Category Archives: rodeway motel

Saturday 10th August 2019 – I WAS RIGHT …

… about the latitude and longitude co-ordinates! And, much to my surprise, so was the American Geographic Survey of (1869?). We both came up with the correct answer TO THE FOOT and that was impressive.

Another mystery that I solved this morning too is why there’s a difference of several dozen feet in the altitude for South Pass commonly cited by those who have access to the trail documents and the US Government Survey and those who rely on modern measuring techniques.

And that is that they are measuring the altitude of the Pass at different places. Where the modern highway crosses South Pass (and where the modern figure is given) is about 2 miles away from where the emigrants crossed over the Pass.

Bryant noted “The ascent to the Pass is so gradual that … we should not have been conscious that we had ascended to and were standing upon the summit of the Rocky Mountains” and he was right too, because I walked over the crest (such as it is) without noticing it at first.

So in my expensive Palace last night I had a reasonable night’s sleep with a couple of interruptions, including an attack of cramp in the left calf this time.

Breakfast was provided so I stuffed myself with free food and then collected my frozen water bottles and packed everything away.

Much to my own surprise more than anyone else’s I was on the road by 08:30 and that’s not something that happens every day.

The Lady Who Lives In the Satnav directed me to almost where I had ended up yesterday but about 200 or so metres from the modern summit she directed me off down a track to the left.

After about 2 miles down this track she announced “make your way 300 metres to your right” but I couldn’t see anything at all that would give me a clue so I drove on to a fence about 300 metres further on where I parked.

I walked back to where she had indicated, but couldn’t see anything at first. But closer inspection revealed that the sides of the track had been grubbed out and drainage ditches dug.

And so I crossed the ditches and there we were. Unmistakable signs of wagon tracks in each direction. Right by where I had expected them to be.

I walked several hundred yards along the tracks in each direction and they were certainly heading to and from where they were supposed to be, in the footsteps of emigrants from 170 years ago.

And the provenance of these tracks can be authenticated to a certain degree by the fact that they continue in a straightish line right across where the road and the drainage ditches are, broken only by these more modern constructions.

I was tempted to walk on to Pacific Springs, just a couple of miles further on. Its waters are known to be cool and invigorating, and I could have done with some of that, but I’m not as young as I used to be and I didn’t have much time.

Back on the road and back to Lander where I fuelled up the Kia and bought myself one of those ice-slush drinks. The day wasn’t hot as yet but I had a feeling that it might be.

The road north from Lander has its moments. Some of it is quite sterile but other parts are magnificent and I don’t have the words to describe the Wind River Pass. It’s one of the most phenomenal places that I have ever visited.

This afternoon we had a tremendous thunderstorm – just like the arrival of the Demon King – and it accompanied me for miles well beyond Billings. But round about 40 miles north I started to flag and a motel loomed up in the little town of Roundup.

Much more like my kind of motel this. Old, tired and cheap. But then again so am I. As for “value for money” which is always the most important consideration for me, it’s spot-on and just what I wanted.

The air conditioner blows right past the clothes rail so I had a shower and washed my clothes. They’ll dry pretty quickly now.

Lentil soup with pasta for tea and now I’m off to bed. It’s been a long tiring day and I’ve done 600 kms, all but about 20 of those being done on normal roads.

Tomorrow should see me back in Canada but I still have a long way to go.

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Friday 9th August 2019 – REMIND ME NEVER …

… to stop in a motel anywhere near Jellystone Park in August when the kids are off school and there’s a motorcycle rally going on. I only wanted a room for the night, not to buy the motel!

Last night was another good night, to such an extent that I almost missed the third alarm. And the air-conditioning blowing right by the clothes rail had dried the clothes beautifully.

The breakfast wasn’t much to write home about – at least, for me it wasn’t because there was very little that I could eat.

Nevertheless I was soon packed and on the road, where I drove non-stop all the way to Independence Rock. Well, not quite, because I did take a handful of photos on the way of things not to be missed.

Independence Rock was rather a disappointment though. Reading back over the old trails diaries, the rock was covered in names of the emigrants who had passed by.

But the weather has taken its toll of them and most of them have shingled off. Even the most famous inscription of all, carved in 1905 by an early pioneer retracing his steps, has worn down to a shadow of its former self.

It was called Independence Rock by a party that passed by here on the 4th of July (1831?) and it was the aim of every emigrant to be here by that day in order to be sure of hitting the passes through into California before the snows.

