for air and I’d still get a lung-full of cattle stench. (Try as you might, a few areas are too lengthy in distance to safely hold one’s breath while driving a vehicle! It was then that I tried breathing through my mouth – but then I tasted the cattle smell!) Bad!
Iowa’s cow smell was of a few cows munching happily on grasses in lush fields. Nebraska’s cow smell is of vast cattle feed lots and mud and manure and urine and ammonia. And there were plenty of them. I kept thinking the dogs were having gas problems (caused by the cheeseburgers and ice cream cones I’d been feeding them) but nope – it was the great outdoors smelling so wonderfully! Ew! I drove a little faster through those areas!
At one point the smell was so bad … and then I realized it was coming from INSIDE the car. I will save you the (gross) details but poop in a car with a little dog rolling in it is not for the faint of heart. Luckily it was just the dog and her bed that were (to put it nicely) soiled – so, the bed got cleaned off (I brought LOTS of paper towels) and with the extra jug of water I doused the bed and the dog until I felt all (including me) were decently clean (for the time being). Thank god for plastic bags and paper towels.
On our way, once again, after a major slathering of Purell, I was still wondering WHY anyone would live in NE. And I might have just found it … the sky was the absolute perfect Crayola crayon sky blue color. White puffy, find-the hidden-animal-shaped clouds in beautiful sky blue skies. Not hard to take, at all, since there was little else to look at because, by that time, the sun was out and it was HOT and everything had that glaring, bleached-out whiteness to it that comes with sun intensity. I needed better sunglasses!
The Platte River oxbows its way through the area along I-80 so there are a lot of trees (mostly old cottonwoods) on either side of the highway which limits one’s views of what lies behind them. It would make for an interesting view from a helicopter but the drive feels very closed in and the view is of road-side shrubbery, grasses, trees and a glimpse of the brown river from time to time. It’s just not fabulous mile after mile after mile. NE also seemed interminable. And having done this drive 20 some times … we can safely say NE is not my favorite state. I could easily do without ever having to drive it again. Even though it does have the first Pony Express Station in it (Goethenburg) … which is pretty cool and a Starbucks in North Platte. I only had to wait 8 hours for my morning coffee!
And then down the road the sand hills made a brief, pretty appearance and it was about then that I realized I had zipped past my last town/last food place/last motel and was headed for the great expanse and desolation of NE Colorado. Meaning, I had passed Ogallala and was committed to finishing up the drive, whether I really wanted to or not. It wouldn’t have been so bad but, I was tired and it would be another 4 hours of two-way traffic, darkness, construction and animal pit stops for walks and chicken tenders (the dogs weren’t eating their food, so I had to improvise!) before our arrival.
However, I did get to see another beautiful sunset and omg … STARS!!! (And not as in STARbucks but real, actual stars!) It has been a LONG time since I’ve seen stars (pretty much non-existent in Chicago’s lit-up orange glowing sky) … the CO night sky was amazing!
I could have done without the last 2 hours but we arrived around midnight … 787 miles of driving in one day (1084 total); 15 hours of driving for the day and not a bit of help from the four-legged passengers! But Gert kept me company as my co-pilot and that was helpful and we are HERE. I have yet to see my mountains – but that will come this afternoon. In the meantime, we are all just lying low and relaxing. The dogs are taking a late morning nap and I think I’ll join them!
Stay tuned for more as we start on the next leg of our Island Bound adventure in a few days!