Buffalo, WY

Now in an Idyllic campground in Buffalo, Wyoming. Secluded field of feathery grass and trembling aspen, light breeze carrying dandelion fairies. We're on our way to Yellowstone.

Since our first post (already I am under pressure to get the 2nd one up...I thought I was getting a break from all of that!), we left our charmless Koa campground in Gallup and hit the many indian jewellery stores in the downtown area. When B&I found her wedding ring in the little antique store in Orange called Ruby's, we also found a Silver ring with inlaid coral that I really liked. Unfortunately, it was too small but Ruby threw it in so we could find one similar. After unsuccessfully checking out a few stores in Orange Co, we were told that Gallup, NM was the place to go - if we can't find it there, then we won't find it. Well after checking every shop in Gallup, we found that it was made by the Zuni somewhere between 30 and 50 years ago, but they haven't seen anything like that for a while. We were given the name of a local guy (ex-Navy - not a Zuni) who could make one similar. We left the ring with him and our address in Wellington. Mission more or less accomplished. Off to the Presidents.

But not before a dip in the pool of the Best Western next to the Koa Campground. Gallup's annual junior rodeo was being held locally and the campground was full of adolescent swaggering cowboys with lassoos. They came with their families in RVs and pulled out these 4-wheeled metal minature bulls, which they would push into motion, pursue and lassoo. Brandy saw one 15 year-old texan rising from his RV chewing bacca, with a cup of jack.


We were booked to stay in the campground again that night, but I said , with a distinctly Kerouak demeanor, lets hit the road. With the same footloose manner, I had logged on to hotwire.com to find the most honky-tonk roadside dig to pull into that night. Turned out the Hyatt Albuquerque had a special for $65. Too good to turn down at that price....who needs that 5th star anyway?... Australians??


By the time I get to Albuquerque, she'll be .....Oh actually she was driving the car...I was sleeping. Our room on the 11th floor faced east and the sunset was almost finished over the desert we had driven through. We walked out of a lobby through a mostly deserted but recently rejuvenated downtown area to a Pizza place called NYPD. The smell of beer and smoke carried a balmy evening undercurrent of agro from the few bar patios where people clustered.


We had a coffee near the UNM campus, in a funky college cafe, complete with an in-cafe 2nd-hand bookstore that any pimply existentialist would die for: Herman Hesse to Nietzche. However, all Brandy would really like is a Big Train Vanilla Chai Latte. So far on this road trip we have not found a cafe that sells it. Kiwi readers-inform please: can you get chai lattes in most cafes there now? Should we begin an importing business when we arrive?

So now we're heading north on Interstate 25 to Pueblo, CO. to visit Becky Scola, a poly-sci friend of Brandy's. The desert becomes more shrubby, and then as we climb transitions into plains..a small range to our west...the desert-southwest is behind us.

We arrive in Pueblo around 4. It was a steel town and the massive factories greet us as we exit on 13th and drive down to an exceeding charming row of ornate Victorian houses of which Becky and Charlies is an gorgeous example - both inside and out. Its July 4th now and about 95 but cooling down. Julian, their 11 year-old son immediately takes Griffin under his wing, and upstairs while B&C show us around their (did I say gorgeous?) home. Brandy and Becky go out for provisions (Coors...of course...American, Coloradian...but not Lite).

We all go down a block down the road to Charly's sister's house and join their family for a most enjoyably barbeque -bbq'd chicken, corn-on-the-cob, grilled peaches and ice cream for desert. A formidable pile of july 4th arsenal has collected on the back lawn. Julian and his cuzzie, Dylan introduce Griffin to.....more to follow...

....to what will be a lifelong dedication to minimally-controlled, possibly improvised, explosive devices.

The festivities moved to the front of the house as we moved to some of the more serious pyrotechnics. The favorites were spinning eyeballs , which spun a frenzy of red and green arcs...like a mobile cathrine wheel. Before the grand finale, a row of fireworks with the same dimensions as Cost-co sized cereal boxes, Charlie and his Sister let of skyrockets with swollen abdomens, their payloads releasing armageddon-scale booms above the rooftops.

Continued up I-25 on July 5th...set for a long day in the car. Destination: Mt Rushmore. The Rockies grew to our West with the colorado plains on our right. After Denver we swung west to Boulder and had Lebanese take-out, Griffin soaking himself with a pop-up fountain on Pearl St. A drum circle in front of the courthouse. No Big Train Chai...not even in Boulder. We stopped at a playground with kids bikes free to ride. A guy from Cambridge UK was there with his daughter, saying that Cambridge also used to provide free bikes but they would all dissappear. He worked for a mining company. We told him we were off to Rushmore. He said that his company donated dynamite for the Indian mountain carving in progress down the road of ____.

Buffalo on the Hillside as we entered Wyoming ..haven't seen any since. The sky darkened as we headed up the 85, and we stopped at a small town (Lusk). Although I have been long intrigued by the Arby's roadside signs ("Eat Arby's Roast Beef Sandwiches - They're Delicious!"), it was only in Lusk that I followed this simple, and inaccurate, plea.

We drove through an intense lightning storm, with the last vestiges of sunlight peering from below the thunderclouds illuminating decrepid infrastructure. Ok ....more soon