My dad has always told me that he never EVER wants to drive through Nebraska again. When he was in college he purposefully went around it to the north or the south just to avoid the boring state. I didn't think that was possible, I thought that there had to be some interesting things about it. I was mistaken.

We left the seedy crack motel in the morning and I drove to Chimney Rock. When I finally saw it I was pretty excited. When we left, I had no idea that I was leaving the most interesting scenery in Nebraska behind us only to be confronted with flat fields for the next two days. Alex does over half the drive today because I'm really starting to come down with it. At times my whole body is so sore that all I can do is sit in my seat trying to relax and gaze blurredly out at the fields passing my window. Every time I cough I sit in pain for about 5 minutes as my body recovers from the movement.

When we get to Kansas Alex has used up most of his reserves and can barely breathe in the cold air. He manages to put two tent pegs in the ground alone and then I help him put in the other two and put up the tent. I make us some chicken noodle soup and fried bread hoping that'll make us feel better. Alex has a few spoonfuls and then can't eat anymore. This is when we look at the weather and find out that it's going to be 25 degrees tonight with 25 mph wind and freezing rain. We have very little money and there's nothing around so we go to bed at 5 saying that if it gets too bad we'll sleep in the car or pack everything up and head south.

Everything is okay for a few hours, but then the wind picks up and the way it blows through the trees it sounds like the entire ocean dumping waves down 10 feet away. Crash, crash, woosh! The tent is periodically blasted with a huge gust, and I spend most of the night looking at the tent cover worried that I'm gonna have to go outside and find it if it blows off. Then I remember that we left our burner with a pot on it outside and I worry that I won't be able to find that in the morning. Then the freezing rain starts. It blasts the sides of the tent over and over. It's steadily getting colder and Alex and I are holding each other to keep from freezing. At about 5 in the morning it lets up a bit and Alex and I sleep for maybe 3 hours. When we go outside we find the ENTIRE tent covered in a thin sheet of ice. I hit the outside of the tent and shards of ice break off and fall to the ground.

We decide to split up the labor, me outside packing things up and Alex inside the car packing things in. We decided on this because I felt a lot better than he did after that horrible night. I get everything inside the tent packed up and to him. As I'm putting the tent away, with no gloves, my hands start to freeze. I look at them, they're not the colour they should be and I run back to the car and start to cry. Alex says, "Let me go out there and finish the tent."

"No" I say through tears, "you're sicker than me. You stay here and I'll go finish the tent." Putting away the stupid tears, I hate being a Cancer sometimes, I get Alex's gloves and go back out into the 20 degree weather to put away the tent. I get so frustrated with the tarp when it won't roll up that I throw it down on the ground and yell at it. Finally I get everything in the car and start driving. To where exactly I don't know but I'm getting out of this fucking cold TODAY.

For two hours I drive down highways in Kansas. Everything is covered in ice and the car likes to drift back and forth on the asphalt. At about 11:00, in the middle of Kansas we stop at an IHOP and get breakfast. I figure even though we have limited resources, this is a time when a hot meal made by someone else is in order. We must have looked like death when we walked in: pale with rings around our eyes from not sleeping, our clothes three days old, our hair a mess under our hats. I have chorizo with eggs, hashbrowns and tortillas; Alex has the Breakfast Sampler which has eggs, hash browns, pancakes, bacon and sausage. We drink 3 cups of coffee each before we decide it's time to get back on the road again.

After another 4 hours of driving we stop in Wichita for Mochas at a Starbucks. Oh sweet mochas! They give us enough boost to keep going the next 3 hours into MIssouri. In those three hours we start to see trees on the landscape. Not just your normal trees either, fall coloured trees. The landscape gets a little more hilly and we find ourselves in the Mark Twain National Forest well after the sun has set, putting up our tent to in the light of the car's headlamps.

Through Wyoming

We wake up and I make some coffee on our burner in the room. We don't eat breakfast because I want to get on the road and Alex isn't hungry. Then we pack everything in the car and I start driving to Nebraska because Alex is still too sick. After driving for about an hour I start to get hungry and I really really want a sausage and egg McMuffin; my family used to eat them in the morning when we moved. So I ask Alex if he wants to go to McDonalds. He says yes and when we get there breakfast is over so we get chicken McNuggets, but my craving continues. Eastern Wyoming is a succession of hills covered in snow. Hill after hill, nothing but snow. Very few houses let alone towns.

