johnboystravelblog

I’ve only been here a few days and Monday was my first extended stay in town (other than dinner Thursday night and picking up groceries on Saturday). I must say the people here are extremely friendly! The question above is invariably asked and is best answered in one word, or more accurately – an acronym: NOLS, which all the locals understand.

NOLS is the National Outdoor Leadership School, founded in 1965. It’s International Headquarters is here in Lander.

And I should really say that what brings me to Lander is my family, two members of which work for NOLS.

My older-younger brother (a term which other people struggle with but which makes perfect sense to me. I have two younger brothers and Steve is the older of the two), I am very proud to say, is the new CFO (Chief Financial Officer) of NOLS!! He started his new job in March of last year after a 25-year career at Vassar College in New York. He retired from that job in January of last year and while looking for his next position (he was open to ideas as to what it might be) he saw a listing with NOLS, a company he was familiar with because my niece, his daughter, had taken one of their wilderness survival course a few years ago.

Steve’s arrival at NOLS was bittersweet. While he was excited about his new position and could tell he would enjoy the people he works with, he faced the unpleasant task of recommending the temporary furlough of a large part of NOLS staff, not only here in Lander but elsewhere. March of 2020, of course, was when the true impact of the COVID pandemic really started to sink into people’s minds, and had a major impact on the company’s operations with global travel restrictions and shelter-in-place orders.

NOLS teaches courses in wilderness survival skills, including medical implications which I will explain later. According to a local news article from a few years ago, NOLS is the largest employer in Lander and occupies four large buildings in town.

Before the pandemic, NOLS employed a large number of people locally, full time, and over 1,000 seasonal workers in the summer months, worldwide. It is truly an international company with campuses or facilities in the western US (Rocky Mountain region, desert southwest, Pacific northwest and Alaska), Canada (Yukon), Mexico, Patagonia in South America, Australia and New Zealand. Now, more than a year later, NOLS is feverishly working on it’s plan to reopen facilities as the COVID threat lessens and their facilities can resume hosting students at the various locations. It is estimated that NOLS is responsible for 20% of the passenger traffic at Riverton Regional Airport, about 25 miles from Lander, as people fly in and out of here for training.

In addition to the NOLS offices and facilities downtown there is the large Wyss Wilderness Medicine Campus located about 12 miles south of town. That is where my nephew, Sam, works. He is giving me a tour of that facility Thursday morning so I will have photos of it and more details about what they do there this weekend.

As part of Sam’s 18-month position in facilities management at Wyss (pronounced Weese [rhymes with geese]), he was asked to take one of NOLS training courses. NOLS likes all of it’s employees to fully relate to what it is they do, regardless of what they do for the company. When I had dinner with Sam Thursday evening after I arrived, he told me he will be taking a course in layman’s medical training – to assess injuries, stabilize a patient and assist with transport to a proper medical facility. He said one of the highlights of that course is when the Med Evac helicopter arrives for real-life in-person training of what to do at that stage of evacuation. NOLS trains park rangers, skyjumpers and other fire-fighters, camp supervisors, and other first responders.

I will have more details about NOLS, and hope to get a tour of their downtown Lander facilities when my brother gets back to town next week. Details and photos will appear in future posts.

OK, so I’ve explained how I got here from North Carolina. Now, from where I am temporarily living I have two choices on how to get into town. Lander is a small town of about 7,400 people. It’s Main Street is oriented northwest to southeast.

When I leave the house I go down to the “main” road – a two lane paved road which meanders through the countryside. There I can turn left and it is a short drive which takes me to the central part of town (9th Street or 5th Street depending on which street I take), or right, which is a longer route and takes me to the northwest side of town, by the high school. Since arriving I have taken the shorter route in and out but yesterday I took the longer route and drove in to town to walk up and down the 12 or so blocks of Main Street.

Here are some of the views I experienced today (some photos taken on the way in, some on the way home, in no particular order). First, a two-shot panorama – left to right:

As I took the photo above, this is the rock formation towering above me to my left (I was driving back home). A three shot panorama, I was directly under the rocks in the second photo.

Here is a little bit closer look at the mountains in the distance:

And on the way in to town this was my last stop before reaching Main Street:

In town there were photos of the graduating seniors on banners all along Main Street.

Go Tigers!!

