The Wyoming Motel (where I slept last night) apparently has a lot of long term guests. There is a sign in the room that there is a $100 fee for ANY type of cooking, and they encourage their guests to use this, their bar-b-q pit. Can you tell that it is the former swimming pool, now filled with gravel?!?
This is the sign that made me want to stay at the Wyoming Motel - "Cleanest - Affordable - Quite". It was that last descriptor that got my attention - quite what?? Quite nice? Quite scary? Quite... I don't know. Anyway, it ended up being quite LOVELY!!! I slept better than I have in ages, and remember that weird sign about the towels? Well, it all made sense this morning when I took a shower and the towels were AMAZING. Like, better than I have at my house. I'd threaten someone if I had those towels, too. (And YES, I know it was probably supposed to be 'Quiet'.)
Me and a giant boot. Got a smashed penny at the Cheyenne Frontier Days Old West Museum. I don't feel guilty about this penny even though I didn't visit the museum because I chose a design about Wyoming, not the museum.
Ok...RoadsideAmerica stop #9. Mom, you might want to skip this one. It's called Mel Gould's Buryville in Cheyenne, WY. Old house on a frontage road with lots of crazy metal sculptures. Here's me and a muffler BEAR!
Sign says "Beware of Dog" with this blanket covered lump under it. I thought it might be rigged to jump when someone walked by it. So, at this point I was in a side yard, but the front yard was where all of the cool stuff was. There was a sign that said "Visitors Welcome", but I still wasn't sure until...
Mel Gould himself walked out to give me a personal, private tour. He doesn't hear very well or walk very well, and most of the time when he spoke he sounded like the chicken farmer that Napolean Dynamite worked for when he had to drink the raw eggs? So most of the time I just laughed and laughed which meant that he loved me. This Purple People Eater is his pride and joy, and was featured on the cover of Popular Mechanics when it cost a quarter (!!) and was housed in a museum for several years. I ripped my pants getting in, but it was worth it.
He gave me all sorts of literature on it, including an entire newspaper that he said he didn't have many copies of. I tried to tell him to keep it, because I have enough...stuff...already, but he insisted because he said I had a good vibration. At least I think that's what he said.
He made this for veterans, and when I told him that my brother was a Marine, he said, "Well, tell your brother this is for him", so Erich, here you go.
He and his wife had 2 sons and 2 daughters, so this is a SIX PERSON bicycle that they would ride in parades!! Only one person could steer or brake.
Ok, so this place is called BURYville, right? This is where it gets weird (BUT IT ALL ENDS OK!!!). He invited me into his house (and the ONLY reason I went is because his daughter and granddaughter were leaving, but at least they'd seen me). It was super cluttered and looked like a grandparent's house. In the kitchen was something that I can only describe as a school locker; it was an elevator to get to his basement. He made one of his 3 black labs ride down in it. Then he and I walked down some very steep stairs to the basement, where he showed me one of those old-timey excercise machines with the jiggling belt? Well, that's pretty much all there is, so I think we're done when nope, he opens a side door, and goes down a tunnel...
I kept thinking "SilenceoftheLambs, SilenceoftheLambs". Down the tunnel was just more STUFF. A collection a guitars and an old washboard and I don't know. There was an old bomb shelter filled with records that I chose not to go in (because THAT was drawing the line!). He did have a guest book down there, and - supposedly - the last people to visit where a couple from MT 2 days ago. This took up about an hour of my precious drive time. Oh, and I forgot to tell you that he insisted that I ride the elevator back upstairs. It was crazy. (I am laughing so HARD while writing this, because I know my mom is having a fit.)
This is the house...
I'm trying to stay off major highways, and at one point a bridge was out and I ended up on (you can't tell) a gravel road. I just thought it was funny. Like if someone stopped me and asked where I was headed, and I'd say "Delaware". I owe HUGE PROPS to my buddy Jeremy for letting me use his cable to update my Garmin.
