Day 3 - cold, colder, coldest

The state motto of Wyoming is "Forever West." Which is strange, considering that more than half the state is east of the continental divide. We crossed it around 8:45 this morning, about 45 miles west of Raw
Ins, Wyoming. Huh. Still looks like the West....mesas, miles and miles and miles of nothing but land and a silo here and there.

Looking at a map (because, after all, I'm in a car driving across the country - what else am I going to do), I see that Wyoming is kind of the center of the country....but all my life ( at least the first 26 years of it) I've lived in what I felt was the middle.... Missouri and Illinois.  Guess I'm going to start calling myself an easterner. 

I think that we forget just how huge this country is until we start driving. I can fly to my son's in Scarborough, Maine, in a few hours (not including the hours spent at 2 different airports), but it took 20 hours of driving 80 mph highways just to get to the middle....

The temperature is 7 degrees here in central Wyoming, the sun is bright, but there are 60mph gusts, blowing dry snow across the roadway, obscuring the road altogether. Makes it difficult to see the marks on the highway. II took this picture from the truck, so it's kind of hard to see, but it's dry snow being sucked up by the wind and then deposited on the highway.

Glad I'm not a long-haul trucker! This is stressful.

It's easy to see that the interstate system is how we get goods across the country. Nothing but trucks. We estimate that there are at least 3 semis for each car on the road. These vehicles were preceded by about 10 trucks...

. Trucks, trucks, and more trucks....We'll tell 'em Bone sent us. ( Seattle joke.)

Stopping in Laramie gave us a chance to chat with a long-haul trucker who is very happy with her Kenworth. Made Bobs day.

Ahh, Nebraska...now, THIS is the Midwest. There are trees. And it's fllllaaaaattttt. (We are in Lexington, Nebraska, which doesn't appear on the road signs until about 10 miles before you get here.)