There wasn’t a ton of excitement in our Holiday Inn Express hotel room when Tom’s alarm went off at 6:00am on Monday July 21, 2025. The reason for the lack of enthusiasm was because my photographer, his wife Vicki, and I faced a little over a thousand miles of driving over the next two days – and there weren’t many sites penciled into our itinerary. And to make matters worse, the three of us were simply retracing the same route we had taken during our first few days of the trip when we traveled along Interstate 80 through Southern Wyoming and across the middle of Nebraska. In other words, where fun goes to die!
We hit the road near Park City, Utah at eight o’clock and began our mind-numbing journey East. Forty-five minutes after our departure, we crossed the border into Wyoming – a state that’s 400 miles wide. The weather was ideal with a partly cloudy sky and a comfortable temperature in the low 80s. By noon, however, the mercury in the thermometer made it into the 90s with no end in sight.
Our saving grace was riding in the comfort of our 2021 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited. Not only did we have the vehicle’s air conditioning set to full throttle, and a tote in the backseat full of tasty snacks, but my travel companions also had the Sirius XM stations set to 50s, 60s, and 70s music. Several times during that morning and early afternoon’s drive, I heard my photographer recite his favorite quote from the movie American Graffiti whenever a Beach Boys song played on the radio – and the best part of all, Tom had his wife reciting the words in unison with him.
The famous quote in the movie came during a scene when the Beach Boys’ song Surfin’ Safari began to play over the radio in John Milner’s bright yellow 1932 Ford 5-Window Coupe. As soon as the rebellious tough guy turned the song off, his 12-year-old passenger, Carol Morrison, asked Milner the reason behind his actions. That’s when Milner delivered the famous line, “Eh, I don’t like that surfin’ shit. Rock and Roll’s been going downhill ever since Buddy Holly died.”
Each and every time I hear John Milner recite that line in the movie, two words pop into my resin head – “Amen brother!”
In Tom’s original agenda, my photographer planned on getting back into Michigan on Wednesday so we could be in attendance at his grandson’s all-star baseball game in the lower part of our state the following day. That meant we were scheduled to drive without stopping at any sites from Salt Lake City all the way back to Michigan. But unfortunately, Bo’s team lost in the District Finals and his season had already ended. For the three of us, that meant we were no longer in a rush to get home. Let me rephrase that – Tom and I were no longer in a hurry to get back to Michigan.
To break up the monotony of our drive through Wyoming, Tom discovered a seemingly interesting site for us to visit in the remote Southeastern corner of the state. My photographer also figured we’d make an earlier-than-normal stop at a hotel in Pine Bluffs, Wyoming, which would help recharge his and Vicki’s batteries. After seventeen days on the road, those two were running on empty.
At two o’clock in the afternoon, Vicki drove the Jeep into Pine Bluffs where she parked in the lot of the only motel in town – the Cobblestone Inn. From the parking lot, my photographer’s wife used her phone app to snag a good deal on a room, then she went inside to register. In the meantime, Tom stood in the 95-degree heat where he loaded up the luggage cart before the two of us headed for our room.
With no rest for the weary, and only a few minutes after we had arrived at the motel, the three of us were back in the Jeep and were headed for the remote site Tom had wanted us to visit. For a little over 13 miles, my photographer verbally barked out the directions to the site – which took us South along County Road 164 on a route parallel with the nearby Nebraska border. During the seemingly endless drive, there were moments when I thought we were lost; there were very few farmhouses, no other vehicles on the road, and only fields of hay beneath the mostly sunny sky for as far as my painted eyes could see.
Suddenly, I heard Tom say out loud, “We’re here.” Those words were music to my ears – and thankfully it wasn’t that surfin’ shit!
Seconds later, after Vicki pulled off the road and parked close to what seemed to be an access area to a farmer’s field, I wondered to myself, “Where’s here? There’s nothing here but an old sign and a two-track path leading to the endless horizon filled with power lines and three-armed eye sores.”
It turned out “here” wasn’t here after all. To reach the actual site, we had to travel on foot for the remainder of the way to get to the “here” my photographer had talked about. That meant my companions and I were forced to endure a seven-tenths of a mile hike along a cow-pie filled two-track that traversed beneath a line of utility poles. Oh, did I mention the temperature had reached 95 degrees by 2:30pm and there were no shade trees or places to rest anywhere in sight? In my mind, this had all the makings of a disaster – but I kept my mouth shut.
