Sunday, August 30, 2009

On the Road: Omaha to Laramie (Pt 1)

When we say it was hard to leave Omaha, don't think that we formed some kind of emotional attachment to the city. We had a nice night there, sure, but it was actually hard to leave. For one thing, it's a city of aggressive drivers, tearing down the street at inappropriate speeds. I suppose that's why we didn't see any pedestrians. For another, the entire city of Omaha seems to be under construction. Looking down one major avenue, we saw cranes erecting structures on either side of the street, while construction crews tore up the street itself. Every turn we made was attended to by a confusing constellation of orange cones.

We were nearly free from the city when Dorothy realized she couldn't find her sunglasses, so we backtracked to a nearby Walgreen's for new ones. A wild goose chase for a mailbox left us on a small street, trying to make a left turn onto a larger street, with the aforementioned drivers bearing down on us. We should mention that Phil's normal composure in the driver's seat had at this point given way to slight frustration at the entirety of Omaha, and when he nosed into the street to make a seemingly safe turn before being cut off by some Nebraskan lunatic with someplace real important to go, he somewhat thoughtlessly threw the car into reverse to get out of the intersection. The rearview mirror rendered useless by the gear in Kitty Jo's (the car's) backseat, Phil was only made aware of the car right behind him when he heard the crunch. The upshot? Well, very little harm was done; Phil's ego certainly took the biggest hit. Insurance information was traded with the fellow in the car, whose driver's license told us was from Los Angeles, on Valencia Street, a fact that Dorothy took as a harbinger of good things to come. With this small consolation, we left Omaha for good, on a long ride certain to be without further excitement. Right.

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