Enjoy your holiday. Out here
there is a band on fireworks of any kind due to the risk of wildfire. Yesterday I bought some brats (no metts in
this park of the country and some bean and chips in order to celebrate.
At present I am sitting out in the middle of nowhere-pretty
literal on that. I pulled in to the town
of Ordway yesterday in search of a campground that was listed on the guy’s
map. I found the campground-maybe if you
were in an RV it might have worked but there was only dirt and no
restrooms. I drove down the road a bit
only to find a stockyard with a couple thousand cows. Didn’t want to dwell on that too much so I
turned around and drove through town in search of a place to stay. (When I showed Jerry the campground later in the day he said that the smell from the stockyard was over whelming. Good thing I chose wisely.) I thought I’d found a motel but it turned out
to be a rest home. I remembered seeing a
camping sign about 3 miles out of town when I drove in so I back tracked and a
mile and a half down a dusty road I found the Saw Mill Campground. There are about 16 sites. Nothing level. No drinking water. Saying there was sparse grass is being very generous. Nice picnic tables and a port-a-potty that
looked brand new. I waited for the guys
to arrive before assuming that this was where we would stay but since there was
nowhere else around-we stayed. The
operator of the campground lives up a road that is gated off with a no
trespassing sign on it. Oh yea, there is
also a state correctional instate in the near distance.
Jerry, Jeff and I took a ride in to town for a couple of
items – like a slurpy. Came back and had
our usual supper of pasta. I was so
tired that I ended up under the sleeping bag at 7:00. It was a clear night so we all decided to
leave the rainfly off our tents. Jack
had been doing this for some time. Our
tent however is mostly netting so from bout 18 inches on up we could see the
sky. Did I mention that there was no one
else in the campground. Actually it
looked like there had never been anyone else in the campground – ever. Anyway, it was really wonderful to look up
and see the constellations and the milky
way. About 1:40 the tent started to leak
– it was raining- but the stars were still out. All of us were up in a heartbeat with our
headlanps on putting on the flys as fast as we could. I swear I could hear God in his masculine
voice belly laughing. Things didn’t get
too wet so we crawled back in to the tent.
6 minutes later the rain stopped.
The drizzle did wake up some night sounds like crickets and I think I
heard a tree frog. Thankful for the
water I suppose.
Earlier in the evening the owner biked down from his house
with his dog, Snowball. He was a good
guy. Had lived in NYC but moved out here
32 years ago and farmed until ‘the big cities took all the water’ He said that the last good storm they had was
in ’99. Believe me the land looks
it. He invited us up to his gargen to
pick lettuce or anything we wanted. We
all walked up and picked some onions and beets.
The lettuce looked past prime. His wife had did this past January. You could tell he misses her. Must be lonely our here. (I know I am.)
The guys got an earlier than usual start this morning,
trying to beat the hear and the headwind.
Oh, I haven’t mentioned the wind? It’s crazy out here. Early evening (last night it was 6:45) it
kicks up and doesn’t let up until about 10:00.
I’m not talking breeze here I talking WIND – enough to make you wonder
if the tent is going to stay on the ground, even though you are in it. Just Crazy!
Well, tonight we have out spot reserved. Sheridan Lake Bible Church floor. Seems that the pastor there welcomes biker
(and hopefully me) with open arms—what a concept, sheltering the homeless.
No comments:
Post a Comment