After learning from his mistakes during his 2022 “Hike from Hell” where Tom nearly died trying to reach President Hoover’s Rapidan Camp in the Shenandoah National Park, my out-of-shape photographer came prepared for any potential hikes on this trip. When my camera guy exited the Jeep and stepped into the scalding afternoon heat, he wore hiking boots on his feet, he carried a walking stick to help with his aching knees, and Tom put a bottle of cold water in the pocket of the camera case. I laughed to myself because I wondered if the eight-ounce mini bottle of water would be sufficient for a mile-and-a-half round-trip hike. After all, my photographer is no fat camel.
Just as Tom carried me through the pedestrian gate and onto the privately owned property, my photographer verbally recited a few of the landowner’s rules he saw posted on the nearby sign.
There was to be foot traffic only to the site, which meant the use of modern technology such as an automobile to save time and wear and tear on one’s body was prohibited. Overnight camping was also prohibited, and the owner warned visitors to not approach any of the livestock they might encounter. Visitors were also warned to travel at their own risk, as the trail was uneven and not regularly maintained. And last, but not least, the sign asked visitors to watch out for rattlesnakes in the area. I nearly fell out of the camera case when Tom read that rule aloud. In my mind, that venomous snake warning should be at the top of the list and written in bold lettering.
Slowly and methodically, step by dusty step, Tom trudged his way along the uneven, dirt two-track path. Several times during the first part of the hike, I saw him sidestep a wayward pile or two of moist cow crap. At the same time, I kept my eyes peeled for rattlesnakes, which I hoped were as elusive as Oregon beavers, or Pacific Northwest Sasquatches.
We had been gone from the Jeep for what seemed to be for an eternity when my photographer spotted an old, metallic windmill used for pumping water for livestock. Even though the windmill appeared to be a long way in front of us, I heard Tom yell out to his wife in an out-of-breath voice, “Do you see the windmill that’s up ahead of us by the fence? I think our site is right around that thing. We don’t have much further to go.”
Nearly ten minutes later, when we reached the crest of a very low hill, we arrived at the windmill; its blades were churning in the slight breeze. Every few seconds or so, I heard what sounded like loud, rhythmical groans – a noise I believed was either coming from some of the cattle that were gathered in the nearby pasture or Martie and Cathy from our hotel in Oregon had followed us to Wyoming. Thankfully no one could read my mind when I discovered the noise was in fact the water pump and not coming from the herd of cattle. I’ll be the first to admit, however, that it would have made for an unbelievable story had it been our impassioned neighbors.
While it was a relief to have finally reached the windmill, it was also the moment when Vicki and I realized my photographer was wrong. The site Tom had wanted us to visit was nowhere in sight; and I could tell by the sound of Vicki’s voice that she wasn’t overly happy. “Where in the hell is this place? We’ve walked in the scorching heat to the middle of God knows where for the past half hour, and we’re still not there yet. Are you sure you know where you’re going?”
After I watched Tom take a drink from his small bottle of water, I heard him draw enough breath to say, “It can’t be much further. Trust me, once we get there, it’ll have been worth the effort; you’ll see.”
The bad part of that entire exchange came when I saw the doubt in my photographer’s eyes. It became obvious to me that Tom was second-guessing his decision to attempt the long hike to the middle of nowhere. It was hot; he was thirsty; and my photographer was having flashbacks of the Rapidan Camp hike in 2022.
Three or four hundred yards past the windmill, a small monument that was surrounded by a low, steel barricade came into view. To be honest, the entire site didn’t look very impressive, which made me wonder whether or not that was actually our intended destination. But when I saw Tom smile and heard him say in his Clark W. Griswold voice, “Up and at ’em kids, we’re here”, I knew we had finally made it. We may have reached the end of the road, but where in the world were we?
Once I was carried up for a close look at the monument, which was a two-and-one-half foot tall granite obelisk embedded into a square steel plate, I realized it marked the precise location where the three states of Wyoming, Nebraska, and Colorado shared a common border. To me and my photographer, the place was a historic site, developed by U.S. astronomer and surveyor Oliver N. Chaffee when he established the corner monument on August 17, 1869.
