Tilting at Wind Turbines and Other Random Thoughts on the Drive from Iowa to Montana
There is a North Skunk Creek and a South Skunk Creek, but no Dead Skunk Creek.
There was a Dead Horse Creek in Wyoming (as well as a Crazy Woman Creek, which I side-eyed until I decided it was preferable to Dead Woman Creek), and just generally, Wyoming had a lot of creeks of the [Adjective] [Noun] Creek [Road] formula.
Iowa was the land of wind turbines. They had a whole gentle giant majesty going on especially when compared to the smoke stacks of South Dakota ejaculating poison into the air (seriously though, the phallic imagery was pretty epic).
Little Sioux had a billboard that seemed bigger than the town itself saying "Prepare to meet thy God". Um. Sure. I'll meet my god, who doesn't exist. Then Sioux City, and finally Sioux Falls where Bobby and Snowmiser conspired to trap me for the night with blizzarding and road closures. Though I guess if I was going to be delayed somewhere, it's nice that it was a place I got to make Supernatural references about.
This is the first time my car has ever gotten below 30 miles per gallon (27: yikes!), but I figure it was due to a combination of the car being weighted down with my stuff and the weather/windiness as well as spending a lot of time idling to warm up the car in the morning when it was below zero out. And the other numbers were in the 30s and I got as high as 37 on one tank, so not too terrible overall.
Driving in the wind is incredibly tense-making. Even with the extra weight, I had to make minute course corrections and got all hunched up over the steering wheel about it. I know some of the extra windiness was from the storm, but seriously, set up some wind turbines and you'd be set for power.
In other reference makings, I stopped in Bozeman, Montana for gas on the final day of driving. I seem to have a thing for states with future Star Trek history in them. Going from the future birthplace of Captain Kirk (although not in the alternate timeline of the reboot cuz there he was born in space), to the future site of the launch of the first human warp drive/first contact with the Vulcans.
I wound up spending a lot of time following trucks and sort of using their speeds as a reference to what would be best given the icy conditions and wind.
I did not get hit by a Semi when "Bad Moon Rising" came on the radio.
There were periods of no radio reception as well as only scary religious radio reception, and lots of country (which led to me discovering Carrie Underwood's "Blown Away").
Bootsie was of course NOT PLEASED throughout the ordeal, but he wasn't overly howly about it, and he drank and ate a little the second night so I didn't have to force water down his throat with an eye dropper like I did the first night (I was slightly less worried about dehydration since it wasn't super-hot summertime, but winter Bootsies need liquids too).
Being a "young woman traveling alone" (as both Dad and Aunt Flossie felt the need to warn me about) did not really seem to affect my travels in any way that I could tell.
I'm sure I'm forgetting lots of stuff because well, three days of driving insanity almost two weeks ago, but that gives you a taste, I guess.
Of course when I finally got to my new apartment, they were still putting the flooring in and that made everything extra stressful and obnoxious, and Bootsie hid in the crate while they were there all the next day, which was a little ironic considering how it had gotten progressively more difficult to get him back in there.
But they finally finished, and the new floor is nice, and I got my stuff all moved in. I still have some boxes around that I should probably do something about, but I'm getting there, and my first week of work went well.
When you're in trouble, you can call DW.
There was a Dead Horse Creek in Wyoming (as well as a Crazy Woman Creek, which I side-eyed until I decided it was preferable to Dead Woman Creek), and just generally, Wyoming had a lot of creeks of the [Adjective] [Noun] Creek [Road] formula.
Iowa was the land of wind turbines. They had a whole gentle giant majesty going on especially when compared to the smoke stacks of South Dakota ejaculating poison into the air (seriously though, the phallic imagery was pretty epic).
Little Sioux had a billboard that seemed bigger than the town itself saying "Prepare to meet thy God". Um. Sure. I'll meet my god, who doesn't exist. Then Sioux City, and finally Sioux Falls where Bobby and Snowmiser conspired to trap me for the night with blizzarding and road closures. Though I guess if I was going to be delayed somewhere, it's nice that it was a place I got to make Supernatural references about.
This is the first time my car has ever gotten below 30 miles per gallon (27: yikes!), but I figure it was due to a combination of the car being weighted down with my stuff and the weather/windiness as well as spending a lot of time idling to warm up the car in the morning when it was below zero out. And the other numbers were in the 30s and I got as high as 37 on one tank, so not too terrible overall.
Driving in the wind is incredibly tense-making. Even with the extra weight, I had to make minute course corrections and got all hunched up over the steering wheel about it. I know some of the extra windiness was from the storm, but seriously, set up some wind turbines and you'd be set for power.
In other reference makings, I stopped in Bozeman, Montana for gas on the final day of driving. I seem to have a thing for states with future Star Trek history in them. Going from the future birthplace of Captain Kirk (although not in the alternate timeline of the reboot cuz there he was born in space), to the future site of the launch of the first human warp drive/first contact with the Vulcans.
I wound up spending a lot of time following trucks and sort of using their speeds as a reference to what would be best given the icy conditions and wind.
I did not get hit by a Semi when "Bad Moon Rising" came on the radio.
There were periods of no radio reception as well as only scary religious radio reception, and lots of country (which led to me discovering Carrie Underwood's "Blown Away").
Bootsie was of course NOT PLEASED throughout the ordeal, but he wasn't overly howly about it, and he drank and ate a little the second night so I didn't have to force water down his throat with an eye dropper like I did the first night (I was slightly less worried about dehydration since it wasn't super-hot summertime, but winter Bootsies need liquids too).
Being a "young woman traveling alone" (as both Dad and Aunt Flossie felt the need to warn me about) did not really seem to affect my travels in any way that I could tell.
I'm sure I'm forgetting lots of stuff because well, three days of driving insanity almost two weeks ago, but that gives you a taste, I guess.
Of course when I finally got to my new apartment, they were still putting the flooring in and that made everything extra stressful and obnoxious, and Bootsie hid in the crate while they were there all the next day, which was a little ironic considering how it had gotten progressively more difficult to get him back in there.
But they finally finished, and the new floor is nice, and I got my stuff all moved in. I still have some boxes around that I should probably do something about, but I'm getting there, and my first week of work went well.
When you're in trouble, you can call DW.