Nebraska

4am

I'm too wide awake with having had more hours of sleep in one night than in other hours of sleep in one night in weeks, plus I gained an extra hour going into mountain time plus another extra hour from the clocks changing. So I'm two hours ahead and two hours behind...wha?? you ask.

The lazy late start yesterday didn't get me to Laramie, instead it got me to Sidney NE, home to the Carbella's sport store which also houses some amazing bronze art, though I didn't go this time I did appreciate it once before. Sidney is two hours east of Laramie. Last year I would have driven on in the dark, having to get to my destination, but this year I'm reminding myself that I'm semi-retired, so I stopped before dusk.

Stopping a few places along the way, taking a few photos, I made good time.

Impressions:
a lot of people think the prairie, i.e. is flat and boring. I'm not one, at least not when 'passing through'. There's something to a big sky, changing clouds and driving (as my first song played on the ipod) Across the Universe.... there's something in the way he moves me, ah now that's free writing for you, you can't resist the thought, there's something in the landscape, like the huge ‘haystack looking’ things, huge 8 feet tall mounds on the land. I found out along the way, from talking to the locals that they are not 'haystacks' but rather corn husk stacks, hence the NE nickname of 'Cornhuskers'. The stacks are very beautiful. I stopped in Elm Creek in a hotel and asked about the Coyote on the hill near Sidney but she didn't know where or what I was talking about. I took a photo of a replica stagecoach, pretty cool looking. Here on the plains I can feel how much smaller it would have looked to those first families rolling in those wagons on dirt ruts, the 12 foot tall prairie grass, mostly all gone for now, you can get a slight sense of it from the 4’ tall grasses on the highway sides, I do believe it will come back, there's too many people who want to see it again for it to go extinct. If you let yourself sink into the landscape, there's too much going on to call it boring.

So, Sidney NE became a great place to stop for the night. My hotel is perfect and the guy at the desk steered me, excuse the pun, to the vegetarian owned steakhouse for some good food, and a great crowd of people to hang out with for the evening. It's the best steak house they say in the state, not that I'm eating steak at the moment, but I got real tempted. I had the biggest plate of fresh green beans and good salad and ended up having some fish, the first animal meat in a couple of weeks, the Halibut was as amazing as the 'pipe laying' contractor from Vegas promised me. He and two friends kept me entertained until the Carbella’s crowd came in, and then I switched friends as the pipe layers went home. Now I'm not good with names, the bartender was a smart sweet guy, a sports coach, future teacher, and I know a good musician from our conversation, smart in every area we talked about, except you know where, when you're reading this...I told him he might want to drop the Mountain Dew habit if he wants to really lead a full life! Then there were the four others, they became other people for me, there was the Jack Nicholson wanna-be, who was very, very good, a kind man whose personally grew past the Jack persona, there was his best friend, the leader of the pack, who didn't wanna-be the look-a-like for Russell Crowe, but he couldn't help it, they're from the same stock. He moved, looked and acted like the good guy Russell Crowe is on screen, whose wife is about to have her third and they are happy together. His real brother and sister, (whose little girl was two yesterday) where there for the evening, just to hang together. She's a nurse, who I think will take up homeopathy, the younger brother, will stop living with their cool just retired teacher parents, he'll marry, when he meets ‘her’ and live happily ever after, between them we figured out that Grandma and Grandpa will have 12 or 13 grandchildren, we all laughed when I said, of course you're Catholic. They are the salt of the earth people here, they own and love the 1000's of acres of land, the Cherokee land that their families have owned for a long long time. They work the good life, play as family and welcome strangers, with humor and friendliness. I had fun and was honored to meet them. They have given me the information I came for. To stop in Potter Hill, take exit 38, drive up to Tim December's property, the brown house, and take me a close up picture of that Coyote, they say if Tim comes out, that, that Coyote ain't his Coyote, and if he's got a shotgun in his hand to say I'm a photographer for the local Telegraph newspaper, it'll hopefully be just the right time of day to convince him of that and get my prize winner photograph. Well I'll add some songs the list, thank you Richard H. they are the best, download those photo's and be on my way to Hailey ID via Potter Hill by dusk.

the peace, the quiet and the words

she’s trying not to hang
on the few words sent
thought they echo
just a few words
the humm sound
like the Stared Coverlet
quiet, precise
there are other things
to see and do also
she can’t help smiling