My diverse wardrobe
headin’ in for the evening ~
Meadowlarks, Indian Paintbrush, & Me!
AHHAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! Today, I became a local. Today, I became Wyoming. Today, I came up with my first bona fide cowboy sayin’. The great country western songs are full of them. The old timers speak these gems all the time. This morning one came out of my mouth. Out of my mind.
“It takes effort to be that lazy.”
Wahoooooo!!!!!!!!!!! More than having a drivers license, a rural address, a rifle in my name, this makes me Wyoming. Four and a half years in, and I am in.
What’s your favorite cowboy wisdom or one-liner? Share it in the comments!
The Road Home
Incredible hospitality and loveliness notwithstanding, I was so excited to be heading home! I was like a barn-spoiled horse, lunging forward, straining at the bit, coiled and ready to be back just as soon as I could possibly get there.
I had been in the habit of filling my tank with gas first thing in the morning before setting out on each leg of my trip, but on the day I was returning home, I couldn’t stand the detour ~ I had half a tank as it was, and I knew I’d be stopping in Billings, Montana for an errand just two hours into my day’s journey, and that I could just as easily fill up there.
Famous last words.
The road to Billings was smooth and quick but I got a bit lost while in Billings, and was so focused on finding my way out of town (and on the road home), I forgot all about getting gas.
Now, there is but one road from Billings to the Wyoming border where I must cross it, and it is a dislikeable road. I first rode this road on my Vespa in 2005 and I disliked it then, and it has not improved. It’s two lanes, one in each direction, straight, flat, interminable, and there is always traffic. Lots of annoying speeding cars and lots of slow RV’s and lots of big rigs just doin’ what they do.
I am not a reckless driver. It’s just not worth it. It irritates me when people act like cars are toys. So, even though I was achingly anxious to get home, when I ended up behind a semi that was driving rightright behind another semi, I gritted my teeth and hung out where I was.
There were opportunities when I could have passed the semi directly in front of me, but there was no room for me to fit between him and the semi in front of him and no way for me to pass them both at once. So there I was and there I stayed, drafting a semi that was drafting a semi at a steady 53 mph (when I could have been going 70).
I kept wanting to hate the semi in front of me but every time I tried to, I was overtaken by a nagging feeling that I should be grateful to it. I had no idea why I was feeling this, and so I compromised by being reluctantly annoyed.
As we began to approach the Wyoming border, a desolate stretch of road free of towns and human life, I glanced down at my dash. And I saw my gas gauge needle hanging limply below the red. I had forgotten to get gas in Billings! And now I was in the middle of nowhere.
Obscenities flashed through my mind and I held my breath, held it for ten miles, each roll of the odometer bringing me closer to the town of Frannie, Wyoming, yet also closer to asphyxiation. I reached Frannie. There was an ancient gas pump in a gravel lot with a broken down rusted out car angled in front of it, a futile hope, but I pulled into the tobacco shop across the street and ran in barefoot with my truck idling, to ask (rather frantically) if the pump was functional.
Nope! Gas could be procured 30 miles to the north or 8 miles to the south. But I had at least reached Wyoming, and even though I’d never met the people in the tobacco store before, they treated me as family. “Don’t worry,” said the trucker at the counter when I wondered out loud about the possibility of coasting south. “I’m headed that direction and I’ll keep an eye out for you!” So at the very worst, I had an angel willing to run me to town and back for a gas can of go juice should my trusty truck putter out. An angel driving a big rig, to boot!
And let me take a moment to state the obvious: I can be such a blond sometimes! The truth is I detest stopping for gas ~ it’s been an aversion of mine ever since I started driving. My first car, my wonderful little ’67 Bug, had a reserve tank. So when the main tank was totally depleted, I could just push a lever and then have the reserve tank to run from. But there was no gauge for the reserve tank and I’d push the limit so often, and ran out of gas so often, and had to hitch to a gas station so often, I took to carrying a gas can in my Bug’s tiny boot.
Anyway. I made it eight more miles. Miraculously. I made it all the way to a gas station and it had everything to do with the semi I had been trapped behind for so long. If I hadn’t been drafting him for hours, and if I had been going 70 instead of 50mph, I know I would have run out of gas in the desolate zone north of the Wyoming border.
Moral Of The Story: If you aren’t getting what you do want, perhaps it’s because you’re being protected from something you really don’t want!
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