|
|
Altoids Addict (![[info]](http://www.journalfen.net/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} altoidsaddict) wrote,@ 2006-10-08 15:49:00 |
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
Because it is Mud Springs and because it is my heart.
The setup: I went to a little bitty place called Sidney, Nebraska to perform with the City of Denver Pipe and Drum Band. Since I'm new and don't have all the music memorized - and gimme a break, it's also a whole new instrument (rhythm tenor) to learn, and marching on top of it, so the fact that I was able to do one bodhran number in concert and our three major sets in the parade is pretty damn good for three weeks - the parade and the bodhran number is all I had to do.
Friday I drove up. Around lunchtime, on I-76, I started to get hungry. "Roggens," says the exit. "Hm." says I. "Food here." says the exit. "Okay." says I. Unfortunately, what few services there are in Roggens are not visible or indicated in any way from the highway going east. Oh, no. Instead, the weary traveler is confronted with a dilapidated building, the faded sign announcing "cafe" but really the only living beings to have eaten there in twenty years are the rats, and a hopeful-looking sign for food pointing to the right. So I went to the right. I generally believe what the sign tells me, because I'm a Girl Scout like that.
About two miles down the road, past innumerable ranches and refineries of some nature, I had yet to find any public building. So I calledharpie84 to see if perhaps Roggens was a bit farther down the road. "Nope," says she. "It's right at the interstate." "Uh..." says I, and at that moment had my intense concentration on the road broken by the sight of a David Lynchian dwarf (little person, yes, but I'm trying to invoke goddamn Twin Peaks here because he walked JUST LIKE Mike Myers' parody dwarf) walking along the side of the road dressed head-to-toe in denim. Little persons, of course, live anywhere that non-little persons do, not sequestered to a life of circus freakery, and this is a good thing, even if they live in Roggens. It was, however, incredibly random, as there hadn't been anyone walking or driving on that road for the entire two miles, and if I'd heard a few random jazz snaps and seen the Log Lady? I wouldn't have been a bit surprised. So I got the hell out of Roggens, population 3 rats and 1 avant-garde theater troupe, and continued down I-76.
Do you know that, aside from Sterling, there is nothing on I-76 or 113/19 until you hit Nebraska? Yeah. I saw a few signs heavily touting an upcoming historical marker, and guess what was the major tourist factoid? This mile marker is the site of the first oil well sunk by such-and-such company in this area in some not-too-historical year. Holy hell, people, this is not the Colorado version of Drake's Folly. Nobody cares. And I say that as not only a would-be archivist, but also as someone who drove three hours to see a giant plexiglass rhinoceros beetle. Twice.
Right when you enter Nebrasks along 113 (which the Nebraskans rename 19 just to be contrary, I'm sure), there's a sign that says "Welcome to Nebraska, Home of Arbor Day!" It's a very peppy sign. It's also probably depressed, like a cheerleader for a school without any athletic programs. It sits, you see, welcoming one and all to the Nebraska panhandle, which doesn't have any trees. I'm certain there are parts of Nebraska that do have trees, but this ain't it. Welcome to Kansas, come see our mountains. Welcome to Utah, home of spring break. Welcome to Florida, our bugs are tiny and unobtrusive.
But aside from the gratuitous hyping of the invisible trees, Nebraska? Has a lot of shit. Seriously. Being raised in Colorado, I'd always believed that Nebraska's main exports were the color brown, and idiots who wear a lot of red. But once you get off of I-80 and onto the state highways and county roads, it becomes a hell of a lot more interesting.
The show itself was in Sidney. Nice place, even if (or maybe because) everyone seems to walk around heavily armed (there's a big hunting distributor who employs, like, half the town). People show up for shit there, unlike Denver, which has a million people but 999,995 of them just want to spend a nice evening at home. We had the entire town at Oktoberfest, which was a lot better than Denver's Oktoberfest, even though it had little in common with German heritage. There were some cloggers and a polka band, but most of the time it was beer-drinking (Bud Lite and Amber Bock. What?) and Scottish piping and bluegrass bands. The parade Saturday morning was a lot of fun as well, and I think everyone in town had a float because the parade was looooong. And this is taking into consideration that they only had the one Shriner in his wee car. The high school's goth kids had their own float, driven by one of the rodeo jocks. They played Aqua and The Cure. The town seems to love The Cure. In fact, the town loves Halloween even more than I do, and it seems half the local Wal-Mart is given over to Halloween merchandise. So, in summary, Sidney? Totally awesome.
Saturday after the parade I went to Alliance, north on 385 by a mere two hours. Where, you ask? Why, you ask? THE HOME OF CARHENGE, BABY! Quite simply, this is America: a facsimile of an ancient monument made out of something manufactured and obsolete and drenched with gray paint, done only because it was possible to do so. The rest of y'all can have your flag-waving and inspirational cancer victims who go on to beat the French at their own game; this here is the most authentic expression of American culture I've ever seen. Yes, they have t-shirts.