Edwin Bryant, whose memoirs I have quoted on a regular basis, arrived here on 8th July. He had complained bitterly about the leisurely way in which the Donner Party (with whom he was travelling) was advancing, and at Fort Laramie had traded in his waggon for a string of pack mules and pushed on with more dynamic company to make up the time.

The Donners and their party continued on their leisurely route, did not arrive until 17th July, far too late, and of course they were marooned in the snow at the end of OCtober at Truckee Lake, where they ate each other over the course of the winter.

Just down the road is the “Devil’s Gate”, a cleft in the rock through which flows the Sweetwater River. I’ve seen plenty of drawings of this and I do have to say that it resembles so much in real life every drawing that I have seen.

Being rather low on fuel I put some more in at Muddy Gap. And I wish that I had filled up in Casper as fuel is $1:00 per gallon dearer than anywhere else. Admittedly it’s a very isolated and lonely spot but there’s still no excuse for any of that.

Pushing on west I eventually arrive at South Pass and I can see a few traces of what might be waggon tracks in the vicinity.

On the way back I take a little detour. First to the ghost town of South Pass City, a former gold-mining town now long-abandoned, and the rather peculiar town of Atlantic City, well-lost in the mountains and looking wilder than any other town in the Wild West ever did.

Back down to the nearest town, Lander, where I find the last room in the place. And I’m not surprised that it was free either. But needs must when the devil drives.

But I’m going to have to go back to South Pass tomorrow morning. After much binding in the marsh, I have finally enabled my new sat-nav to take the geographical co-ordinates of any location that I need, and I find that I’m about 2 miles out of my calculations as to where the Oregon and California Trail crossed the pass.

There’s a dirt road in the vicinity that seems to be accessible and it’s a shame to be so near and yet so far.

So I had better have an early night. It’s an early start in the morning.

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Monday 5th August 2019 – I’M BACK …

… in Sheridan again tonight.

Not at the same motel as last time though. At probably the cheapest in the town and certainly the cheapest in which I’ve stayed.

“So what’s it like?” I hear you ask.
“The cheapest motel in which I’ve stayed so far” reply I

But seriously, it might be old and dated and worn but it’s clean and everything works. The shower is good too, and what more can any man desire?

The air conditioning is much quieter than last night’s motel (although that’s not saying a lot). Last night it was a case of “turn off the aircon and lie awake sweltering” or “turn on the aircon and lie awake because of the noise”.

But I did manage to drop off a few times.

Much to my surprise I dropped straight back into exactly the same place where I had left a nocturnal voyage the previous evening. And even more interestingly, after I went back to sleep after an awakening, I stepped right back into where I had left it a couple of minutes earlier.

And I did get the girl too. Not ‘arf I did!

It was a struggle to awaken as you might expect and I vegetated for quite a while. I made it into breakfast (a couple of rounds of toast with jam but included in the price) then came back for a shower.

By now it was time to phone the bank and I’ve no idea how much it’s going to cost me but my card is now unblocked and I can use it.

Heading into town I went to look at the “exhibition” locomotive where the railway station used to be. It’s a 4-8-4 “Northern” steam locomotive and, rather like “Big Boy”, who we met in Southern Wyoming in 2002 it’s in pretty miserable condition, slowly rotting away – a stain on the character of the town.

And it might not be there long because they have now “discovered” that it’s full of asbestos.

From there I went shopping in Walmart (my card does now work) where I found some vegan cheese and broke the weighing scales at the check-out.

From there I headed north, stopping every 10 minutes or so to photograph a locomotive. I’m in the deep open-cast coal mining area and they run merry-go-round trains to move the coal. Most of the locomotives are Burlington Northern and Santa Fe outfits although I was taken by surprise when a Kansas City Southern locomotive went rattling past, miles out of its territory.

Eventually I reached the Little Big Horn battlefield where the miserable bar stewards refused to give me the senior citizens’ discount. “That only applies to US citizens” – the first that I’ve ever heard of that in a National Park. I had to pay the full $25:00.

But I was there for hours. I had a good walk down to the deep ravine where the final deaths took place as the native Americans mopped up the surviving troopers, a good walk around Last Stand Hill, the cemetery and the Native American monument, and another good walk around Benteen’s final hold-out position where the survivors hung on (and there were survivors, despite what people think. It was only the troops with Custer, about half of the 7th Cavalry complement) who were lost.

The drive between the various points was interesting, and the trail of bodies along the route and down in the Deep Ravine only goes to confirm that apart from a couple of isolated actions, it was basically a panic-stricken rout. Why else would 41 troopers be running down the hill TOWARDS the native village if they weren’t running away from the fighting up on the ridge?

