Robin was on the phone sorting out Jim's meds when the Wyoming state trooper pulled me over for speeding. He did not really seem to care that I was doing 88 in a 75 mph zone. He mostly wanted to tell me that the interstate was flooded and closed up ahead. He looked at our map and showed me the best alternate route. This route sent us backward into southeastern Montana and ultimately added at least three hours to the day's drive. I called Joanna in Baltimore and she confirmed that I-90 was indeed closed in the vicinity of the Little Big Horn Battlefield. There may have been a shorter route but I drew the line at dirt roads in Wyoming - because of trona, of course! Today, every moment in Wyoming recalled passages from John McPhee's Rising from the Plains. Strip mines, endless coal trains, the random geology which seems to defy nature. But the most striking feature of Wyoming is the sheer emptiness of it all.
Jim lost consciousness sometime after lunch. This trip has been far more brutal on him than I expected. The drive was endless. We left Deadwood at 10:30 Wednesday morning and found our hotel in Missoula after midnight. He refuses to recline his seat to sleep better or to get out and stretch when we stop for gas and food. Thank god, after Missoula there are no more long drives. Two relatively short spells in the car should get us to Seattle in time to rendezvous with our French friend, Ernie.
Here is a shot of some random flooding on I-90, somewhere east of the Yellowstone river.
In fact I do recall hauling ass down some random highway in Wyoming late one night, trying to dodge all of the hundreds of red deer crossing the road, when suddenly the road was not road anymore but a damn dirt highway. Just like that. Asfalt stopped and there was dirt. Went on for twenty miles or something. Weird.
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