Heartstopper at the Truck Stop

 

by Pa Rock

Driving Fool

Day Four of Roadtrippin':  Friday

I left the Brickyard Motel in Rawlins, Wyoming at around 7:30 this morning and was forty miles down the road when I realized that I had forgotten to fill my gas tank before leaving town.  The gas gage said I had 89 miles worth of gas in the tank, and the next community of any ssize was still 83 miles away.  Going back to Rawlins would have been as iffy as proceeding on, so I elected to keep driving and hope that I made it.  Fortunately, a few miles down the road I came to a truck stop in the middle of nowhere.

I pulled into the pumps and got out of my little car, reaching for my wallet in my back pocket as I emerged.    But. . . you guessed it . .  . the wallet wasn't in my pocket where it belonged.  Oh, hell!  I had made an extra trip back into my room in Rawlins and looked around just to be sure I hadn't missed anything - but maybe I had.  It wasn't in the front passenger seat where I keep my accumulations of road junk and trash, nor was it in the back seat either.  My final option was to root through the luggage and packages in the hatch - and that's where I found it, tucked into the basket in which I carry my many assorted pills.  

The wallet had it all - my bank card, credit card, travel cash, and even my ID and driver's license..  If I hadn't found it I would have been royally screwed!   But fortunately, Allah protects the senile and the decrepit!

Today I drove from Rawlins to Twin Falls, Idaho, a distance of close to 500 miles.  That was too much driving. but I was on interstates most of the day.  I did spend a few hours meandering along a two-lane state road over a long stretch of western Wyoming.  There were many hills, and the elevation was around 6,000 to 8,000 feet most of the day.  I heard it referred to as a "high desert," and it does resemble a desert but without the cacti.  Oregon also had a long stretch of high desert.

This evening there is a windstorm and lots of dust.  I walked to the truck stop next door to my hotel for supper  and had to use one hand to hold my hat on and the other to keep my shorts up.  The man at the counter in the truck stop said these winds are common, and he estimated that the current one was around 35 m.p.h.

I will be into Oregon by lunch time tomorrow and could make to Salem late in the day, but I will probably stay somewhere along the way and arrive fresh on Sunday morning.

And in case you were wondering, my truck stop dinner is a packaged chef's salad.  Breakfast was also at a truck stop, but not nearly as healthy as the dinner selection, and lunch was a sandwich from Subway.  The food options today were exceedingly slim pickings.

Mountain Home, Boise, and then Oregon in the morning.