WEST... and 50-degrees cooler

I took advantage of my westerly locale with a quick adventure from I-70 near Manhattan, KS- home of the Konza Prairie and a rather attractive stretch of the Kaw. A 100+ heat index is nothing to fool around with; I strolled along a gravel bar after being cooked off the flint hills. From the 177 bridge there is a moderately-sized Kansas beach that stretches upstream for maybe a quarter-mile. My feet were scorched after some shoe-less moments on the sand and rock, but it was nice not having the long hair greased to my face with my own excessive sweat- the morning's heat would have been intolerable.
Maybe two hours passed- no arrowheads or cool Native crafts. My finds included a sanded blue glass bottle and some interesting hunks of time-hardened bone and agate. The small bottle looks like one of those that should contain some smelly oils from a smelly-oil-shop and capped with a cork. I filled it up with my smaller treasures and spent way too long trying to remember which bush I had stashed my shoes under.
Not too far east of Limon- after many hours of monotonous and unexciting high-plains travel- I spotted some very cool clouds. The Vona exit offered a much-needed piss-break and an interesting chance to admire the sky. Minutes passed on the road from the interstate; I traveled only one block into anything that I would consider a town- parked next to Vona's old grain silo on the railroad tracks. across the street were the smaller, more rustic-looking grain towers. I took three or four with the 35mm that Vicki lent me for the trip- my cameras are all busted- and two with the digital gadget. The Olympus point-n-shoot cannot truly be called a camera. : (
I know that I have been spoiled with excellent SRT and the slightly-newer Canon EOS digitals, but the photos made with this new gadget could compare to looking through a dirty window. On the highway, the clouds disappeared again and slowly returned.

More than another 20 miles passed and I was in different terrain- tiny butte-things stuck from the fields like pimples- I wish there was a more beautiful word for it. Maybe like inverted craters- convexities- they were not tall, but could be the only considerable topography and were beautiful as such. One of the first caught my eye on the left side of the highway; the tiny-butte looked like it would make a great landscape photograph and I broke sharply for the next 'AUTHORIZED VEHICLES ONLY' gravel turn-abouts. The freedom of having sun-lit I-70 to myself may have been too much fun!
I followed through on the turn and hit the acceleration. I was rolling; everything was good. The engine made it's engine-noise, and I SHOULD have been accelerating. The RPM's were way above the 3K-mark and I realized that I was getting nowhere fast. Haunting flashbacks of the trucks' dead transmission hit me and I realized how far I was from anything before any other thoughts hit me. My road trip rolled over the white stripe to my right at about 25 and I shifted through the gears. 'Hit the acceleration again and just as I was becoming frustrated with the old truck I realized that I WAS getting power. With the pedal touching the floor I crept up towards forty miles an hour...
The problem was not new to me; the same thing cursed my last drive back from Mt. Ida. The engine of a dodge runs hot; the engine of my silly thing runs too hot. The thermometer read warm, but definitely not dangerously so. I hoped that my top speed of 73ish was only because I had again melted the spark plug wires.

The truck made awful noises, so I -tutted- back to the butte. I broke out the Nikon again and shot until it read that I'd spent 9 of the 24 pics that the roll would allow.


A storm- far south of the interstate and much closer to limon- sprayed lightening through the evening cloudscapes almost continuously. I imagine that if I were still and the engine hushed the sound would have been something of a non-stop rumble spiked with the occasional sharp clap or violent crash. I headed for a direct collision with a nasty rolling arm of the thing- it appeared to be hanging over the interstate. Heavy tapered drapes of dark rain reached close to the ground from the hellacious underside of the deep storm, but from so many miles away any closer encounter remained unpredictable.

The steady dimming sun fell for several more moments as I neared the beast- whether the storm was fleeing quickly in the opposite direction, or my sense of distance was so badly skewed with no landmarks or topography to help my judgement, 65-mph didnt seem to get me closer to the burning rain bands as quickly as I thought it should have. Storms like this one may travel at speeds that exceed my own. The bands morphed into a wall of rain- just a single imposing curtain.
When it's brilliant colours were at their best it became clear that I was not going to get a better opportunity to shoot the stunning clouds. I stuck the gadget out the window and desperately worked for the exposure that could help me share the storm the best. With three or four pictures taken, I became weary of driving into the rain. Not only for the safety of my pathetic camera, but in fear of one of those blinding downpours that I have never experienced at such speeds. The temptation to review the photos was almost unbearable, but a moment of massive raindrops which smashed into the car with intimidating force, and one good one that exploded upon contact with the unprotected window seal- wetting a surprising amount of the cab's inside- distracted me from playing them back. I swerved back into my intended lane and had the window up in a instant- a bit of adrenaline blinded me to my own actions, but the single moment of severe weather was all that I would have. It was almost disappointing that I didn't get to experience what intensity that I'd seen in the sky and which I only assumed that the silly photos i took were unable to justify. My assumptions were confirmed, but the camera still did better than i thought it might have. Wish you were there; such vivid, wonderful things are sure to have done anyone well!

Night came- the interstate grew dark and lonely with no taillights to follow. I thought about How I might better accommodate the trucks injuries. If followed my rough plan, I would take 71 north from limon to visit the Pawnee Buttes area before hitting shadowcliff at the end of the weekend. It would add some serious mileage to the poor thing and I didnt know if it would be able to get me anywhere safer than where I was- as I caught sight of Limon's bright business district.
I was not sure how welcomed i would be if I showed up at Shadowcliff unannounced. No doubt that they would put me up- or at least give me some friendly direction to get the vehicle goin'.

Burthoud Pass wasn't over soon enough; the engine chugged and clunked up the mountain. If it were not that the few other cars on the pass were uncomfortable with the dark hairpins, I would have needed to pull over many times to let them pass- the car just couldnt make the speed limit. It sounded awful and I was very worried at times. I wondered if I shouldn't have parked it there and taken it back into Denver instead of risking it's last working cylinders to make it over the pass.

At three and four thousand RPMs I was amazed that the engine kept moving- some part of me was frustrated enough to kill it- I didn't completely care it the busted thing died. All of the sudden the nose of the truck turned downhill. The road began its descent and at about 10'O'clock
All sorts of feelings of surprise and delight overcame the exhausting frustration that the clunker had given me.

The truck and I clunked through the night and after the pass it seemed like no time at all before I was enjoying my fire at the Arapaho Bay Campground, only miles south of grand lake. Damn, the air was chilly. When I stepped from the fire my bald head froze.

This morning I woke and paid my ridiculous dues to the NFS at the campground hosts'. The host, an old Texan, found me walking back to my truck around 6 and told me about the extraordinary number of moose sightings that'd accompanied the wet months of May and June. "We ain' seen too many these past few weeks" he told me- He shared some of his secret wildlife-viewing spots and told me where to go for a hardy breakfast. 'Told me to order the blueberry pancakes- they were his fav..

Monarch lake was cold and overcast.. Several moments of light rain, but nothing serious. After that initial view of the lake, the first thing I found was a huge 'bush' of lupine. The thing stood several feet tall with lush, tropical-looking leaves and purple-flowered spikes that tapered into creme-coloured buds. I'd never seen such a specimen. It must have cost me upwards of a dozen photographs! I couldnt wait to find the trip's first plump Bolete mushroom; Monarch can be a hotspot for them

IT WAS APPARENT that this would not be the day for mushrooms by the time I hit the ol' steam engine thing. The iron giant was used to pull harvested timber from the forest and downstream to the Colorado River in the late part of the 1800's. I think they called it the 'Steam Donkey.'