the queen travels: We're moving on

Tuesday, July 2

It was time to add a flower photo.

A great movie on this battle was quite eye-opening.

Now, we're just traveling. On Tuesday we went to the 1868 Washita Battlefield in Oklahoma. George Armstrong Custer was involved in this one, too. We watched a 20-minute very informative movie on the battle, and did the 1-1/2-mile walk about the battlefield.

The battlefield spread over a several-mile area with Black Kettle's camp at one end, and the camps of the other tribes at the other. The main portion of the battle was at Black Kettle's camp, with the army not really knowing until later there were about 6,000 Indians gathered in the area.

This is the trail ... watch out for snakes.

Black Kettle, a Cheyenne chief who was primarily a peace maker, whose camp was located a few miles from other camps, died in this battle, along with his wife, many women and children and elderly. The final blow after this battle to the Cheyenne was the order from Custer's superior to burn all their lodges with their belongings and winter supplies and slaughter all the horses and other animals, nearly 800 of them, taking away their transportation, their food, wealth, and even their dignity. It was a crushing blow to the Cheyenne people and it's said they never regained their wealth or power. Senseless to me, devastating to them.

I found the discussion on prayer cloths exceptionally interesting, and hoped we'd see them.

This bench sits under a tree with a number of prayer cloths.

Coming back from our walk, guess what ... a sign ... and had to take a photo for Flounder! She understands, and so does my brother, Zookeeper.

From there, near Amarillo (Conway, Texas) was the Slug Bug Ranch, a place where five Volkswagon bugs have been placed nose-first into the ground, and then spray-painted by anyone and everyone. I didn't have spray paint, but I did have my trusty black magic marker. And I left my mark, Peppermint Patti, 2013, Anchorage, Alaska. By the time you read this, it may already be covered up by someone else's spray paint. A fun place, but we did not tarry long. Miles to go, burning daylight.

These places are kind of like car cemetaries, I guess.

I've seen a couple of these car things, and each one is cool.

And on the other side of the building was this old gem.

Wednesday was just a riding day, starting out cool and us wearing jackets … with a sprinkle or two, but avoiding any real rain or the hail we heard about from fellow travelers. We followed highways going straight, as well as winding along fields of wheat, watching the machines cutting it down and gathering it, seeing fields of green foliage which will soon be corn, and dry fields not planted. There wasn't much traffic, making for a great day of riding. Temperatures are in the 80s, perfect riding, although high 80s is at the edge of real comfort. We stopped for the night in St. Francis, Kansas.

My side of the story:

The Fourth of July and we were up and moving along. We were going to run up through Kansas, cut across a 7-mile strip of Nebraska and run into Colorado, heading north until we hit Nebraska again. The final destination was Sidney, Nebraska, home of Cabela's first store … the sporting goods place that we are supposed to get in Anchorage I believe in 2014.

We were having a good day, riding, stopping now and again to gas up, take a break. Hobbs said we could get through the 7-mile stretch of Nebraska … a helmet state I might add … without our helmets. When we crossed into the state, I slowed down, waiting for him to pull over to put on our helmets. He did not, so I sped up and followed along. Bad idea.

A few miles through, we spotted a trooper vehicle with its lights on, and an SUV pulled over. We got a long, hard look from the trooper. We were hoping he had just pulled it over, although it looked to me like he was handing the person something. Wouldn't you know it, a car was coming up behind us … fast. That wasn't a good sign. Then the lights came on. We just pulled over and put the kickstands down.

Yep, stopped.

A helmet violation

License and registration, please. Yes sir, you got it. We knew, he knew, we should have been wearing our helmets. We got to talking, he rides, and he was a super-nice guy. Gave us a warning. We must have stood there talking with him for about a half hour, and he even let us take photos. And we promised to not ride again in Nebraska without our helmets. Or at least not get caught. (We wore them.)

Trooper Dan Thompson, Nebraska State Patrol.

Helmet up.

Friday, July 5, and we were off and running again. We visited Chimney Rock which is called that to be politically correct. The American Indians called it “Elk Penis.” Ya gotta laugh … even back then we were trying to not offend anyone. It's beautiful, although Mother Nature is taking its toll with various pieces being hit by lightning, wearing away, falling.