The Road to Wyoming (Part 1)

Sarah and I took off to Wyoming.  It was a simple few days full of driving.  We held discussion that wavered into hours of silent thought.  We left late, and came back later, never having more of a plan than to go.  It altered almost hourly, and we followed along with whatever came our way.

The night we left, Friday, we hit heavy traffic on the interstate highway.  A cornerstone of structural woes. The bridge between here and where-the-fuck-ever, halted in space by the same urge to move held by thousands of other people.  We decided quickly to maneuver off I 25, and onto 287 instead.  287 runs Northwest, an almost straight shot to where we were headed.  Looking west from I 25 we watched a dark gray swath of rain and wind overtaking our path.  That was our immediate destination, and it looked gorgeous when compared to the Honda CRV bumper in front of us.

The exit for Owl Canyon came up, a stretch of paved road followed by ten minutes of driving on gravel.  The cut to 287 was easy enough, if not a bit wet.  Neither of us cared.  I was just glad to be away from Longmont again; waving hello to the simple repeated motions of marching purposefully away from the town you know too well.  Maybe the town knows me too well, but whatever the cause, my effect was outing myself.

We watched as patterns were drawn on our window with clear paint.  The sky darkened.  Rain smashed, then tapped onto the window, then quit all together.  Now we were free to really haul.  We flew up 287.  Boulders stacked on top of each other all around us.  Each rock was twenty feet high and balanced atop the next, making a cliff side of build-a-blocks. Every few minutes a motorcycle would pass us with a roar or a scream.  I envied them, though they probably felt the same about us twenty minutes before.

Colorado left us quickly. We watched granite boulders turn to grassy plains, and the plains turn to dark dirt and weed filled fields. The barren land of Wyoming. It has a sweetness, a simple openness. The empty land that is unseen by most in the world. The sprite green bushes working every second to survive the extreme conditions of everyday Wyoming.  The Wild West continued, not reborn because there in Wyoming it never died. It is the great frontier even in 2016.  You don’t see big development, no cookie cutter homes or copy past neighborhoods.  They have no place next to the hard built ranch homes and sun faded barns.  The wooden fences built by grandparents of grandparents, and up-kept by the hard dry hands of the family name.  The homes out there are broken in.  They seep and sag like all houses do someday. They have found the true ground they were built on, and will stay until the families repairing the roof decides to let it rot.

With the car windows cracked open, and the sun dropping inches every minute, we sped to the Northwest. Old hopes of beating the darkness to our campsite were let go.  The reality had long past that we would have an easy set up, but the thought was as light as the air kissing our cheeks.  The chilled rush of wind made by our unnatural speed over the dry landscape.  We spoke on and off about the sights; they were gorgeous around us and only rising in beauty every minute.

The clouds began to engulf in brightness.  Fire from the sun lit them ablaze.  Mountains hundreds of miles away took on a brilliant hue, and stood out sharp against the light sky behind them. The open plains gave the expansiveness of our world a hint of reality.  I am sure I cannot comprehend the size of our planet still, but the sunset behind Wyoming peaks, with a hundred miles of open land between, certainly helped.

We were driving within the sunset then.  Low lying clouds shone above us. We welcomed the setting sun happily, even if it meant a difficult night to come.

Our drive was almost finished for the night.  We turned toward Sinclair.  The dirt and gravel backroad to Seminoe Reservoir lay in our headlights, and the gray dusk let us watch outlines of mountains pass to our sides.