This has nothing whatsoever to do with my trip but I want to give a quick shout out to scientists around the world who have been studying the origins and possible causes of FRB’s (Fast Radio Bursts) coming from galaxies far, far away. One of the first radio telescopes to detect FRB’s was the GBT, or Green Bank Telescope, located in Green Bank, West Virginia. One could say it was “instrumental” in their discovery (Oh, JohnBoy!).

(Photo credit: Wikipedia.com)

This scope is one of many at the Green Bank Observatory (nee National Radio Astronomy Observatory) . Green Bank is practically adjacent to my mother’s home town of Arbovale and this scope (and others) can be seen from the cemetery where my grandparents and other members of my Mom’s family are resting in peace (and believe me, with the Observatory in town it is extremely peaceful). One of my uncles used to work at the Observatory as a telescope operator, and I would walk through the facility every time I went to Arbovale to visit relatives there.

(Photo credit: NRAO/AUVNSF)

To read an interesting article about Green Bank, and the influence the Observatory has in the area (which was featured in the New York Times several years ago), go to OrissaPOST.com.

I read online a few days ago that the Hubble Telescope has narrowed the source of some of these mysterious radio bursts to some spiral galaxies and I’ll bet that the operators of the GBT, as well as those at the Very Large Array telescopes in Socorro, New Mexico, operated by the same consortium of scientific groups, will be burning the midnight oil now that they know where to look to gather more data.

Search “Very Large Array” on the Home page to see my post about the Socorro facility from 2017.

I bought a new iPhone 11 a little over a month ago (coming from an Android phone) and have been plagued with numerous issues. A long story, but I am also having phone/bluetooth issues with my car, although my Android phone and my car got along just fine.

I was afraid my aura was getting stronger when I was in Evansville looking for my elusive cream soda (post coming soon). I’ve already related my police car near miss experience in Evansville and just after that occurrence I approached another intersection where the traffic lights seemed to be functioning normally. As I was getting close that light turned red so, safety minded driver that I am, I stopped. Well, the light went dark, showed red again briefly and then went dark for good. We all just sat there until we determined that we should treat it as a four-way stop sign and take turns going through the intersection. Lights at intersections in front of and behind me appeared to be normal so I don’t think it was a power failure.

Well, when I got to the next light, damned if it didn’t do exactly the same thing. I could see numerous lights in the distance (this was a busy street with many stores and fast food restaurants on it). Full stop at the steady red, light goes dark, flashed red for just a brief instant and went dark for good!

Now – full disclosure – earlier in the evening I shopped at a Gabe’s discount store (nee Rugged Wearhouse) and, while there, held a container of these on my hand:

“These” are CBD Gummies. Gabe’s is my favorite discount store (Obsession post coming soon!) and these babies were list price $26 but for sale at Gabe’s for just $ 16.99. I passed. Honest (Officer). Didn’t even try a free sample (which wasn’t even offered, of course).

CBD, for those of you who don’t know, is Cannabidiol (I had to look it up). A major component of it is cannabis (marijuana), an essential ingredient in medical marijuana (Officer). CBD is derived directly from the hemp plant and, in and of itself, does not create a “high”.

So I can’t explain the behavior of the two traffic lights in Evansville, but it had me wondering if I should stop by a mental facility for a quick checkup (though I was afraid I might be a “keeper”).

Well, after my first post of the day a few minutes ago it looks like I need an editor/proofreader! Welsome?? Sheesh. I generally end up tweaking things soon after I post them so y’all may want to look at the blog rather that opening and reading the posts from your e-mail indicating that a new post exists, which will most likely contain errors.

When I entered Wyoming on Thursday I continued on I-80 West through Cheyenne and Laramie to the little town of Rawlins. There I took Hwy 287 northwest to Lander. That road, in the southern part of the state, was pretty much wide open but became a little more hilly (not quite mountainous) as I drove on. This was the view from an overlook which my GPS unit said was 38 miles from my brother’s house:

Pending further research, my guess that one of those mountains in the distance with snow on them is Gannett Peak, which at 13,804 feet is the highest point in Wyoming.

Signage at this, the Beaver Rim Overlook, informed me that I was looking at the Wind River Mountains. The land ahead of you is Fremont County, where my destination of Lander is located, and is nearly the size of the state of Vermont!! And I always thought things were bigger in Texas!

Fremont County alone is home to 70 miles of the Oregon Trail and also hosts 626 lakes and reservoirs. The County is also home to both the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho indigenous American tribes. There is a casino near Lander which I am sure I will stop in at somewhere in my travels. What do you think, put is all on Red or Black????