RoadsideAmerica stop #10 in Ogallala, NE. Hard to see, but it's a water tower that's painted like a UFO! (How funny would it be to move from Walla Walla to Ogallala?)
RoadsideAmerica stop #11. Petrified Wood Art Museum, also in Ogallala. Eh. I felt bad, because it was like a real MUSEUM, and the two brothers who did all of the work were sitting at the front and as soon as I walked in one of them got up to talk to me (I think he and the fellow from Buryville probably graduated high school together), and I just wasn't feeling it, you know? So, I took a picture (this is ANOTHER boot, but you can't tell), did a quick lap, and got back on the road. It was pretty stuff, though.
First stop (I think) that I found on both RoadsideAmerica AND the smashed penny website!! This is Fort Cody Trading Post in North Platte, NE. I thought the guys on top of the building were funny.
Go inside, get my smashed penny, and I feel compelled to walk around, and what do I find?? ANOTHER TWO HEADED CALF!! What are the chances? TWO two headed calves in two days?? That's crazy. This one had a plaque that said it lived for 48 hours.
If you're reading this, you probably know me, and if you don't know, well, you won't be surprised to learn that I LOVE mood rings! And check this one out!! A mood ring in the shape of a MOUSTACHE! Best purchase of the trip yet. OH!! Wait a minute!! I didn't tell you how my day of driving started!! Even though I have half a tank of gas, I decide to fill up before getting on the road. Pull into the gas station...no gas cap. How long have I been driving now? Like ONE HUNDRED YEARS?!? I've NEVER lost a gas cap. I SWEAR if I didn't have to spend money on goofy/careless things like this, I'd be a millionaire. So, 6 bucks for a gas cap. (I've thought and thought - because I don't think anyone TOOK it last night at the Wyoming Motel - and there was a weird situation the last time I remember getting gas, and maybe I got flustered and forgot to put it back on in my hurry to get in the car. So...wha? You want to hear the story?? I stopped at the Wyoming State Welcome Center, and had my top down. Both the woman and the man parked next to me commented on it, and we all laughed when I said I was calling 'uncle' and put the top up because it was hot. I thought we had a moment, you know? Well, two hours later I pull into one of those gas stations with the horrible lots, where you pull right into a bank of 6 or 8 pumps, which leaves no room for people who want to go to the store so they leave their cars at the pump and other people line up behind them... You know what I mean. It stresses me out. Well, I pull in, and don't you know it's that guy from the rest stop on the other side of the same pump!! What are the odds?! So, I, I don't know, get all excited. like I've just run into a long lost friend, and he just tips his head at me, LIKE HE DOESN'T EVEN KNOW WHO I AM. Well, I don't even want to get out and pump gas. How dumb is that? I'm looking for his girlfriend, hoping she'll remember me and remind him of what a great conversation we had... She came out of the store and walked right past me, too. Seriously?!?! I know I'm making a HUGE (and weird) deal out of nothing, but I just wanted to get my gas and go, and so maybe that's what happened.)
RoadsideAmerica stop #...I got all excited about telling my last story, and I've forgotten again...13. Sod House Museum in Gothenberg, NE. Now...RoadsideAmerica says it's open til NINE, which is kind of crazy when you think about it, so I should have double checked, because it closed at TWO. There was a Sod House coffee shop right across the parking lot, and I asked the teenager who was working if I was missing the coolest thing EVER. She said no, the last time she'd been was in 6th grade, and it was just a house made of...sod.
Alas, this was another RoadsideAmerica/smashed penny stop - the Great Plattes River Road Archway Monument in Kearney, NE. Whew! That's a mouthful! It straddles I-80. I was worried it would close at 7, so I raced to get there by 7:03, but it had closed at 6. I think there was admission, so I'm not too upset about missing it.
I think I'm getting jaded, because in Kearney there was also a statue of an 'oxen pulling a schooner' on RoadsideAmerica. I made one lame attempt to find it, and then decided to keep driving. I am now in Grand Island, NE and headed to bed!!
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