I can tell it’s an indoor day when Spike decides not to roam, but comes right back in.
The wind is constant and strong, so much so that opening the door is to have your arm yanked to the left. I alternate between reading online and reading my kindle.
I’ve long preferred historical fiction. Only until this past year did I pick up westerns. I started with Richard Wheeler’s Barnaby Skye series and I was hooked!
Maybe I never cared for western fiction because my Easterner’s mind couldn’t picture it.
Now it’s fun to read a plot that travels through the same places the crew and I traveled. The main character starts a ranch near Ennis Lake and the Madison River, for instance. I’ve been there! I know what that looks like! The crew and I floated that river!
The book I’m reading today describes a wagon train on its way to Ft. Laramie, Wyoming, and beyond.
The Platte River must be crossed and it’s swollen with a dangerous current. I remember camping along the Platte River in that area! I didn’t camp too close because the banks were unstable having been ripped and gouged by high water.
The pioneers make camp and water their oxen and horses at the Chugwater. I was there! And when they first set eyes on the Great Divide Basin and stare in awe . . . I remember reacting the same way!
For native Westerners, this is probably no big deal. For a lifelong resident of the East, it makes the stories of the Old West real and exciting.
I stop reading to heat up a can of soup for lunch.
I’m glad I stocked up on soups when at Wal-Mart. Soup is the perfect meal on windy days such as this. I pour some frozen peas into the Progresso Chicken Noodle Lite to perk it up. I break up some crackers and drop them into the bowl. The crew waits patiently. Well, that’s not true. Bridget waits patiently; Spike barks his fool head off until I give them both their own broth-soaked cracker.
I pull up all the blinds and settle in for more reading.
Spike and Bridget curl up next to me in the sunbeam that warms the quilt. The crew accepts that there aren’t long walks on these windy days. Yesterday I thought we’d move today. Ha, not in this wind. Well, the generator from hell has fallen silent. One of these days we’ll get up and I’ll know it’s the right day to move.
This is a good life.
Being retired, my days belong entirely to me. I have a warm, cozy house and plenty of good food. I can go online whenever I want. I have television to watch. (Last night I watched two Seinfeld reruns.) I’ve got enough books to keep me reading for months. Bridget and Spike are close by and make sweet company. And I’ve got a drawer full of atlases with which to plan a year’s worth of adventures!
Back to that wagon train.
Let’s see . . . Where were we? Oh yeah, gotta’ make South Pass before the first snow fall. I pull out my Wyoming atlas and find South Pass. Hmm . . . If we go back to Brooks Lake and the Wind River valley, we could get there by taking Route 28 through South Pass . . .
rvsue
rvsue and her canine crew 