speaking of time flying, i realize i am getting further and further from my trip in more ways than one. so much has happened since returning to austin . . . perhaps i should have returned a little earlier than i did in order to gradually re-immerse myself into city life. that said, it would have probably been overwhelming no matter how i broke back into it. i wouldn't have traded any of the events that were before me when i returned . . . kelleen and brian coming for a 4 day visit; my cousins from barcelona coming for a visit; doctors' appointments for mom in houston; a retreat i'd signed up for awhile back . . .
besides, it's all "life" whether on the road or off the road. i just don't want to lose the magic of my adventure on the road and that is what is feeling further and further away and i need to capture as much of that as i can in words and photos. they won't recreate the trip but they will be touchstones by which i can get closer to those times. some, of course, i'll never forget nor will i need touchstones to take me back.
on the day i left austin, my first destination was oklahoma city where i got to see a friend of mine perform her music; day 2 i went from oklahoma city
to pratt, kansas
, stopping at Roman Nose State Park on the way to hike the beautiful gypsum canyon there. if it hadn't been for my friend mary catherine (with whom i visited in OK) i would never have headed that way. my resolution not to stick with even my loose plans allowed me to hit pay dirt even this early on the trip.
Day 3 was Pratt to Lake McConaughy, Nebraska followed by McConaughy to Lake Ogallala State Park in Nebraska - all of 43 miles away.
So, the morning of day 5 i departed Ogallala
for the Samuel R McKelvie National Forest, also in Nebraska. I had an amazing campsite there - right on the Niobrara River, a river I really wanted to see as I'd fallen in love with it vicariously through Jim Harrison's books.
i say "wanted to see" because i promised myself that while i might have a very loose plan for places and people i wanted to see, not to be disappointed if some of them didn't happen. and, as it turned out, whenever my hoped-for destination turned out to be impossible to reach (i.e. Medicine Wheel, Wyoming being under 15 feet of snow), the place to which i went instead was incredible and something i wouldn't have otherwise experienced.
so, i had this glorious campsite right on the Niobrara
and had scouted out a hike for the next morning only 
Life decided to send a major thunderstorm about 4:00 that morning so i broke camp and drove around a bit aimlessly and into one of the most beautiful sunrises i've ever seen.
from this point in nebraska i drove toward lemmon, south dakota and made it there by early evening. the one thing i did commit to on this trip was making it to lemmon, south dakota whether i got there and turned right around and came home, got there and decided to stay or got there and left the rest of it up to Life. the latter was the winner. i spent 5 nights and 4 days in lemmon. i still don't know what compelled me to go there although part of it may have been that it was so far from texas that it left no doubt i'd get far enough away that i wouldn't just turn around and go home. my day trips west, north, east and south of lemmon
were awesome adventures in and of themselves but more on that later.
after lemmon, my stopping points were:
- Cheyanne Crossing, South Dakota
- Hill City, South Dakota
- Devil's Tower, Wyoming
- Greybull, Wyoming
- Billings, Montana
- Philipsburg, Montana
- Moscow, Idaho
- Packwood, Washington
- Portland, Oregon
- Eugene, Oregon
- Klamath Falls, Oregon
- Castle Crag, California
- Burney, California
- Lassen National Park, California
- Roseville, California
- Pescadero, California
- Chowchilla, California
- Yosemite
- Lone Pine, California
- Mesquite, Nevada
- Zion National Park, Utah
- Bryce Canyon, Utah
- North Rim of the Grand Canyon,
Arizona - Jacob Lake, Arizona
- Cortez, Colorado
- Mesa Verde, Colorado
- Ouray, Colorado
- Chama, New Mexico
- Abiqui, New Mexico
- Corona, New Mexico
- Hobbs, New Mexico
as to photos, well, i thought i was doing a good job of sorting them. "thought" being the operative word. while i did an adequate job of downloading them and sorting them by day when i could, i also managed to delete quite a few, or so i thought. thanks to cory, i had a backup folder where anything i downloaded, whether i deleted it or not, was saved. also as to photos i took way too many both with my camera and my phone. but i also remembered to look at things through my own eyes and not just the eye of the camera. no drive by shootings on this trip which had been my MO too often in the past.
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