… I can’t sleep tonight and I don’t know why.
So effectively I’ve given up and I’m back working again. But for how long I don’t really know.
Just for another change, I slept the Sleep Of The Dead last night with just the odd tossing and turning until the alarm went off. After the medication I had yet another shower and then pressed on with a pile of work, including doing some tidying up.
The soup bowl that the landlady lent me came in useful yet again because I made my porridge in it, and at last I had some decent breakfast.
Eventually I hit the road and headed off northwards along the Powder River. I managed to identify on the map by virtue of the text in the old histories the sites of two of the engagements between the US Cavalry and the Native Americans (the others are impossible to locate) in the earlier Powder River Wars but accessing them is something else completely. We know about the Americans’ mania for private property and guns.
One site I could pick out (just about) with the telephoto lens but you’ll have to take my word for the other.
And damn and blast if I didn’t have a puncture. Another tyre on a hire car ruined on a dirt road. Luckily everything was much more accessible on this car than the old Dodge and it didn’t take too long, even though the jack and wheelbrace were the usual cheap rubbish.
Space saver tyre too, and how I hate those with a vengeance.
So in the wilderness miles from anywhere on a dusty dirt road. And to the three motorists who stopped and asked if I needed help (after I had almost finished), many thanks again.
And to the three people who drove on by without stopping, you aren’t Christians at all. Just the worst kind of hypocrites. I would never leave anyone standing by the side of the road in those conditions.
But that’s just USA Christians, isn’t it? Total hypocrites. Pro-life when it comes to someone else’s body and personal issues, yet carry guns to blow away intruders and clamour for the death penalty when it’s their own affairs. They aren’t pro-life then.
Hell is full of hypocrites like them
So back into town where I have just come from, and 1 hour later and $115 lighter (no second-hand tyres to be had) I can set off again.
Down another dirt road, all 70 miles of it this time, and I find quite easily the site of the Powder River Battle of the 1876 campaign. Although the US Army inflicted some damage on the Cheyenne, it simply drove them into the arms of the Hunkpapa and Ogallala Sioux and when the US Cavalry caught up with them again, the combined numbers of Native Americans was sufficient to inflict Little Big Horn upon them.
But the drive along the Powder River is one of the most beautiful in the whole of the USA and I would gladly come here again. I enjoyed the drive considerably.
Back on Highway 14 in the sweltering heat (I have a lovely photo of a couple of diesel locomotive shimmering in the heat haze like in a spaghetti western) I found a nice shady nook under a few trees behind an abandoned corn silo to eat my sandwiches. And they were very welcome.
But I was disturbed as two railway locomotives travelling light rattled within about 20 yards of where I was parked.
Onwards pressed I and after a couple of hours driving I ended up at Fort Phil Kearny about which I shall talk tomorrow. 5000 feet up in the Rockies and it’s beautiful here. And the Ranger there put me in touch with the local motel in Story – the only one in the neighbourhood.
They had a sot-of room left, the emergency room. And if they keep this room aside for emergencies the main rooms must be wonderful. It’s the most expensive place yet, but once more it’s right where I need to be (right in the battle zone with one of the conflicts just down the road a few hundred yards) and it really would be worth the money.
For some reason she couldn’t make my Canadian debit card work so to end all issues I paid cash. Now I need more funds.
So having sorted out loads of things, charged everything up, dealt with the dashcam and programmed it properly, and showered (again!) and washed the dust off the clothes from the tyre incident, I called it an early night,
But now I’m still up. I’m hungry but I can’t go out to the car as there’s a bear outside in the yard at night and he doesn’t recognise my smell yet (s if he would want to). So I’ll just carry on.
