Today was a day of learning about the Central Plains area of
our country. To be quite frank, in the past we have
avoided this area as if it had the plague.
We took the road north out of Amarillo and kept going north in basically
a straight line until we got into Nebraska.
Then it was a quick jog west into Cheyenne. We had been discussing changing our route
home to south through El Paso, Tucson and then up the I-5 corridor home. But the lure of new parts of the country and
new states for Bug was too great so we decided that the winter storm warnings
didn’t apply to us and off we went.
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| Bug with her last Texas breakfast - a Texas shaped waffle |
We left Amarillo in our shorts, sandals and sleeveless tops
since it was quickly working its way up to over 80°. This may seem like an irrelevant fact but
just wait. While driving north we again
saw a plant we didn’t recognize growing in the fields. We had been seeing it since we got into
Texas. Bug did the smart phone thing and
discovered that it is sorghum. It is a
gluten free millet mostly used for animal feed but its use as people food is
growing. The US is the #3 exporter of
millet in the world.
Today we went through 5 states and added 3 to Bug’s list:
Oklahoma (for 50 miles, but it counts), Nebraska (again for about 40 miles) and
Wyoming. Our shorts and sandals worked
great until about the middle of Colorado when the temperature starting changing
from the mid to high 70’s into something much lower.
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| Bug going into Oklahoma for the first time |
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| Bug crossing into Nebraska |
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| Bug and Sew Diva freezing as they cross into Nebraska |
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| Bug entering Wyoming |
We decided to give Colorado the reward for the largest
windmill farms on our trip. They went on
absolutely forever. And unlike most
windmill farms we have seen up to this point, the windmills were in fields with
other things in them: like wheat, corn and cows. A much better use of the land than just the
windmills. After noticing the shape of
the trees near the windmill farms we did come to a decision about choosing a
place to live: If you can see windmills
from the house, don’t live there. i.e.:
windmills = intense wind!
Remember the comment about the shorts and sandals? Well, this is where that becomes
relevant. As we pulled into Wyoming we
met that pesky winter storm warning that didn’t apply to us. OOPS!
The snow was falling as we entered Cheyenne so we got to get our luggage
out of the van and into the motel in the blowing snow in our sandals.
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| No, this is not a hazy picture. That is snow falling as we unloaded the car in Cheyenne |
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| View from our window as we went to bed |
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