The Rest of Our Trip 3/17 to 3/21

 Update.  

Hot water heater is dead.  Bryan thinks it's the thermocouple.  Great.  He's supposed to leave tonight or tomorrow for Wisconsin.  I think our good luck streak did not kick in.  Not sure if he can get it fixed before he goes.  Holey hand grenades Bat Man!  Really?!?! Could it have just lasted a couple more weeks?  (HEAVY SIGH)

We will likely be able to e-sign for the closing.  If not we either have to go to Winter Park or Dillon.  They are going to get with us to discuss how it will go down.  

Now for another catch up on the recent Wisconsin trip:

Selfie captured on the Laramie Plains, when we were happy as heck to have gotten over the worst parts of the mountains.  Still only Sherman Hill to go.  (Captured by the world's worst selfie taker, yours truly!)

Of course, we entered Nebraska, and when in Nebraska, you do what the Nebraskans do.  You have Runza.  

Bryan, enjoying his Runza with cheese and onion rings.  I just had the Runza and one of Bryan's onion rings.  Too salty.  But we agreed, we would have Runza another 5 times before the entire venture is over.    

A word about the rest stops.  Particularly in Nebraska.  They had a lot of them closed.  Some, they were in the process of dismantling.  Some already completely gone with grass growing on the ramps.  Some with lights on, just empty, like they could take the gates aside and they could open up at any time.  But this lead to an insanity of trucks parked everywhere.  When we finally wanted to stop, we went to three different places, and finally ended up parked somewhat in front of the CAT scales on tilty sidehill in an overfilled truck stop, close to Omaha.  Right by the entrance.  It was Grand Central Station, with trucks coming and going all night.  I think we got a combined 15 minutes of sleep.  

A funny aside:  We got off at an exit and realized it was the wrong one for the truck stop.  We decided to turn around and head back to the highway.  Bryan found this parking lot, probably THE WORST place to turn around, with a funny angle in the driveway all catty-corner.  Crazy place.  Bryan says GREAT, I can practice my 32 point turn.  After screwing around and eventually having to put the truck in 4WD to get the rig over the curb and back onto the street, Bryan says, "I bet the people are going to laugh their head off at the security camera footage in the morning!"  We both laughed and Bryan said, "GREAT!  That's two YouTube videos we will be in today!" (Refer to the towing job to get us out of our alley!)

Despite the late night and the lack of sleep, we enjoyed the trip.    

I sure love the country.  As we ride along, I love to look at the old farms and try to imagine back to when it was homesteaded, 150 years ago or so.  Hard work went into those giant farms and historic barns.  The houses are always huge to accommodate a dozen children, but even so, they are dwarfed by the size of the main barn, and surrounded by bunches of outbuildings.  How must it have looked before all of that?  I would love to sit down and read the history on every single one.  And over each hill and around each curve, there's another one to look at, each with its section of land.  Very few are run down.  Many of them seem to be going concerns.  It's just amazing to look at them.  

I tried to take a few pictures, but finally gave up to just watch them go by.  

The wildfires were crazy.  There were two of them.  They were in Nebraska, within an hour of each other.

I didn't get any pictures of the first one, because it caught us off guard.  We drove through it, basically.  Looked like it was started with a cigarette pitched out the window.  It was patchy with little isolated fires burning all over the hillside.  Actively burning, but no firetrucks or crews in site.  The weirdest thing!

I did get a picture of the second one.  We could see that for miles and miles.  My close up pictures didn't turn out because it was dark by then, and dark + bouncy truck = blur.  But here's the approach:

Now for the unloading:

                                    The empty storage unit.  Man inserted for size comparison. 

           Just starting out.  Getting our shoes tied up so we don't deck it.  A usual thing for our Bry.  

About half way, this is my measly lightweight jumbled up pile.

                                                 And here's Bryan's heavy Tetris applied pile.

The parking area between the storage buildings.  Nice that there's plenty of room in there.

The nearly empty trailer around 3pm.  

I'd say it's a little over half full?

As you would have read in a previous post, we were pretty heavy.  Once the stuff was removed, the inches between ground and trailer, and ground and truck hitch, increased significantly.  We knew from the weather report that there would be crazy wind, so we left a wooden box full of tire chains in the nose, so there was a little ballast.  Although we fought the wind the whole way back, the trailer did great.  The gas mileage sucked because of the headwind. but we did OK.   

And finally for the giant breakfast and the gallons of coffee....WITH CREAM!  Our favorite thing to do when we travel is go into a Perkins or a Denny's, or a Village Inn, and get the biggest breakfast we can get, and wash it down with 3-4 cups of sweet creamed coffee.  Then it's snacks for the rest of the day, with a dinner of sorts in the evening.  

Our creamer graveyard.

Our big breakfast.  Of course Bryan had his hand over his...so I look like I had a giant breakfast and he had a little pancake. 

It was a fun trip.  I love a good road trip, but we will be repeating this venture maybe four times, getting all our stuff and vehicles there.  So, I hope the fun doesn't wear off.  It kinda does on Day 5 when you're close to home and it's 2am, and you just want to get there.  But starting out, it's exciting and fun, and the anticipation is almost as fun as the whole trip itself.