As I drive on we are consistently dropping elevation and as we drop the snow gets thinner and thinner. The white hilly expanse gives way to a yellow hilly expanse. We turn off the freeway onto a county highway and make our way towards Scottsbluff and Chimney Rock. I've always wanted to come here since I played the Oregon Trail game on the computer when I was young. You know, you were robbed by bandits and they stole 2 oxen and 1 wheel. I always loved getting to Chimney Rock in the game and always wanted to see it with my own two eyes.

When we get to Nebraska the temperature is 39 degrees, about the same as Sheradin, and 10 degrees warmer than Helena. I look online for a cheap Motel in Scottsbluff and find one on the outskirts of town. We drive by it the first time because it looks really seedy. There are three buildings built in the shape of a U with a parking lot in the center. Outside of the rooms are barbeques and groups of 2-3 guys smoking. The parking lot is filled with cheap cars and trucks. I ask Alex if it's okay and he says "Yes" he's really tired from the road and anywhere with a bed is good to him. So I drive back and park up outside the office. When I go in there's a really haggard looking woman behind the counter smoking a cigarette and she asks me, "Can I help you?"

"How much would a queen room be for tonight?"

"$56"

"How about with a AAA discount?"

"I could maybe go to $51."

I should haggle with her but I don't; "Okay." I fill out the papers and get the key and drive us to the room.
This is when I find out that we have $100 left of everything we made in Helena. A lot of it was used but I had no idea it was that much. When I park I just sit there for a minute and put my head down on the driving wheel. Alex makes a little "Oh" noise and puts his hand on my back and leans over and kisses the back of my head. I'm exhausted from driving 700 miles in the snow and cold for 2 days. At the beginning of the trip I was trying not to get sick, but all the moving has made that impossible. For the past day I've just been trying to hold it off but it looks like now it's gonna happen. I pull myself out of the car with my camera, some Heinz tomato soup, the brew back and my sweatpants. Alex also gets out of the car and we go and lie down on the bed. I take a bath and transfer money from my bank account to my credit card before I fall asleep, now we have $400 until my grandmothers check comes through when my parents get back from Hawaii. Next door some Iraq war Vets are having a party with people coming and going all night. They keep me awake. By morning I'm a bit delirious as the sickness begins.

"Alex"dote: Cold

Anyone that knows me will know I do not care for snow; too damn fucking cold. It may look pretty and fall in a wonderful 'Yay! It's Christmas!' kind of way, but it's cold, freezing cold. I mean snow is frozen rain, when it's too cold to even become rain to begin with.

Too damn fucking cold.


Woke up Monday morning to find an inch and a half of snow outside. Still looks pretty, still too damn fucking cold.

Through Montana

After picking up some supplies in Wal-Mart we head off toward Wyoming. I am driving because Alex is too sick to sit up straight let alone drive 150 miles. Once we get out of Helena we find ourselves heading straight into a snowstorm. Big snowstorm. I drive through this storm for 2 hours and have to stop and get coffee. I pull off the road at a little town in the middle of nowhere in Montana that has a gas station, a gift shop and a beauty salon/coffee shop. I prepare myself for the snow and dash through it into the beauty salon/coffee shop. When I get in the door, to my right women are getting their nails done, to my left is a beauty gift shop, in the middle of the building is the coffee counter, past that are women getting their hair cut, and past that behind a wall are the tanning beds. Its like a warm ball of pink fluffiness exploded inside the building expelling all the dismal cold outside. The woman behind the coffee counter took 20 minutes to make 2 mochas. 20 minutes. I guess they don't get a lot of coffee customers. And when she gave me back my change she miscounted and only charged me $2 for the drinks.

I dodge back through the snowflakes and deep puddles, coffees in hand and get back on the road. After another hour of driving the snow finally stops and we stop at Little Bighorn Battlefield to see it. But once we get there it starts to snow again and Alex is in no position to be outside in it so I keep driving. We cross over into Wyoming as it's getting dark. When we get to Sheradin we drive around town, Alex is feeling horrible, until we find a Motel 6 and get a room for the night. When we get to the room we bring in as little stuff as possible and get Alex into the bath. While he's taking a bath I look outside to see it snowing all over everything. Everything is covered in white. It must have been snowing here for at least a week. We watch some TV and pass out.