On the way back from Alliance, I stopped in Bridgeport because on the way up I'd noticed 687 historical markers. Hm, says I, either this town's erecting monuments to The Time Bubba Done Builted Something (like an OIL WELL fucking northern Colorado), or something really intensely interesting happened here. The second one, as it turns out. Bridgeport is the confluence of the California Trail, the Mormon Trail, and the Oregon Trail. There's a separate, well-marked Auto Tour for each so you can retrace the steps of the pioneers, except much much faster, and without the cholera. And speaking of cholera, it has its very own roadside monument. Brigeport and surrounding environs aren't content to let their monuments rest at "The Time Bubba Done Found the Ocean." Nope, they explain social and historical context of each monument, the hardships the settlers faced, and why they didn't have AAA or OnStar. And it's not "Indians, Rarrrr!" which is nice - these monuments seem to be well-balanced.
Which brings me to Mud Springs, which is the "Indians, Rarrrr!" part of the trip. I'd seen the sign for "Mud Springs Historical Site" on the way up. Nebraska seems to be a brutally honest place (with the exception of the Arbor Day sign). The Vikings went to a barren, frozen wasteland without even a Starbucks, came back to their fellow Vikings, and said "We've discovered this place called Greenland!" The Nebraskans take a place with a bracken, muddy spring, and call it "Mud Springs." Of course, it's not there any more, the Souix having attacked the Pony Express station that was there. It happens. The marker gave the impression that it wasn't that big a deal, and anyway, the Souix were cheesed off, and haven't we all had days like that? To get to Mud Springs, I had to go up a winding dirt road for a few miles. Nothing says loving like forcing your sedan to impersonate a 4-wheel-drive.
After glamorous Mud Springs, I went back to Sidney, did the concert, and afterwards played with the bluegrass band in the lobby of the hotel until 1 in the morning. I even sang a little. Then I slept until 7 a.m., when some tool forgot he was COOKING A WAFFLE HUR HUR in the Continental Breakfast Nook, and the ensuing fire set off all the alarms and woke up the entire hotel and everyone had to evacuate. And it was cold. On I-76 going west, I finally found the food and services advertised on the highway sign for Roggens, and my initial instinct to flee was, indeed, the right one. Now, though? I am at home, praying for a desperate moment of calm before hell week, in which I have fifty thousand things to do.
The setup: I went to a little bitty place called Sidney, Nebraska to perform with the City of Denver Pipe and Drum Band. Since I'm new and don't have all the music memorized - and gimme a break, it's also a whole new instrument (rhythm tenor) to learn, and marching on top of it, so the fact that I was able to do one bodhran number in concert and our three major sets in the parade is pretty damn good for three weeks - the parade and the bodhran number is all I had to do.
Friday I drove up. Around lunchtime, on I-76, I started to get hungry. "Roggens," says the exit. "Hm." says I. "Food here." says the exit. "Okay." says I. Unfortunately, what few services there are in Roggens are not visible or indicated in any way from the highway going east. Oh, no. Instead, the weary traveler is confronted with a dilapidated building, the faded sign announcing "cafe" but really the only living beings to have eaten there in twenty years are the rats, and a hopeful-looking sign for food pointing to the right. So I went to the right. I generally believe what the sign tells me, because I'm a Girl Scout like that.
About two miles down the road, past innumerable ranches and refineries of some nature, I had yet to find any public building. So I called
harpie84 to see if perhaps Roggens was a bit farther down the road. "Nope," says she. "It's right at the interstate." "Uh..." says I, and at that moment had my intense concentration on the road broken by the sight of a David Lynchian dwarf (little person, yes, but I'm trying to invoke goddamn Twin Peaks here because he walked JUST LIKE Mike Myers' parody dwarf) walking along the side of the road dressed head-to-toe in denim. Little persons, of course, live anywhere that non-little persons do, not sequestered to a life of circus freakery, and this is a good thing, even if they live in Roggens. It was, however, incredibly random, as there hadn't been anyone walking or driving on that road for the entire two miles, and if I'd heard a few random jazz snaps and seen the Log Lady? I wouldn't have been a bit surprised. So I got the hell out of Roggens, population 3 rats and 1 avant-garde theater troupe, and continued down I-76.Do you know that, aside from Sterling, there is nothing on I-76 or 113/19 until you hit Nebraska? Yeah. I saw a few signs heavily touting an upcoming historical marker, and guess what was the major tourist factoid? This mile marker is the site of the first oil well sunk by such-and-such company in this area in some not-too-historical year. Holy hell, people, this is not the Colorado version of Drake's Folly. Nobody cares. And I say that as not only a would-be archivist, but also as someone who drove three hours to see a giant plexiglass rhinoceros beetle. Twice.