That took all afternoon so I set out to find a motel. None in Busby, which really is a miserable one-horse town so I headed for the mining town of Decker.

Nothing there either so calling at the site of the “battle” of the Rosebud (which I’ll be visiting tomorrow) to say “hello’, I came back here.

In my room I noticed a “do not place anything on the heater”. I don’t recall having been here before, have I?

But the room is cheap, old and worn out. But then again so am I so what’s the difference? It’ll do me until tomorrow and then I can think again.

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Sunday 4th August 2019 – TOTALLY USELESS …

… waste of time miserable pathetic excuse of a coach driver.

First rule when turning round is “drive past, back up, turn round”. But not this guy!

Swings into a country lane forwards (how he hopes that he can see what’s passing behind the bus 40-odd feet back totally beats me) and promptly grounds out the rear end of the bus on the high camber.

90 perishing minutes we were sitting there waiting for a breakdown crew to come and tow him back out and put the exhaust and rear bumper back on.

As a result we lost the light, found a rainstorm, did only half of the visits that we were supposed to visit (and those in record time too) and only got off the bus once – and at the place that I had visited the other day too.

One very unhappy bunny here.

And it all started so well too. Another Sleep Of The Dead and awake sprightly (well, almost) just before the third alarm. Breakfast, tidy up, a quick shower and hit the road to arrive at the Kearney Village Hall in time for the talk to begin.

Three eminent local historians each gave us a talk of life on the Bozeman Trail and some of the characters who used to frequent it. Very interesting too and I learnt a great deal, which is the whole point of these things.

After lunch we set off on the bus to visit th sites of many of the skirmishes that took place between travellers on the Bozeman Trail and the Native Americans through whose land they passed, but as I mentioned before, that fell rather flat with no time to go and visit anything.

I was so disappointed.

But then I hit the road and I’m now in the Rodeway Inn in Sheridan. Just up the road from here is the site of the Battle of Little Big Horn and that’s tomorrow’s destination.

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Friday 22nd September 2017 – THAT WAS HORRENDOUS!

Interstate 81 looked so inviting on the map.

Running through open country and the Blue Ridge Mountains (of Virginia and elsewhere) and not passing anywhere near any major centres pf population.

And how wrong I was!

For a start, it was heaving with traffic. Just like the M6 around Birmingham on a late Friday afternoon – with the exception that it has just two lanes each side and not three.

Secondly, it was one continual set of roadworks from start to finish. We crawled from hold-up to hold-up all the way from Upstate New York to Central Virginia.

Another thing is the traffic. Speed limits are 65 mph in some places and 55 mph in other places. And with the speedo in Strider being in kilometres, I converted the SatNav to imperial measurements and set the cruise control in accordance with the read-out.

And that is a suicidal thing to do – because no-one else obeys the speed limits even with the whole mess of Tijuana Taxis and unmarked speed control cars handing out loads of tickets all down the Interstate.

I had lorries, trucks, pickups and everything wedged up behind Strider crammed in with the traffic waiting for a moment to overtake.

rodeway motel syracuse new york usa september septembre 2017Last night in the Rodeway Motel was one of the most comfortable nights that I’ve had for a while.

Despite the cheapness of the place, it was excellent value for money, complete with microwave and fridge. I’ll stop there again, that’s for sure.

I’d been on my travels too, but not very pleasant ones unfortunately. I was in Strider when I had a head-on collision with a lorry. Strider wasn’t very badly damaged as he had “gone underneath” but I felt that I could have avoided the accident if I had exerted myself. Furthermore, we were driving on the left as in the UK, but it was for some reason clearly the other driver’s fault, although I’ve no idea why.

It was 09:30 when I hit the road, exactly as planned, and decanted myself more-or less straight away into the traffic.

I stopped for the usual reasons and to pick up a coffee, and again at Frackville in Pennsylvania for fuel and a lettuce. But finding a food store was something – I must have driven up every street in the town.

pennsylvania september septembre 2017But yes, Pennsylvania. I made it into here just before midday.

Mind you, that’s not such a big deal because we’ve been here before – twice in fact. Once in 2010 but once previously on a quick in-and-out over the new year of 1999/2000 when I was staying on Long Beach Island in New Jersey.

But at least I put my feet on the soil this time, because I found a nice motorway Service Area where I sat in the sun for an hour.

west virginia usa september septembre 2017I blinked and missed Maryland, but I did manage to take a photo of West Virginia.

I’ve certainly never been here before and so I was grateful that Strawberry Moose was able to take a photograph.

But I didn’t manage to put my feet on the soil here – that will have to be for another time, if there is one.

