Trip day 3

We got up and discovered that the bitter cold weather we had been not enjoying had just gotten even colder. Neither of us felt that our stomachs were up to the challenge of another McDonald's breakfast, so we decided to head over to Perkin's for omlettes.

As we were leaving the restaurant, we could hear geese. After looking around for a minute, we noticed that there was a large field between us and the Cabela's HQ that was full of geese. I checked it out, and there was a pond there with open water. At that temperature, the only way to keep the water from freezing must have been to heat the water. The geese figured out that this was a good thing, and thousands of them were hanging out there. Good for Cabela's.

The drive across Wyoming was annoying as usual. Blowing, drifting snow, poor visibility, and a constant assault of flying gravel. Wyoming doesn't even bother using salt or sand for ice traction, they just go straight for gravel. Whenever we got passed, we got showered by flying gravel. No wonder we've had windshield breaks in the past (nothing this year, thank goodness).

We found an interesting little souvenier shop along the highway in Buford called "End of the Trail." Typical little tourist trap, with the assorted Indian hand crafts and other stuff. Only it wasn't overpriced here for some reason, so Norah decided to do a little shopping. I took a few minutes to talk to the owner while she was looking around. Somehow we started talking about the gang violence problems that Toronto has been having lately. He told me that he used to be in to drugs, alcohol, gangs, the whole bit, but he had a personal crisis and one day decided to turn his life around. He's now a minister in a local church. I'm not sure how much of his story was true and how much was exaggeration, but he was a really interesting guy to talk to nonetheless. Experiences like that make me wish I could just retire and spend my time driving around the country, seeing the sights and talking to people. It seems that if you stop and really talk to the people you meet rather than trying to get away from them as quickly as possible, you stand a pretty good chance of hearing some really interesting stories. It's too bad that the big cities train us to be afraid of each other.

There is really something to be said for rural America and Canada. The people, on average, are much more friendly, helpful and honest than people you meet in the cities. It's ironic that I would feel more afraid of having a mechanical problem at night in Toronto than I would in Wyoming or Nebraska. In Toronto getting out of your car makes you a target, but in Wyoming you're much more likely to find someone who would want to help you out. You'd still need to be careful, of course, as psychos are everywhere. But the more concentrated the population gets, the higher the psycho percentage is. Screw anyone who calls everything between Los Angeles and New York City "flyover country" or "those dumb square states". This is what makes this country truly great, not the shallow self-serving greedy city dwellers.

Anyway, we continued on our way and made it across despite the weather. It didn't get really bad until we got near Park City. We had almost zero visibility coming down Parley's Canyon, which was fun. But we made it. We grabbed a Quizno's sandwich for dinner and made it to my parent's house without any problems.