During our time at the site, which lasted for a little over twenty minutes, my photographer had me pose for a handful of images around the monument. When Tom wanted me to stand in three states at once, however, my camera guy was forced to hold me upright because it was impossible for me to stand alone on the obelisk’s slightly rounded top. While I could have tried to keep my balance up there, my photographer feared the slight breeze might cause me to fall and smash into pieces on the steel plate below. The last thing I needed was to suffer a catastrophic fall as we were miles from the nearest civilization.
But while Tom was caring for my welfare at the tri-state monument, he also took a moment to record another video for his friend Earl McCartney at the same time. Seconds after the video had been recorded, however, disaster struck – and this calamity had the potential to affect the rest of our trip. As Tom walked away from the Colorado side of the marker where he intended to place me inside the camera case for our long trek back to the Jeep, the right-side lens of his eyeglasses suddenly and unexpectedly fell to the ground.
Completely stunned by what had just happened, my photographer quickly snatched the lens off the dry and dusty Colorado soil and examined it for damage. While the lens looked unscathed, Tom couldn’t say the same thing about the frames. He discovered the bottom right section of the frame was broken and was no longer stable enough to hold the lens in place. That meant one thing – Tom was about to make the exhaustingly long hike back to the Jeep with blurred vision. I couldn’t help but laugh to myself as this was a typical Clark W. Griswold moment at its finest.
Perplexed by the unfortunate situation at hand, Tom found a nearby concrete slab where he sat and tried to mentally prepare for the long hike back to our vehicle. It was a true moment of self-reflection; and as I watched from the comforts of my padded camera case, I could tell my photographer felt defeated. His goal was to treat me and his wife to a little family fun, but our little adventure to stand in three states at once quickly transformed into one disaster after another – and we weren’t finished yet.
As he chugged down the last few drops of his water, Tom looked at his wife and said in his best Clark W. Griswold voice, “Well, Ellen, this has been real fun. But now I’m out of water; it’s hotter than Hades out here; it’s nearly a mile-long walk back to the Jeep; my glasses are broken, and I can’t see very well. Do me a favor – if I ever come up with another bright idea like this one, give me a swift kick in the nuts.”
Not wanting to lose the lens or break his frames beyond repair, Tom carefully placed his glasses into the camera case where I stood guard over his eyewear. My photographer gingerly stood up, he grabbed his walking stick, and we began the seven-tenths of a mile hike towards the Jeep – which at that point was completely out of sight.
I listened as my poor sap of a friend huffed and puffed his way along the trail for what seemed to be an eternity. When the two of us stopped at the top of the crest near the windmill, I heard Tom tell his wife he needed to cool off or else he would likely collapse from heat exhaustion. With no shade trees, electric fans, or native girls with palm fronds to fan his fat ass, my camera guy settled for the next best option – the cold water he saw in the large drinking trough intended for the local cattle.
From an opening in the camera case, I watched as Tom hobbled over to the water-filled trough, which was in the shadow of the now-silent metal windmill. My photographer removed his baseball cap, dipped the hat into the water, and poured the contents over his sweaty head. Had the water not been filled with cow spit, microbes, parasites, bacteria, dead insects, and likely every other disease known to mankind, I think my dehydrated fat friend may have taken a drink.
Once cooled off, albeit temporarily, the three of us pressed on. At one point during the slow-paced walk, Vicki discovered a handful of bones scattered in the field near our path. I couldn’t help but chuckle when I heard Tom say the bones were likely from the last out-of-shape tourist who attempted that hike from hell.
After another agonizing ten minutes had passed, the Jeep finally came into view in the distance. When I saw the small speck on the horizon, which was our vehicle, I wasn’t sure if my photographer would be able to make it back. Although I knew Tom was laboring with each step he took, I figured it was the intense heat and lack of water that was the culprit instead of his aching knees.
Suddenly, I heard the words. I’m talking about the same words my photographer made famous and ones that brought back the painful memories of Hoover’s Rapidan Camp. When Tom stopped for the umpteenth time to wipe the sweat from his red face, he gazed over to his wife and said with a pathetic tone in his voice, “Do you see any buzzards circling overhead? I’m so hot and thirsty right now, I don’t think I can take another step. I’m completely out of gas. Go on ahead without me; get into the Jeep’s air conditioning and save yourself.”
Although Vicki was hot as well, she calmly urged her whiney-assed husband to push on; and suggested we stop at each of the seven remaining utility poles to rest. I heard her say, “Don’t focus on how far away the Jeep is. Just focus on the next telephone pole and we’ll rest when we get there. And don’t worry, I don’t see any buzzards flying overhead – at least yet.”