Finally, the moment you’ve been waiting for. Blog posts with pictures! (what a concept)…

This morning I was finally able to download photos from my new iPhone, with which I am having a VERY rocky relationship. Long story, as most JohnBoy stories are. But enough of that – let’s get this show on the road.

I entered Wyoming on I-80 in the extreme southeast corner (about as far south and east as one can be in the state). I stopped at a Rest Area/Welcome Center just a short ways into the state at Pine Bluffs and I will tell my story about that shortly, but I know you are all starved for more photos.

This Rest Area (photo above), a different one, is located about 2/3 of the way between Cheyenne and Laramie. After I got to Cheyenne I could already start seeing snow on the mountains in the distance:

My guess is that it is Medicine Bow Peak, which tops out at 12,013 feet, located due west of Laramie.

Another unique feature of this particular Rest Area is the towering statue with a bust of Abraham Lincoln, keeping a watchful eye on the highway below:

I say unique but I swear I saw (and posted photos of) a similar statue of Honest Abe somewhere else in the country.

Now that I’ve lightly scratched your photo itch let me tell a quick story about the Welcome Center I stopped at upon entering the state. I parked and went inside, planning to use the men’s room and snag a state map. As I walked in a gentleman who was seated in the lobby “jumped” like I had startled him and started shouting something, like I had woken him up from a nap. I don’t remember exactly what he said but I ignored him and went in the men’s room . There was already a traveler there using a urinal and I used the urinal next to him. I said “that guy’s a piece of work” and the man next to me said “yes he is”. We could hear the man in the lobby shouting travel-related advice to other people and I then said “Gee, he should run for governor”. I thought a moment and said to the man next to me “You aren’t the governor, are you?” and he assured me he was not.

I finished my business and went back out into the lobby. The man, with a long, scruffy white beard and bib-overalls (about whom I had already made a nasty judgement call, dubbing him a “crazy old man”) was now standing and said “You look like you’re here on a big adventure” to me. I assured him he was correct and told him I am from North Carolina and was on my way to Lander.

Turns out he works there, and his banter is his way of welcoming travelers (and he has some great lines in his repertoire). He is retired from having been a professional truck driver and had lots of stories about various areas of the state. I ended up chatting with him for 20 minutes! He was fascinating, and gave me tips about various places I needed to be sure to visit, some of which were on my list but I made notes about the new things. He even gave me two pins – one which says Pine Bluffs (the name of the town/Welcome Center) and the other a small Wyoming state pin. As I drove away I wished I has asked if I could have taken his photo for the blog. Who knows, our paths may cross again…

Another long post. Forgive me.

I saw an amusing (to me, anyway) billboard as I was driving near Greensboro NC on my way out of North Carolina. Now I wish I had stopped to take a picture of it because I assumed I could find it on the internet. Silly me thinks pictures of EVERYTHING can be found on the internet. Anyway, the sign featured “Safety Sam,” which my regular blog followers know is a recurring character here. Hopefully Safety Sam can stay where I keep him – in the trunk of the car.

For those of you who are interested, or perhaps are playing the johnboystravelblog Home game, putting push pins in your map of North America, I took I-40 west from Greensboro NC, through the mountains near Asheville, then continued through Tennessee to Nashville. I took a series of other roads northwest to Evansville, Indiana where I spent the first night.

Wednesday I drove just a little north of Evansville to get to I-64 which I took west through southern Indiana and Illinois to St. Louis. There I shifted to I-70, a decision I would soon regret, and took it west to Kansas City. I took the bypass around the east side of KC and I-29 northwest. I actually went 10 miles in to Iowa, turned left on smaller State Highway 2 and took it west to Lincoln, Nebraska where I picked up I-80. I continued west on 80 to little Elm Creek where I spent night two.

Thursday I was back on 80 while it was just getting light out and took it the rest of the way across Nebraska and about halfway across southern Wyoming to Rawlins where I then took Highway 287 northwest to Lander.

Simple.

