On the Road: Creston, Wyoming

Click on Thumbnail for MapNote: First published on Blogger on August 21, 2006

Unfolding the Map

I'm back, Littourati, from my vacation in California, and my mom says to tell you all hello! I had forgotten how beautiful the North Coast of California is during the summer. The wildflowers were out, the blackberries were practically falling off the vines, and the weather was beautiful! Now, we will make Sal's push to San Francisco, starting with today's entry in Creston. I hope you appreciated the preview map I left for you! Click on the image, of course, to see where we are!

Book Quote

"I was two weeks late meeting Remi Boncoeur. The bus trip from Denver to Frisco was uneventful except that my whole soul leaped to it the nearer we got to Frisco. Cheyenne again, in the afternoon this time, and then west over the range; crossing the Divide at midnight at Creston..."

On the Road, Chapter 11

Creston, Wyoming

Creston sits in a lonely place on the top of the world, and Sal passes through it in a blink of an eyelid. Suddenly, after climbing out of the Mississippi Basin, through the plains, and up the Rockies, the rivers suddenly flow with him toward the Pacific.

At the moment that Sal hits that point, let's freeze time. We'll just stop it. Sal's bus is suspended just like in a photo at this point along his journey. It's not necessarily the highest point -- he'll go over a higher point in the Sierras. Sal does not necessarily think it is very important, as he only gives it one line in the book. As he gazes out the window, he probably doesn't see much in the way of a community, if Creston looks anything then like it does now. Yet after all the miles, he has crossed the backbone of the United States, the Continental Divide, at midnight no less.

New Mexico, where I live, straddles the Continental Divide, and every time I drive over it, I get a little bit of a thrill and I'm not sure why. I know that I'm amazed that at that line, water begins draining toward the Pacific, instead of toward the Gulf of Mexico and that if I were a leaf dropped from a hand right over that point at a place where two hypothetical little streams emerge from springs on each side of the line, a little puff of wind would determine whether I land in one stream and head toward California, or in the other and roll on back toward the east.

It is also incredible to me that this country even has a "backbone." This place of once violent upheavals where rock came bursting out of oceans and plains and raised itself high above. Sal gets over the mountains easily, sitting on his bus and looking out the window at the scenery flash and Creston go by in a blink of an eye. But to the pioneers, those edifices of stone touching the sky over their heads may have seemed like yet another one of God's barriers keeping them from the promised land and the riches awaiting them. They may have even seemed like living beings themselves, blocking the sun's light early in the day, brewing up storms in their secret heights and throwing them outward, and finding other tricks to bedevil the travellers seeking to cross them.

I think that when any divide is crossed, whether it is emotional, physical or natural, we ought to pause and reflect for just a moment on where we have come from, and where we are going and how we feel about it in the now.

Okay Sal, you can go onward now, past midnight and down the nether side of the divide and on to the west.

If you want to know more about Creston...

You're probably going to have to go there. It is evidently very tiny, with very few structures about. It has no Wikipedia entry, and appears to be a place where both the railroad, US Highway 30 (Sal's probable route through), and Interstate 80 cross the Continental Divide. It sits at about 7100 feet. Here is one link, if you want to see what it looks like from the air on Google. Creston on Google Maps

Next up: Salt Lake City, Utah

On the Road: Cheyenne, Wyoming

Click on Thumbnail for MapNote: First published on Blogger on July 18, 2006

Unfolding the Map

Hey, guess what, Littourati? We have exited Nebraska, finally, and are now rolling with Sal Paradise into Cheyenne, Wyoming! Hit the image, get the map!

Book Quote

"As the truck reached the outskirts of Cheyenne, we saw the high red lights of the local radio station, and suddenly we were bucking through a great crowd of people that poured along both sidewalks. 'Hell's bells, it's Wild West Week,' said Slim. Big crowds of businessmen, fat businessmen in boots and ten-gallon hats, with their hefty wives in cowgirl attire, bustled and whooped on the wooden sidewalks of old Cheyenne; farther down were the long stringy boulevard lights of new downtown Cheyenne, but the celebration was focusing on Oldtown. Blank guns went off. The saloons were crowded to the sidewalk. I was amazed, and at the same time I felt it was ridiculous: in my first shot at the West I was seeing to what absurd devices it had fallen to keep its proud tradition."

On the Road: Chapter 4

Cheyenne, Wyoming

Sal enters Cheyenne, sees tradition mingling with commercial at the annual Frontier Days (mistakenly called Wild West Week by Slim), and feels that common mixture of amazement and derision of the spectacle of it all.

On the one hand, I know this feeling. I had the feeling when I first saw the Disneyfication of Times Square. What was once an area renowned for its seediness, it's strip clubs and porn shops, and it's danger is now an area full of bright lights, Mickey and friends, and family friendly business that is way to expensive for most of us ordinary folk to shop there.

On the other hand, I regret that Sal has this feeling, because many communities, especially smaller ones (and I count Cheyenne with it's population of just over 50,000 as a small community) take great pride in their local celebrations. You don't just see this in smaller communities; San Antonio goes all out for Fiesta and New Orleans basically ceases to function each year during the run-up to Mardi Gras. But for smaller communities, a festival like Frontier Days in Wyoming puts them on the map and makes them feel proud. If it weren't for Frontier Days, according to Wikipedia the largest rodeo in the world, we would know a lot less about Cheyenne.

My hometown of Fort Bragg had basically one large festival when I was growing up. Because it was a lumber town, the festival was named Paul Bunyan Days, and it continues to occur each September over Labor Day weekend. Parades, contests (including logging skills), and dances characterized the festivities. Paul Bunyan Days gave the town a chance to get out, let its hair down, have fun, and come together as well as giving tourists the opportunity to see a different side of our town.

Other festivals have now been added to my hometown: The World's Largest Salmon Barbecue and Winesong, to name a couple. My hometown takes pride in these celebrations, and has fun with them. And they also echo the local traditions of logging, fishing and agriculture.

Mardi Gras is another example of a community rallying together around a tradition, handed down year by year. Each year, except for this last one which was the first post-Katrina celebration, Mardi Gras got bigger and bigger. Tourists came for the days of wild abandonment they could experience, but if you are a local, you enjoy the family friendly atmosphere away from the French Quarter, the parades, the food, and the costumes that magically appear each year. Without Mardi Gras, would New Orleans have put such a stamp on our consciousness?

So, if I were traveling with Sal in 1947, I would have told him to let Cheyenne have and enjoy its Frontier Days. It celebrates who the people of Cheyenne are, and in many cases, an idealized version of what they want to be. And for one or two weeks a year, that's just fine. America can go back to being "beat" after the fun is over.

If you are interested in learning more about Cheyenne or Frontier Days

City-Data: Cheyenne
Cheyenne Area Convention and Visitor's Bureau
City of Cheyenne
Wikipedia: Cheyenne
Wyoming Tales and Trails:
Cheyenne Wyoming Tribune-Eagle
Frontier Days
Wikipedia: Frontier Days

Next up: Longmont, Colorado