Right when you enter Nebrasks along 113 (which the Nebraskans rename 19 just to be contrary, I'm sure), there's a sign that says "Welcome to Nebraska, Home of Arbor Day!" It's a very peppy sign. It's also probably depressed, like a cheerleader for a school without any athletic programs. It sits, you see, welcoming one and all to the Nebraska panhandle, which doesn't have any trees. I'm certain there are parts of Nebraska that do have trees, but this ain't it. Welcome to Kansas, come see our mountains. Welcome to Utah, home of spring break. Welcome to Florida, our bugs are tiny and unobtrusive.
But aside from the gratuitous hyping of the invisible trees, Nebraska? Has a lot of shit. Seriously. Being raised in Colorado, I'd always believed that Nebraska's main exports were the color brown, and idiots who wear a lot of red. But once you get off of I-80 and onto the state highways and county roads, it becomes a hell of a lot more interesting.
The show itself was in Sidney. Nice place, even if (or maybe because) everyone seems to walk around heavily armed (there's a big hunting distributor who employs, like, half the town). People show up for shit there, unlike Denver, which has a million people but 999,995 of them just want to spend a nice evening at home. We had the entire town at Oktoberfest, which was a lot better than Denver's Oktoberfest, even though it had little in common with German heritage. There were some cloggers and a polka band, but most of the time it was beer-drinking (Bud Lite and Amber Bock. What?) and Scottish piping and bluegrass bands. The parade Saturday morning was a lot of fun as well, and I think everyone in town had a float because the parade was looooong. And this is taking into consideration that they only had the one Shriner in his wee car. The high school's goth kids had their own float, driven by one of the rodeo jocks. They played Aqua and The Cure. The town seems to love The Cure. In fact, the town loves Halloween even more than I do, and it seems half the local Wal-Mart is given over to Halloween merchandise. So, in summary, Sidney? Totally awesome.
Saturday after the parade I went to Alliance, north on 385 by a mere two hours. Where, you ask? Why, you ask? THE HOME OF CARHENGE, BABY! Quite simply, this is America: a facsimile of an ancient monument made out of something manufactured and obsolete and drenched with gray paint, done only because it was possible to do so. The rest of y'all can have your flag-waving and inspirational cancer victims who go on to beat the French at their own game; this here is the most authentic expression of American culture I've ever seen. Yes, they have t-shirts.
On the way back from Alliance, I stopped in Bridgeport because on the way up I'd noticed 687 historical markers. Hm, says I, either this town's erecting monuments to The Time Bubba Done Builted Something (like an OIL WELL fucking northern Colorado), or something really intensely interesting happened here. The second one, as it turns out. Bridgeport is the confluence of the California Trail, the Mormon Trail, and the Oregon Trail. There's a separate, well-marked Auto Tour for each so you can retrace the steps of the pioneers, except much much faster, and without the cholera. And speaking of cholera, it has its very own roadside monument. Brigeport and surrounding environs aren't content to let their monuments rest at "The Time Bubba Done Found the Ocean." Nope, they explain social and historical context of each monument, the hardships the settlers faced, and why they didn't have AAA or OnStar. And it's not "Indians, Rarrrr!" which is nice - these monuments seem to be well-balanced.
Which brings me to Mud Springs, which is the "Indians, Rarrrr!" part of the trip. I'd seen the sign for "Mud Springs Historical Site" on the way up. Nebraska seems to be a brutally honest place (with the exception of the Arbor Day sign). The Vikings went to a barren, frozen wasteland without even a Starbucks, came back to their fellow Vikings, and said "We've discovered this place called Greenland!" The Nebraskans take a place with a bracken, muddy spring, and call it "Mud Springs." Of course, it's not there any more, the Souix having attacked the Pony Express station that was there. It happens. The marker gave the impression that it wasn't that big a deal, and anyway, the Souix were cheesed off, and haven't we all had days like that? To get to Mud Springs, I had to go up a winding dirt road for a few miles. Nothing says loving like forcing your sedan to impersonate a 4-wheel-drive.
After glamorous Mud Springs, I went back to Sidney, did the concert, and afterwards played with the bluegrass band in the lobby of the hotel until 1 in the morning. I even sang a little. Then I slept until 7 a.m., when some tool forgot he was COOKING A WAFFLE HUR HUR in the Continental Breakfast Nook, and the ensuing fire set off all the alarms and woke up the entire hotel and everyone had to evacuate. And it was cold. On I-76 going west, I finally found the food and services advertised on the highway sign for Roggens, and my initial instinct to flee was, indeed, the right one. Now, though? I am at home, praying for a desperate moment of calm before hell week, in which I have fifty thousand things to do.
