Keeping a journal requires time and discipline. Personally, I tend to be weak on the discipline part, especially when there isn’t much exciting going on in my life. But when I take those long trips back and forth across the country, I do take the time to put my experiences into words.
As time goes by, events become distant memories. The lead picture is a good example. I knew that I had some images from Wyoming, but couldn’t remember which years I was there. I had to reach all the way back to 2005 for the one that I chose.
Here is a portion of my entry from June 23, 2011, on another trip across Wyoming, where I was traveling westward along Interstate 80:
Along this route, the mountains do not leap out at you. Early highway engineers built their roads in an area with gentler terrain. Somewhere around Cheyenne, the snowy peaks come into view. In fact, most of the way across Wyoming, the mountains loom far in the distance, beyond the truck stops, beyond the oil and gas wells, beyond the dusty desert.
I got a taste of that dusty desert midway across the state. Right after I passed an obscure interchange called Red Desert, I beheld that most dreaded of sights: all traffic at a standstill. Many miles earlier, I had noticed a plume of smoke next to the highway in the far distance, but I was not expecting a full closure.
The smoke was still about 3 miles ahead. This would be a long delay. One vehicle ahead of me crossed the median to make a U-turn. At that moment I beheld an emergency crossover lane. I turned around, fully expecting every cop in Wyoming to chase me (such is my luck). Nothing like that happened. I soon arrived at the Red Desert ramp. A string of cars and pickup trucks were diverting onto a side road between the interstate and the railroad. Immediately ahead of me was the small white car that had crossed the median ahead of me. In the distance, I could see puffs of dust from vehicles making the detour. I surmised (correctly, it turned out) that the road actually led somewhere, and was passable.
The road was a single track, rutted and bumpy. The car in front of me sometimes had to keep one set of wheels in the middle of the road to avoid becoming high-centered. The dust was fierce, blowing directly into our faces by a powerful west wind. Occasionally we would meet vehicles coming the other way; either the eastbound or westbound traffic would have to pull into the sagebrush to let the others pass. After about two miles, what I am charitably calling a road led up an embankment and onto a flat spot parallel to the railroad tracks. At least it has a gravel surface here. Apparently the road was used by trucks servicing the tracks. Encountering a train here would be exciting, but not life-threatening.
Eventually we passed the scene of the highway chaos. Some sort of construction rig heading eastbound had caught fire. Flames spread to the median, and then jumped the westbound lane. Viewing the scene as I ate dust and bounced up and down on the detour, I could not see any particular reason that the westbound traffic was not moving. Not my problem anymore. I was going around it all.
A bit farther west, the single road became two, and then three. This was more of a problem for the eastbound folks who were trying to pick their way to freedom. I just stayed on the best-looking trail until I found a way back to the Interstate. What’s amazing is that large trucks were straying onto the detour! First it was a truck with a crane on the back. It might have been looking for a way to get to the wreck and lend assistance. He was followed a bit later by a big rig, and then another! There was no way in hell for those 18-wheelers to navigate the detour. And scarcely a way for them to turn around.
Had I not taken the time to write this down, the exact location and the details of the adventure would have been hard to recall. In fact, I drove that same stretch of highway last year, and could not recall where this had happened. There was a copy of the journal on my laptop, and I was able to bring those memories back when I returned to the scene. Thankfully there was no wreck this time around, and I zipped towards the western horizon at 75mph.
I still wonder what became of those 18-wheelers whose drivers mistakenly thought the detour was good enough for a big rig.
Do you keep a diary or journal? Do you faithfully tend to it each day, or do you only write when the urge hits?
THINK GLOBALLY, ACT LOCALLY
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Women’s March, January 21, 2017, all across the nation!
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