The weather was very agreeable – mostly cloudy the first two days with temps in the 70’s and VERY windy. I had the sunroof open most of the time but wore my full-rim hat because I know the ultraviolet rays can do a number on my bald spot even when it’s cloudy. It rained some as I left Evansville and I encountered patches of rain around Kansas City but other than that it was clear and dry. It was cooler when I left Elm Creek early Thursday but soon the sun came out and it was gorgeous (but still VERY windy). I had the sunroof open again and while I obviously continued to use my hat (and I looked sillier than normal because I had to keep the chin strap tightened up so it didn’t go flying out the sunroof like one of my favorite baseball caps did in Virginia once (I went back to retrieve it)) I should have put sunscreen on my arms as I was shocked to find that when I crossed in to Wyoming, in little Pine Bluffs (and I have an amusing JohnBoy story to tell about that), I was already up at 5,049 feet elevation. I was tricked into thinking the drive across Nebraska was straight and level but leave it to sneaky ol’ Nebraska to make it straight but with a subtle incline. Well, I guess sneaky ol’ Mother Nature did that…

Traffic was, by and large, agreeable as well. Clearly America is getting back on the road. Truck drivers were mostly well behaved. Most now have GPS trackers which can record their speed as well as location and most of the big trucking companies are getting big breaks on their insurance rates if they can show that the fleet isn’t exceeding the speed limit. That has made a noticeable change in their behavior in the past few years (ain’t technology great?). Of course there are still renegade owner-operators who don’t mind paying higher insurance rates.

I saw lots of chocolate brown “Maverick” trucking cabs hauling various cargos (I see them occasionally in the southeast or on my way to Pennsylvania but they are based in the Midwest and they have LOTS of trucks there). I also saw a bright red Benjamin Moore Paints truck drive halfway off the side of the highway near an exit ramp (which I thought it was taking). Both of those brought back vivid memories of my experience in Indiana back in August of 2016 (search “The Dreaded Interstate” on the Home page).

Cars and smaller trucks- well that’s a little different. Most were well behaved. Not as many as usual, probably, but still a fair number. Not as many vehicles hauling big campers and more SUV’s and conversion-van type panel trucks rigged for camping (which I have thought about but for now I still prefer the comfort of my Altima and the comradery of Airbnbs. (Some people prefer camaraderie but both are correct)). I took bypasses around most of the bigger cities (Nashville, St. Louis, Kansas City) and that is mostly where I found the kamikaze drivers, weaving it and out, looking at their phones or otherwise distracted – all while darting in and out of lanes at high speed. And the slowpokes, driving slow in the left lane while yapping on their phones.

I was surprised and pleased to see ALL the vehicles, trucks and cars alike, get in the right lane when approaching a one-lane construction zone – like 3 miles before we got to it! All of us were lined up like good little soldiers. No one zooming up the left lane to be first in line. I can’t say that I have EVER seen that!

And so far I’ve only been almost run into only three times (that I’m aware of, anyway). The first time was when I was out in Evansville looking for my elusive cream soda (look for the upcoming “Obsession” post). As I was turning in to a convenience store that was supposed to carry it I noticed emergency lights flashing further up the road. While I was in the store more emergency vehicles came screaming by with lights and sirens activated. Well, when I left to go back the way I had arrived (and thus putting the emergency scene behind me) I pulled out of the parking lot and stopped at the light which was red (smart move there JohnBoy). Well, the light turns green, I start to roll and then I hear a siren behind me. I instinctively stopped and then saw the police car, which was probably planning to turn in front of me before the light changed (he or she didn’t have the siren on until the last second or I would have known they were coming and would have stayed put) and the car made it’s turn behind me, probably not missing me by much because I hadn’t gone that far.

The second time was the next morning, still in Evansville. I was out looking for cream soda again (a future blog post) and missed a turn onto the entrance ramp of a city highway (helpful hint – when GPS tells you to turn right at the traffic light, do it. I overshot it, (I was seeing the light on the other side of the elevated highway, not my side), turned around and then was trying to turn left onto the entrance ramp I wanted to be on in the first place. Well, I inched out when the light turned green but had to wait for oncoming traffic to clear. When the light turned red I tried to finish my turn and almost got hit head-on by a fool trying to speed up (from a considerable distance) and run his red light (or maybe HE didn’t see the light that I didn’t see?).

The third time was yesterday in Wyoming. I just happened to look in my rear view mirror on the driver’s door and saw a black car approaching which had drifted from the passing lane back partway into my lane. If I hadn’t immediately moved right she would have sideswiped me (or worse).

Hopefully I can continue my travels and be fortunate enough to stay out of trouble…

… as my GPS likes to say.