We made it safely to the first pole, then the second – and each time we stopped, Tom took a three of four-minute break. By the time we passed the next few utility poles, I don’t think my photographer had enough strength to pick up his feet when he walked. To my resin ears, it sounded like Tom’s hiking boots dragged along the ground with each tortuous step he took. When there were only two poles remaining, Vicki used her key fob to start the Jeep’s engine, which also engaged the vehicle’s air conditioning at the same time.
Finally, after forty minutes of pure agonizing torture, the three of us made it back to our starting point. Tom opened the passenger side door, then grabbed a large, cold bottle of water from the cooler before he collapsed into the seat where he sat with the air conditioning blowing directly on his face. For the next ten minutes or so, my two companions sat motionless and absorbed every molecule of the Jeep’s cold, circulating air. The two of them were spent like a Black person’s welfare check on Waffle House Wednesday.
I was happy to see my photographer had once again escaped a seemingly near-death experience, and I figured the three of us were about to make our way back to the motel. Then out of nowhere, Tom came up with another brilliant idea – he wanted me to pose for a final photo near the rules sign.
After sitting motionless for ten minutes, my camera guy’s knees had stiffened up, and it was a struggle for him to carry me to the nearby sign. But once we had finally made it, Tom placed me on a four-foot-tall fence post near the sign and then stepped back with his camera. Seconds after I heard the first click of the camera’s shutter, a gust of wind hit me, and I fell headfirst from the post. I hit the dry, hardened Colorado clay with a thud, and although it took me a few seconds to gather my composure, I realized I was still completely intact. I also knew how lucky I was – I could’ve fallen face-first in a moist pile of cow crap and left the Wyoming-Colorado border scarred for life.
By five o’clock in the afternoon, my two weary companions and I were back in Pine Bluffs and in search of a much-needed place to have dinner. During our pursuit of grub, Vicki stopped at the Dollar General store where my photographer purchased a new tube of Super Glue, which he hoped would work to repair his broken glasses.
With hardly any choices for dinner in the small town of Pine Bluffs, which had a population of roughly 1,100 people, I heard Tom say, “I’m so hungry, I could eat a sandwich from a gas station.” But instead of settling for a stale sandwich, Clark and Ellen Griswold decided to enjoy the fine cuisine at a place called Currie’s Family Dining, which was the self-proclaimed “Best kept secret in our little corner of the world”.
Once inside the diner, I was amused because my photographer found it difficult to read the menu without his glasses. With the help of his eagle-eyed wife, who had endured retina reattachment surgery in her left eye a month before we headed out on vacation, Tom decided to order the restaurant’s famous peanut butter and jelly hamburger. Even though my camera guy enjoys a good PB & J burger while on the road, the fourteen-dollar price tag was far less expensive than any of the steaks and salmon entrees on the menu. Even with blurred vision, my cheap photographer didn’t miss a beat when it came to saving a few bucks to fill his gut.
With a huge hitch in his giddy-up after dinner, Tom carried me into our hotel room at roughly seven o’clock. Seconds after he placed me alongside the television set, the old, worn-out fart collapsed in his bed; completely exhausted from nearly dying in three states at once.
After a 45-minute respite where he regained some of his energy, Tom spent some time surgically repairing his eyeglasses. I chuckled to myself because for once, it wasn’t me under the knife on the operating table. With blurred vision, my photographer found it difficult to put a single drop of glue on a small area of the glasses frame; while at the same time, he tried not to smear the wet glue onto the lens. Once the procedure was completed, Tom used the surgical tape from his bobble head repair kit to help keep the broken sections together while the glue dried.
By eight o’clock, my photographer and I began to watch one of our favorite movies, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, on television. When the movie had finished and the lights were extinguished, I was left alone in the darkness with my thoughts.
While our day had started out slowly and the trip through the entire state of Wyoming was painfully boring, it ended with some excitement, intrigue, and near-death experiences for both my photographer and me. As I stood next to the TV, an old adage popped into my hallow head – and it’s one of my favorite proverbs, ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.’
Then out of nowhere, the words of another great and wise prophet filled my head. Those words were recorded for posterity in 1986 and were spoken by the incredibly popular Shermer High School Senior by the name of Bueller. Ferris Bueller.
