Ruby Goes to

Posted late July , 2005

Part 1

Jim's old friend Mike got a job teaching in Wyoming in 2000. Jim went for his first visit back in the summer of 2003, when Mike enticed him out there with the promise of getting to help redo the roof on his garage. Having never felt the call of either deserts or mountains, I stayed home.

The stories Jim returned with didn't make me regret my decision at first. Neither he nor his truck could get enough oxygen to function at full potential, for starters. Then he told me about his experience of standing in a brief shower and observing the raindrops hit his arms, but never getting wet because they evaporated so quickly in the dry air. And, while the scenery was at times spectacular, it was a long climb into ever less oxygen rich air to get to the best spots, and once he'd arrived, there seemed a definate lack of flora and fauna to a Midwestener.

However, after about the twentieth time he said, apropos of nothing, "Did you know that Wyoming is an old Indian word meaning 'Uphill both ways?'," I began to regret my decision not to go. If Wyoming had the power to scar my generally unflappable Jim, perhaps it was an experience I should have gone through just to be able to talk about it if I survived it. In a weak moment, I told Jim I'd go with him if he ever went back, more than half suspecting he'd never set foot there again.

Mike came to visit us in '04, and much to my surprise the notion was bruited about that we'd come out there the next year.

I almost backed out at the last minute when the fateful date finally came around. We'd be going West at a time of year when it was already too hot to die, and even with air conditioning the notion of a twenty-plus hour trip was daunting. Besides, I was sure I wouldn't be able to keep up while Jim was gamely matching Mike on hikes through oxygen-deficient heights. Well, I consoled myself, I'd stay at their house, finish up the sweater-vest I'd started for Jim after he got back the last time, and do a chunk of piecing on my JoAnn's Quilt Block of the Month quilt while everyone else was out having fun. Besides, the one attractive thing Jim had said about Wyoming was that there were horses everywhere. Maybe if I could breathe by the end of our ten-day sojourn, I could get in a trail ride. Besides, by the time my feet started getting really cold, Jim had already called his folks in Missouri to tell them we were both coming, and it would look strange if I didn't show up.

Jim's mom gave us a mission. Her brother and his family live in Fort Collins, CO, and their four barns were still in Grandma's closet in Chester, Illinois.

Allow me to digress about the barns. When Jim and I first got together, back in 1974, Grandma was trying to talk the menfolk in the family into getting together to demolish the barn on her property on Kaskaskia island. She was sure it was in eminent danger of collapse. After three floods on the Island, in the course of which it survived two farmhouses (Grandma gave up on farmhouses after the second flood) the barn was still standing, as rickety as ever. For Grandma's 95th birthday, Jim's Mom talked him into wrenching off some barnwood and comissioned him to use it to build every member of the family a foot-long, barn-shaped box. Each box contained a small frame of barnwood for a photo of the barn in its haler days, a square, handmade nail salvaged from the barn, and a copy of the bill for the materials her father used to have the barn built.

I have to admit that I was slow to warm to our barn's rough-hewn, weathered, hipped charm. However, when we brought it home and set it down, we realized it was just the right size to become a home for our many remotes - and because the lid isn't flat, we can't put anything on top of it. It's the only time in our lives we've had a fighting chance of finding the right remote when we need it, and we often bless Jim's mom for our ugly duckling of a box.

Anyway, the point of all this is that George and Pat and two of their sons had flown out to the birthday party and hadn't been able to take their barns back with them. So we began our trip with a quick visit to Grandma. We found her standing outside and washing off her sidewalk with the hose - at 97, she still lives at home, bless her. Then we hurried on to Columbia, MO, had a delicious home-cooked meal and a nice visit, and pressed on to take advantage of the relative cool of the evening.

Jim and I travel well together. I tend to get hypnotized by the road and fall asleep, and Jim rather enjoys long drives in silence.

We stopped at a motel in Salina, Kansas. It advertized rooms from $29.95 but of course all the less expensive rooms were taken. I was appalled that there was no refrigerator - I'd brought Pepsi for breakfast, but I hadn't had the sense to pack a cooler so they were at room temperature, which was at least 90 degrees even at three in the morning. We took quick showers and tumbled into our beds. In the morning, when I drew water to take my antihistamines, I discovered that the faucets in the sink were backwards - the right-hand one gave me hot water. I wandered out to the office once I was over the shock. I would have put out the "Do not disturb" sign, but there wasn't one. In the lobby, I found a Pepsi machine that had only diet Pepsi. I settled for it, but I managed to find ice to bury a Pepsi from the car to get cold for Jim. I expected him to sleep until 10 or 10:30 (checkout was at eleven), but the maid knocked on the door at 9 as I was bringing the ice back and he couldn't get back to sleep.

Kansas passed by in a blur of golden heat. We had a South Park moment when we crossed the state line and were welcomed to an equally sere "Colorful Colorado." We drove for miles and miles, wondering where the mountains were we'd heard so much about and heading into a thunderstorm that cooled things off for an excruciatingly short period as we shot through it, and suddenly the fabled mountians loomed in the distance. We elected to take the turnpike into Fort Collins, bypassing the traffic of Denver at a rate that seemed like $1.75 every few blocks. We found our relatives' house without serious trouble. No one was home, so we left the four barns in their cheery Christmasy gift bags by the back door and pressed on into Cheyenne.

Cheyenne, the capitol of Wyoming, is about the size of Carbondale. We drove downtown looking for a place to eat, and wound up in a cozy brewpub in the Union Pacific building, a yellow stone building accented with red rock from "Flaming Gorge," a canyon of red rock that had glowed like fire in the sunset, untill it was dammed up to serve as a reservoir. Ah well, what do you want, poetry or life-giving water?

Jim had been all for pressing on after dinner, but a generous serving of smoked trout washed down with one of the house's brews changed his mind. I said "We passed a Comfort Inn comming into town. Their billboards say "Free breakfast!"

"We'll give it a try," he said.

He was greeted by the declaration, "The rooms are old and a bit run-down," but he didn't balk until the end of the registration process - "That'll be $99"

"No, thanks," he said.

"What?"

"We'll stay somewhere else."

"Well, good luck," said the clerk, without seeming to think we had much hope of getting a better deal.

Jim never gets turned around, but Fate took us by the hand and we left the interstate for an industrial stretch that seemed utterly uninhabited. Jim kept trying to bear toward what he thought was Downtown, and lo and behold we soon found ourselves driving into the parking lot of a Ma and Pa motel of 50's vintage. The rooms were a bit run-down, but the beds were comfortable, the hot and cold water were where you expected them, and there was an efficient refrigerator for our breakfast Pepsis - all for $40 a night, although the check out time was a bleary-eyed 10 am. I woke earlier than Jim, and found not one but 2 "Do not Disturb" signs to put on the door to protect him from overzelous maids. We figure this place had somehow got hold of the one from Salina.

The morning also revealed that we were just a few blocks from Downtown. We stopped into the Capitol building on the other side of the plaza from our brewpub, to be informed that the geological maps were at the school in Laramie. Luckily, Laramie was on our route, so our second day of travel was up, up, and away! into the oxygen-starved heights of Wyoming.

By Ruby Jung, even the background. All rights reserved to the story. If you care for the background, you're welcome to copy and use it.