I dunno.

I was otherwise preoccupied with traffic when I crossed over into Virginia, but I’ve been here before too, on my trip in 2005.

motel 6 mount jackson virginia usa september septembre 2017As it started to grow dark, I spied a motel with rooms at reasonable prices.

I’ve stayed at Motel Sixes before now and they are quite good, and I was lucky here because I had the last room. It was a smoking room but I was past caring by now.

Here it Mount Jackson we are at more-or-less halfway, give or take 50 miles, so I was glad to stop for a rest and a stretch.

But the road through the mountains is beautiful, and we passed by loadsof names that I recognised, such as Gettysburg, Antietam and the like.

How I would have liked to go for a visit but I’m a Man on a Mission and I can’t stop.

And tomorrow, I’ll be back on the road.

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Thursday 21st September 2017 – REGULAR READERS …

Thousand islands bridge st lawrence river ontario canada september septembre 2017… of this rubbish might recognise this bridge, because we’ve seen it before.

Back in 2010 in fact when we were on our way to Montreal and then Labrador.

It’s called the Thousand Islands Bridge, because there are a whole load of islands, maybe even a thousand, in the St Lawrence River just around here.

Back then, we saw the bridge from the Great Satan side of the river and you may well be surprised to learn that today, I am once more on the Great Satan side.

And it took all of my self control and restraint to do it too.

This morning I was up some time after the alarm went off and had a few things to do – such as a shower and to have breakfast, and to catch up on yesterday’s paperwork.

By 08:00 I was on my way, exactly as planned – something that surprised even me. I was decanted straight into the morning rush hour, but then that was only to be expected. While it is always a disappointment to be held up like this, I had made due allowance.

Once I’d cleared the rush-hour traffic, which took 50 minutes to clear 10 kilometres, I was able to bowl along quite rapidly.

st zotique st polycarpe st telesphore quebec canada september septembre 2017Flying down Highway 40 I went past several villages that I had previously not noticed.

So which one of these is your favourite village? St Zotique? St Polycarpe? Or St Telesphore? They don’t half have some weird names for some of the villages in Quebec.

But there again, Quebec is a very strange place, as you might already have discovered.

kingston ontario canada september septembre 2017It’s about 350 kilometres from where I was staying to Kingston in Ontario.

And despite having stopped for fuel and a coffee, and taking a little detour around the old canal on the edge of town I was in Kingston for just after 12:00.

That was well in advance of my appointment and so I was able to go for a little walk around the town – and make a decision that it’s one of those places that I will have to come back to visit when I have more time.

sandra cooper strawberry moose kingston ontario canada september septembre 2017And here is Sandra, making the acquaintance of Strawberry Moose.

And while that was going on, let me tell you a story.

My Great Grandfather was a soldier who served in the Wiltshire Regiment in India and South Africa and fought in the Boer War. But some time in the early years of the 20th Century he and his family emigrated to Canada and lived in Montreal.

He enlisted in World War I despite being well over age, and presumably died of wounds because his body is in the Military Cemetery at Mount Royal under a military headstone, despite not dying until the early 1920s.

His wife hated Canada, the cold, and all of that and so as soon as her husband was buried, she was on the next boat back to London.

They had several kids and the youngest kids, one of whom was my grandmother, returned to the UK with their mother.

A couple of the older children were by this time married and they remained behind with their own families. And when I was looking into the military history of my great grandfather I came across Sandra, who is the grand-daughter of one of the older children who remained in Canada.

And so she’s my cousin at several times removed.

As you know, this may well be the last time that I shall be in North America, and I’ve been doing all of the things that I’ve been meaning to do.

Meeting up with Sandra was high on my list, and so here we were, in Kingston, having lunch together and swapping family histories.

After lunch I headed off to Great Satan. And we had the usual border confrontation with a rude, ignorant security guard, who demanded to know what I was laughing at.

They really must trawl the Government Services to find the most unpleasant civil servants, and put them in these immigration booths

However, the guy in the office was quite pleasant and polite, and here I am.

But why am I here? You might well ask.

As I said just now, there are several tasks that I want to perform and several people whom I want to see before I go back to Europe – one person in particular whom I haven’t seen since 2005.

So here I am in the Rodeway Motel on the edge of Syracuse in New York State, conveniently placed on the side of Interstate 81.

From here, Strider, Strawberry Moose and I have about 1,000 miles to go and it’s going to take a couple of days to get there because I’m not able to go as fast as I used to.

It will give him enough time to head for the hills, otherwise he might be getting a surprise visit in two or three days time.

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