"The Great Plains are thiiiiiiis big!"
This morning, we went to the lobby of our tiny Super 8 motel to partake of the complimentary "toast bar." At our disposal: a loaf of bread, a toaster, butter and jam, coffee and juice, and all the non-dairy creamer we could drink (the horror! the horror!). We buttered our toast and ate it while watching the Weather Channel. We couldn't help noticing the homey decor, undoubtedly designed by the manager and her husband, who live in an apartment behind the front desk. Reader's Digest Condensed Books were prominent, as were plaster statuettes of squirrels and birds with cartoonish near-human features. In a place of honor was a pile of seashells glued together into a tableau of four turkeys playing cards. Melanie speculated that this must have been a souvenir of a long-ago trip to Florida, probably taken right after the managerial couple was wed, and that it was so treasured that they chose to share it with all their guests. Hey, it could happen.
For the last three days, we've been playing license plate bingo. The object has been to spot license plates from every state. Maybe it's that everyone's been on the road for Labor Day, but in just three days, we bagged plates from 46 states plus Washington DC as well as 4 Canadian provinces. The only states not represented yet are Hawaii, Delaware, Mississippi, and West Virginia.
We've decided that the Great Plains are so named because they're quite plain, and after a while, they grate on your nerves. The AAA tour book told us that in Nebraska, "corn is king and alfalfa is queen." Clearly, they are benevolent despots. After mile upon mile of green flatness, though, I was pondering revolution.
Our favorite thing about Nebraska was the posted speed limit -- 75!
Right around lunchtime, we passed a sign for Gothenburg, home of a restored Pony Express station. We decided to drive into town to check it out. Right in the middle of a residential neighborhood, in a park a mere block large, there it was. Melanie forged ahead to check out the postcard selection while I put Surely on her lead and picked her up to carry her inside where she wouldn't have to sit in the sun. The second Surely saw the open doorway, she leaped from my arms and dragged me in. Then she skulked around the perimeter of the exhibits, sniffing and twitching her tail. Both the woman at the souvenir counter and the couple buying tchotchkes exclaimed to see a cat on a leash and told me she was beautiful. Surely accepted their adulation as the very least owed her if she was going to put up with another day in the car.
Back on the road, I started trying to call a friend who lives in Wyoming. Unfortunately, the number I'd programmed into my cel phone was her fax line, and her voice number was unlisted. When we stopped at this cheesy roadside souvenir store, I left a few messages for friends who might be able to contact her for me to let her know I wanted to see her, but to no avail. (Lily, if you read this, I'm sorry we missed each other.)
So we drove. And we drove. And we drove. Eventually Nebraska's fields of crops gave way to rolling grassland with cows grazing beneath slowly bobbing oil derricks, and suddenly we were in Wyoming. The sheer vast emptiness of this state is awe-inspiring. So is the realization that once you pass Cheyenne, you've passed most of the people who live here. It's the least populous state; according to our tour book, more than 100,000 more people live in metro Boston than in all of Wyoming. That's easy to believe when you drive through the state capital right before rush hour and the highway is nevertheless just this side of empty. Unthinkable!
We blew through Cheyenne and decided to stop for the evening at the 1st Inn Gold in Laramie, just off exit 113. After unloading the car and tending to the cat's needs, we realized we had a little time to squeeze in some sightseeing. So we hopped back in the Honda and drove one exit west to the Wyoming Territorial Prison & Old West Park.
The Wyoming Territorial Prison once briefly housed a certain budding criminal named Butch Cassidy. It was also the first prison ever to have separate accommodations for women. We wandered through the cell block, the infirmary, the dining room, the warden's office, and the laundry before heading to the former sheep barn, which now contains the US Marshals Museum.
We were clearly having a little too much fun on our self-guided tour!
The 1st Inn Gold has an outdoor pool and an indoor hot tub. It's too cold for the first, but the second is tempting. I wonder if my swimsuit is out in the car somewhere?