Leaving York

On Tuesday Alex and I clean the camper and pack the car. This entails getting dried bacon grease off the stove we've been using and reconsolidating all our stuff. After that's all over, Tuesday night we make steak with rosemary, garlic, salt and pepper for dinner. We know it's gonna be our last good meal for awhile so we decided to make it good. The steak was really yummy and we used up the last of our butter on the baked potatos. Satisfied with our meal and needing rest for the next day we go to sleep only for Alex to start to get sick. At about 12:00 his eyes hurt, then he gets the shivers, then he starts coughing and can't sleep. By 4:00 AM he can barely put one foot in front of the other enough to get to the bathroom.

When we get up at eight in the morning, he's still feeling terrible. I don't know where he gets his strength from, but somehow he packed the rest of our stuff in the car while I finished cleaning everything in the camper. At about 10, we go to Bill's house and give him a card and cookies to thank him for everything he did for us. We tell him that we'll send him postcards and as we pull out of the driveway we write down his address. When we get to York I go into the bar and Naomi is working. I tell her that we're leaving and she gives me one of the warmest hugs I have ever had. She gives me the bar's address and I tell her that I'll write soon.

Then we stop at Steve's place before leaving town. I bring him cookies and a card too. We all sit together and he gives us his friend Beaver's number. Steve says, "He's the nicest guy who ever broke my jaw. And he knows some English people down in Florida. He says he'll make you feel at home." Steve gives Alex and I a hug and then we set off from York.

"Alex"dote: Snow

We stood smoking under the shed to cover ourselves from the snow fall.

"It's snowing!" she gleefully cried, grinning from ear to ear and jumping up and down on the spot.

She stops, "My cheeks hurt!"

I smile, then walk over to the car, gather some snow from the roof into a ball and walk back toward her.

I throw the ball at her, making contact with her chest, and smile again.

"You hit me with a snowball!" she smiles, cutely. "It's snowing!"

In Helena Today

The radio tells us most everything these days: it told us about the bowling alley, the sale at Power Townsend (the local hardware store), and most importantly the weather. It said yesterday that the snow level would drop to 4300 (we're at 4500) feet last night after midnight. It said the high today would be 48. In actuality, it didn't snow until this morning and the high was 39.

I woke up at 10. I don't know why, but I sleep in really late if I can in the camper. I think it's the bed; I know I won't have one much longer so I want to enjoy it while I can. Anyway, when I woke up Alex told me to come outside. When I did, it was as cold as an ice rink and little snowflakes were falling and melting on the ground. "We'd better get into town soon; I have a feeling once this starts it's not gonna stop." So we started the car, went inside, collected all our laundry, made fresh coffee and started out for Helena.

The car making a little ticking sound we drive the dirt road toward York. We pass Bill's neighbors, the house with a courtyard and a pond, the house that looks like a mansion and belongs in the South, the road bends and bends and then we come to the paved road. This curves past a homestead with 10 cattle, a few smaller houses and finally bursts out into York with it's collection of about 20 houses along the road and stretching out for about 2 miles. Between all the houses are wooden fences or yellowing trees and on all the land green grass still grows.

Then we pass the home with the greenhouse, hydroponic greenhouse that is, with it's chicken coop across the yard. From there rock cuts down to the road on the right side, and the sun where it breaks through the clouds shines brilliant rose, yellow and blue colours from normally gray stone.

From there the land opens up into a vast valley covered in cattle ranches. The sky is soft, a deep gray and I'd like to take a plane up through those clouds and see the sun on the other side. The grass is the same yellow it is before the sun sets. The river, once deep blue as the ocean is now grayer than the asphalt road. No one is out in Helena. It's the first day of winter, and people are cozying up in bars, coffee shops, homes and friend's homes.

We jump out of the car and get the laundry going in a laundromat near downtown. Then we jump back in the car and drive to our coffee shop where we order mochas and relax on the comfy couch and check up on life in the connected world. I leave after 30 minutes and change the lanudry, then come back and get back down to the mocha and internet.

Soon, we'll go to the sale at Power Townsend where people are stocking up on weatherizing products. Here people put anitfreeze in boats, RVs and cars. Here people paint their porches for the winter so they don't rot. Here, they need weather stripping on their doors and caulk little holes because they let the freezing cold into their houses. Here, you actually need a heater or a fireplace, it's not a luxury. Here people are huddling down for the long long winter while we're planning to head south. South to the warmer climes. Out of the land where you need to drink whiskey in your cider to keep warm at night, where it's too damn cold to go out and smoke after dark and where the people are the most friendly I've ever known.