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Published: April 5th 2013
Wagons in Scottsbluff NM
Replica of one of the wagons used to traverse this section of the country, with Eagle Rock in the background. Yes, literally in the footsteps - or wagon tracks as it were - of the America pioneers, expanding across the Great Plains and deserts to the valleys of the west, all in the name of Manifest Destiny. We were, naturally, doing things backwards, having started (both in terms of this trip and of life) in the Northwestern corner of the country and traversing eastward, relocating much of our stuff from Seattle back to Kentucky. "Hold on just a moment," you say. "Weren't you living in New York? And didn't you join Travelblog in the first place because you were making an epic cross-country move from Kentucky
to Seattle?" How very astute of you, good reader. Yes. We were and we did. But life, just like a neatly planned itinerary, rarely goes as planned. If we're lucky, it'll make for a better story in the end.
We woke up in Missoula with a decision to make regarding the route ahead. We could stick to I-94 and cut directly across North Dakota, a state neither of us had been to, although the forecast was calling for tornado warnings and storm advisories. As fun as
that sounded, we next considered continuing along I-90
Where to?
I'll take whichever road leads me out of the cornfield, thank you. through South Dakota. This is, in fact, not a bad way to go if you discount the fact that we'd already "been there, done that." Plus to complicate matters, the radar showed excessively high-winds and flooding. Lovely. Looking further south we saw I-80 cutting a swatch across Nebraska, a new-to-us state whose only natural-disaster of the week was thunderstorms. So with as much enthusiasm as we could muster it was settled - "We're going to Nebraska!"
There is no painless way to traverse the mid-west. Some routes are more interesting than others, certainly, but between the Rockies and the Missisippi River lies some 900 miles that one does not "go to" but rather finds themselves needing to "get across." The Great Plains are of unquestionable valuable for those who like to nourish themselves on the abundance of food that is gleaned from its nutrient rich soil each year, processed into countless number of food additives and commodity products and sold at artifically low prices to ensure that America's population stays fully satisfied if not necessarily well-fed. But from a scenery perspective, the endless fields of flat grass covered fields begin to seem, well, endless.
Accordingly, things that would
Register Cliff
Near Guernsey, Wyoming. Pioneers would carve their name into the sandstone cliff on the way west. The earliest inscription is 1829, with most in the 1840s and 50s. ordinarily go unnoticed suddenly project a magnified sense of intrigue. "Look at that rock! Have we seen a rock formation like
that before? Doesn't it look redder than all the
other rocks we've seen? I should take a photo." I first became aware of this phenomena during my first drive across the country, nearly a decade ago. After using my camera to bide the time, I eagerly awaited proof of all the "fascinating" and "distinctive" landscapes I had witnessed. Ripping open the envelope and flipping through the stack of prints I noted that there must have been a mistake; these photos couldn't have been
mine. For one thing, they all looked the
same: hill, rock, rock, another hill (or maybe it's the same one?). But closer inspection told the truth. "
Oooh, this one must be the slightly more purplely looking hill we saw, and these rock striations must have seemed somehow unlike all the others at the time." Sadly, an awareness of this behavior does nothing to preclude it (our first trip to New Mexico also yielded dozens of identical Yuca plant photos, presumably because each one was the "biggest yet"). And as these shrubs and stones seemed so fascinating
North Platte River
Near Guernsey, Wyoming at one time, I wonder if it's not necessarily that the scenery is boring, but rather our pace that makes us bored with it.
Which brings me back to our route. You see, every American school-child enrolled in the early 90s is intimately familiar with the
Oregon Trail. Sitting in the computer lab, braving the perils of snake bites, river crossings and dysentery, we dutifully led our pixelated wagon party past the same geographic milestones as every student before us and every student to come. We know them by name: Independence Rock, Scotts Bluff, Chimney Rock, Badwater, Sweetwater, etc. etc. The advantage to diverting along the Platte River Valley was the opportunity to back-track the old westward trails.
And then, approaching one of many historic waymarks, my dozens of somehow-notable-at-the-time photographs all made sense. Landmarks. Literally, marks of the land. Geographical aids in the day before the neatly delineated path of the interstate cut east-west, before sat-nav and atlases and GPS and roadside assistance informed you how to get where you were going. In a sea of endless land, these rocks marked the path and led the way. Because what is "Split Rock" really, besides a rock that looks
Ruts in Wyoming
As the thousands of wagons headed west, their wheels dug ruts into the soft stone leaving evidence of the exact path used en route. mostly like all the other rocks for miles either way, except with a crack in it? Does recognizing that "Big Hill" - a notoriously difficult hill for wagons to cross, many of which had to be pulled by rope - is nothing more than a
bigger hill than the others diminish its significance? The monotony of the landscape only becomes monotonous when it whizzes past the window at 70mph. I suppose if we were on foot, walking the country ten miles a day, the subtleties of the surrounding features would seem that much more pronounced, transitioning from one microclimate to the next. The sponginess of the earth underfoot would lead way to a water source. The relenting wind on the exposed plateaus would be noticeably different than the calmer air found in the protective shadow of the rocky outcrops. And that slightly more purpley looking hillside would be a beacon of hope in the quest for purple mountain majesties, and the first red striations in the bluffs a signal of forward progress.
Though as I said, we were moving in the opposite direction. Not all the pioneers made it out west. Some died. Many settled down in-between. And when
Split Rock Historic Marker
You can see Split Rock in the background, a natural waymarker used to the pioneers to mark their progress. the cold winter air threatened forward progress, I'm sure a few hunkered down somewhere safe - to regroup, to strategize and to gather strength so as to forge ahead at a later date. It might not have been their intended destination, but it wasn't a permanent one either. So that's what we're doing. Eventually, the winds will die down and the weather will warm. We'll get back at it; it's only a matter of time. Can't keep us pinned down for too long. Afterall, there's still a world to see.
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Dancing Dave
David Hooper
that slightly more purpley looking hillside would be a beacon of hope
Ah exploration...following in the tyre tracks of the pioneers...gotta luv it