As we leave home, I have this habit of saying good-bye to the mountains that we see every day. It's a good ritual, reminding me that I will be back, that it's never forever, and that I do love where I live.
That said, nearly the moment we actually left the house, I fell asleep. John was driving, of course, and as those of you who know me well from this blog, I had a ton of things leading up to the moment of leaving, including, of course, all the preparation, the packing, and all the things that we had to finish before we could leave.
I have also been wrestling with nearly six months of having my hands and forearms hurt at night, whether I played games or not. Even when we were out on trips for a week or more, my hands and arms continued to ache at night. And some part of me took that as a sign that I was going to have to cut back yet again on the things that I did and I'd had enough of that. I was down to just about two hours a day of play, and having to watch computer usage, painting, calligraphy, and knitting. I don't knit much anymore, either.
So I happened on the 1HP channel on YouTube and they gave me hope, but after the first week, I was in a lot MORE pain. It's something they say should be expected, but it's hard to sleep when I'm in pain. The interesting thing, though, is that my strength and flexibility of my wrists and hands is demonstrably better than I started... still, I was up half the night with worry, so John let me sleep for the first two hours on the road. Then, because it was freeway, he asked if I wanted to drive, so I did.
And it really didn't hurt.
Most of our path was Interstate 76, then 80, and then north on state route 83. Through bumpy Nebraska and then Montana like rolling hills landscapes and then up in the old glacial fields that are flat as anything.
A large chunk of today's drive was through sand substrate plains, i.e. the "earth" under the top soil was all sand. Another big chunk of it was through the Valentine National Wildlife Refuge, which was utterly gorgeous.
Lunch was half a six inch Italian sub, and we stopped at one scenic stop that ended up being in a valley that was well below the beautiful vistas we'd been driving through, so we kept going.
The whole album of photos can be found here, if you want to just see them.
Quite a lot of the road paralleled an old highway, where a lot of the ranches entered or exited, and then went on accessor channels between the old and new road to get to the new two lane highway.
There were signs of this old road the whole way up, and it made me wonder at the sheer wealth of land that allowed the building of a whole new road bed AND allowed the remains of the old one to just stay.
You can see the sand peeking out along the side of the road, by the grass on the right.
It was a good day, all in all, as the driving didn't hurt nearly as much as I thought it was going to, and the new keyboard that Jet and I bought months ago so I could blog worked as soon as I brought it out to match with the laptop, but it wasn't completely charged.
We ended in Murdo, according to John's plan at a "Love Hotel", which actually is a small owners' chain of independent hotels. It's quite nice, well-appointed, clean, and upgraded in the ways that make a difference when one is just staying for a single night.
Dinner was at the Buffalo Bar and Restaurant, which lay at the very end of town. It was a great half mile walk from the hotel and by that point we needed the walk. Dinner itself was really good, the place has a very simple diner menu, with daily specials, and tonight's was chicken fried steak, which is one of my favorites. John got the buffalo burger, and my steak turned out perfectly crisp and crunchy on all the edges with a tasty milk and pepper gravy and perfectly solid mashed potatoes. As we went out the door we got to see that lovely streaked cloud and sunset sky.
On the way back we wandered about the grocery store and then heard a huge flock of birds in a group of pine trees. We crossed the highway just to stand there and listen to the birds. I think there might be a couple of videos of them in the album
Then we headed back to the room and I got to use my new keyboard and write this entry in a way I haven't done on the road for a very very long time. And these really do make the difference. I have a really weird arm structure, where the optimal position for my keyboard is actually in my lap, and the shoulder width spread that's easy with this Corne keyboard makes it super comfortable to use.
It feels good to write again. Hopefully, with the endurance training, and a multitude of methods for getting tight tendons and muscles to release a load they've assumed for decades, I'll be able to write more.
In the meantime, I hope you're well, and tomorrow we'll get to see a statue John's wanted to see for a while, and then we'll get to Dupree and the whole of the Crew that is appearing from our past adventures in Biloxi and Puerto Rico.
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