Monday, October 16, 2017

High Pains Drifting

Home again, home again jiggity jig.....

We enjoyed a longer than usual trip - a drift around the US's High Plains, travelling through, or in, three panhandles: Oklahoma panhandle, the Texas panhandle, and the Nebraska panhandle. The latter was a new one for us, and very nice too - possibly one of those "hidden gems" travel writers sometimes mention. We also hit the plains of Colorado in Fort Morgan, and the eastern edge of Wyoming at Torrington; home again via Kansas and northern Oklahoma.

We'd have ventured further into Colorado or Wyoming but for the weather forecast. Snow arrived in the Rockies. We experienced just an icing sugar scattering in Scottsbluff, Nebraska where we were staying at the time.

(Clicking on them should bring up clearer versions of husband's photos below.)



Fall has definitely fallen in parts of Colorado and Nebraska. The area around Scottsbluff was especially bright with golden Maples plentiful and practically fluorescent. I like Nebraska! Don't know exactly why, I just do - it feels like "me". I wondered if, perhaps, the feeling connected to the state's latitude. It is nearer to England's Yorkshire latitude than is south-western Oklahoma, for sure, but I'd have to be well into Canada to find similar latitude to my birthplace in the north of England.

Points of special interest were: Carhenge in Nebraska - someone had the peculiar idea of building a kind of stonehenge (as in England) from old cars. The morning of our visit was very windy and plenty cold, though not quite bad enough to keep us inside our car.





Later in the trip, in Kansas, we stumbled upon what was once known as the Cathedral of the Plains, now slightly downgraded from Cathedral to The Basilica of St Fidelis because it's not the seat of a Bishop. In any city the huge church would seem quite unremarkable, but rising from those barely populated plains, it stands out some...well...actually it stands out a lot.

We also stumbled upon Greensburg, Kansas without, at first, remembering its recent history. The cinema caught our attention, named after me too!

"Looks brand new, but who would build a new cinema in a tiny town these days?"


Hey, look - they spelled theatre the British way - just noticed!

The whole of Greensburg looked new too - strange indeed, in these parts, where dilapidation and abandonment are common. We found the small town's antique store where the answer awaited, in newspaper cuttings and photographs in the store's entrance. "Of course! I remember now - a tornado devastated this town some years ago!" Ten years ago, in fact. The antique store owner told us that the town had been in the middle of painting and tidying itself up, when the tornado hit and undid the handiwork. Still, Greensburg looks great now, and, we were told, it has been rebuilt to be, appropriately enough - "green". Locals have no argument at all when they see the drop in their energy bills each month, we were told.

We arrived home Sunday afternoon after our High Plains drifting. We forgot to take our whip along but, happily, didn't meet this legendary fellow-drifter! We did have a little "excitement" one evening though. Husband accidentally pressed the emergency button on the phone in our room, while shifting the telephone. Next thing : cops at the door wanting to know....Oops! Indeed!

A little contemplation of where the next trip might take us needed a hat (TSK!) and a drink:



6 comments:

R J Adams said...

Welcome home, Twilight & Anyjazz! Looks like you had a good time and covered a few miles. I remember that Nebraska 'carhenge' from a programme on the telly some years ago. I think it was one of Simon Reeves' travels, but I could be wrong. I remember thinking at the time it was so typically American - though in a good way!
It's interesting that you found Nebraska 'me-ish'. I felt an immediate, similar sense of kinship when we moved to the U.P. of Michigan. Still miss the place. If only there'd been a bit less snow and a lot less mosquitoes!
I hope you'll manage a bit more blogging before you go swanning off again. I've had nothing to read for the past couple of weeks.
Tell Anyjazz I think the hat was definitely his style!

Twilight said...

RJ Adams ~ Thank you, RJ! We did very much enjoy the change of scene and pace of day to day life. While I was happy to get back to our own bed, bathroom and Netflix access, upon reading a few news/opinion websites this morning, I feel like piling the newly washed contents of our luggage back into the bags and into the car's trunk then heading off again, right away! Not practical, but highly desirable.

That's interesting - about you and the Upper Peninsula. I suppose it's natural for we native northerners to feel more "at home" in nearer to similar latitudes. I think Nebraska had a good number of immigrants from Scandinavia, and East Yorkshire (my own county of birth)has bloodlines connected to Scandinavia via t'Vikings. LOL! Whenever I think of Vikings I think of that old movie with Tony Curtis and Kirk Douglas, with Curtis neck-deep in the sea crying out "Odin, Odin, something...something.. turn back the tide!"
https://youtu.be/Hyk9UScz4_8

Oh - please don't encourage Anyjazz, hatwise. I'm constantly embarrassed by his larks in antique stores. I blame his Aries Sun - Aries connects to the head; a dope slap around it wouldn't go amiss at times. ;-)

Bob said...

Glad you are back and that you had another enjoyable trip.

Locating a (your) 2:27 pm, UT, chart to Scotts Bluff has the nadir (not the IC) at 42°21' with it's Uranus at 41°30' on it. And might have been a Jupiter and Uranus day in your progressed demi-solar demi-anlunar depending on the day you were there.

Twilight said...

Bob ~ Hey there! Thanks for that (I think!) We were in and around Scottsbluff for 3 nights, Sat, Sun and Mon 7-9 Oct. Time of birth 2.27 is rectified though and I'm now convinced it should be a bit later - up to 30 mins later. That's the trouble with being born in the UK - nobody knows their time of birth for sure, unless parents are astrology fans - mine were not, and as Mum almost died during the birth they had other things on their minds. :-/

Bob said...

What time was the mail brought in on Monday, June 30, 2008?

Have just read the tale of your journey to gain citizenship. Was glad for you when it was over.

Twilight said...

Bob~ Oh my ~ well...thank you for reading it! It was a long and winding road, Bob, from sometime in 2003 when husband-to-be, Anyjazz, had to apply for permission to stay in the UK with me, to the day in August 2008 when I, eventually, held the certificate of US citizenship in my hot sticky hand! I often wonder how I survived and came out in one piece! :-) I do realise, now, that many people have a much worse time, and much longer wait, on the journey from alien to citizen.

LOL! I can hardly remmeber what time the mail was brought in yesterday - but if you are thinking astrologically on this - I suppose it would have been early afternoon, on 30 June 2008, between 1 and.... 3 pm at latest when I at last received the date for my Oath Ceremony.