I arrived in Lander, WY at 401pm local (Mountain) time on Thursday. 2,082 miles from Durham, which includes minor side trips like shopping, a longer than expected drive away from the highway for cheap gas near St. Louis, and a 16-mile “oops” when I missed my exit getting to Evansville and had to drive 8 miles to the next exit and make a U-turn (which my GPS loves to yell at me about). One of my Evansville Airbnb host family’s kids, 8-year old Sebastian, was amused when I told him that I had missed all my conversations with my GPS when I didn’t go anywhere during the pandemic. “You talk to your GPS?” he asked, quizzically. “Oh yes, sometimes we even have heated arguments,” I said, though with his young, impressionable mind I spared him the details of the words we (well, I) sometimes use.

After arrival I unpacked a few things from my car for my first night staying in my brother’s little rental house, and drove back into town to have dinner and a beer with my nephew Sam, who also lives in Lander and works for the same company as my brother.

And for trivial comparison purposes, that 2,082 mileage figure is just under the 2,172 miles I put on my car in all of 2020 due to the “stay at home” order (excluding a trip to Pennsylvania when my older brother was in the hospital).

I will add a post with photos later today, hopefully. When I looked in my “technology” satchel (various cables, chargers, and emergency power-packs for boosting my phone’s battery when it gets low) to get my FitBit cable out I discovered I actually bought an Apple-to-USB cable when I made my Amazon “new iPhone shopping spree” (Otterbox cover, screen protector, high-speed charging brick [gee, thanks Apple for including that with the damn phone. You provide a cable but nothing to plug it in with!], car charging plug, etc) so now all I need to do is figure out how to offload pictures from my phone to my laptop via iTunes (which I downloaded yesterday).

It is supposed to be rainy here the next few days so I will probably just rest up, get acclimated to the altitude (5,358 feet), unpack the car – which alone could take days!, and get back to a normal sleep routine before making trips out-and- about to explore the area. Based on my brother and sister-in-law’s Facebook posts there are lots of beautiful things just a short drive from here.

Let the 2021 adventure begin!

OK, get your minds out of the gutter people! This is a family-friendly blog (well, mostly). Just because one of my first blog posts included a photo which was taken in a men’s room in Hermann, Missouri (which I drove past getting here yesterday), I’d like to think we have all matured a bit since then.

Of course I am talking about my first time staying at an Airbnb.

Tuesday night I stayed in Evansville, Indiana as the first stop on my three-day journey to Wyoming. I stayed with a charming family with three young kids (and a fourth on the way). There was an old bus in their back yard and that brought back memories of my first Airbnb stay in Shephardstown, West Virginia way back on June 15, 2015:

(Photo credit for all pictures in this post: Airbnb.com)

That’s right. I spent the night in a schoolbus! According to an article which had been published in a local newspaper, my host bought this bus at an IRS tax sale. He took most of the seats out, leaving a few in the front for guests to put their belongings on. He also reversed the bench seat immediately behind the driver’s seat, took out the next one altogether, and added diner-style table for guests to eat their meals at – up to four people facing each other. Add a bed, woodstove, couch and rocking chair (dog sold separately) and voila – a cozy and unique place to spend the night!

The bus was modified by my host Will (last name omitted for his privacy), a VERY enterprising young man, and was located next to his house out in the country. The bus had electricity but no running water. While he does provide a “device” outside for necessary bodily functions, guests are welcome to walk the short distance to his house and use his bathroom, shower and kitchen.

When I arrived Will gave me the tour of the bus and shared space in his home, then pointed out into his back yard. He said “Yeah, and I’m fixin’ to build a treehouse back there to rent out on Airbnb, too”. Lo and behold:

It certainly made for a favorable first impression of how much fun using Airbnb would be and how many nice people I’d meet.

I am at my second Airbnb of 2021 in little Elm Creek, Nebraska (having arrived here with a police escort, thank you very much!). Word has apparently gotten out about my return to travel and blogging and I appreciate the support.

I was hoping to make a few quick posts about some of the amusing things which have happened already in just my first two days on the road but discovered that I must get yet another cable to connect my new iPhone 11 to my Windows computer in order to download photos. Of course the iPhone charging cable doesn’t connect to the wall brick with a standard USB cable. No…. Apple reaches into my wallet yet again as accessories are sold separately. Hopefully I can get one at Walmart today on my way to my final destination in Lander, Wyoming. I have orientation this afternoon with the person for whom I am housesitting for the next month but can then resume regaling America with amusing JohnBoy stories and photos.

Stay tuned….