“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
**********
When Tom’s alarm rang at 6:00am on Tuesday July 22, 2025, characters in the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off were still on my mind. There was Ferris, his girlfriend Sloane Peterson, and Ferris’ best friend, Cameron Frye – each of whom skipped school to enjoy a sunny Spring Day together in downtown Chicago. Although my companions were physically exhausted from their excruciating hike through the hubs of hell the previous afternoon, there was no way the two of them could afford to imitate Bueller and completely take this day off – even though my photographer had no sites penciled-in on his agenda. Instead, Tom’s goal was for us to drive non-stop through the flat, corn-fed state of Nebraska and into Iowa where we’d end up near the capital city of Des Moines by late afternoon.
Before my photographer got himself ready to take on the day, however, he was forced to once again fix his broken eyeglasses – the repairs he made the previous night didn’t hold. On that Tuesday morning, Tom once again carefully placed a single drop of Super Glue along the separated part of the frame and then held it tightly between his hands. After a few minutes, my camera guy added a small strip of medical tape to the frame and pressed it into place. After that procedure was completed, all he could do was hope for the best as time was running out. My photographer was concerned because he realized if that morning’s repair didn’t work, he would be forced to finish the remainder of the trip with no eyeglasses and blurred vision.
When the “moment of truth” arrived about 90 minutes after the procedure had ended, Tom gently picked up his glasses from the table and put them on his face. Thankfully, the cobbled and repaired spectacles held together, and my photographer could once again see clearly.
“Danke schoen, Super Glue, danke schoen. Thank you for my joy and pain. It’s time to go, let’s stow our gear. So long abode; time to hit the road, to a new zip code.”
The three of us left the Cobblestone Inn in Pine Bluffs, Wyoming at eight o’clock, and just five minutes later, we crossed the border into the state of Nebraska for the second time in two days. Since I knew we were in for an extremely long ride across the Cornhusker State, I kicked-back in the comfort of my padded camera case and listened to the music Tom played on the Jeep’s Sirius XM radio.
Some of the songs were great, and some of the music downright sucked. With every passing mile, however, I waited for the one tune from the 1960s that was guaranteed to put smiles on the faces of everyone in our Jeep, with the exception of Vicki, that is.
In a stunning and surprising moment, as we passed close to the town of Chappell, Nebraska at 9:21am, I heard the familiar strumming of acoustic guitar strings, which was immediately followed by the angelic voice of Jeannine Deckers, also known as Sœur Sourire (Sister Smile), or by her more commonly known recording persona, The Singing Nun.
“Dominique, inique, inique s’en allait tout simplement; Routier pauvre et chantant. En tous chemins, en tous lieux; Il ne parle que du bon Dieu; Il ne parle que du bon Dieu.”
As Sister Smile began to sing, a huge smile immediately filled my face. At the same time, I also heard Tom as he sang along, albeit to the only words of the tune he knew and could pronounce – “Dominique, inique, inique.”
While my photographer and I were happier than a hillbilly eating lunch at a roadkill diner, Vicki rolled her eyes and muttered aloud, “Are you kidding me right now? Why are we listening to this song again? I can’t understand one word of this never-ending song.”
Two minutes and fifty-eight seconds later, when ‘Dominique’ had finished, Tom spewed out a few ‘Fun Facts’ about the song – which really set Vicki’s butt lips on fire.
My photographer began by saying, “Not only was ‘Dominique’ number one on the U.S. charts on December 7, 1963, which was just over two weeks after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, but it was the number one selling record in eleven different countries in late 1963 and early ’64.”
Tom also added, “The Singing Nun was the true definition of a “One Hit Wonder”, and she died by suicide on March 29, 1985 at the age of 51. Ironically, my favorite grandmother, Mayme Struebing, passed away on March 29, 1982, which was three years to the day before the death of the Singing Nun.”
I figured Vicki might say something brilliant that would make her husband stop talking about ‘Dominique’; a clever phrase such as, “I don’t like that Nun shit. Rock and Roll’s been going downhill ever since Buddy Holly died.” But thankfully, my photographer’s wife doesn’t think as quickly as I do!
We had already put over 450 miles on the Jeep’s odometer that morning and early afternoon when we reached the Iowa border at 3:15pm CDT. During a fuel stop near the town of Underwood, Iowa, Tom pumped gas while Vicki checked the app on her phone for a reasonably priced motel near Des Moines. Surprisingly, it didn’t take my photographer’s wife long to find a good rate at the Sleep Inn located in West Des Moines.
Rush hour traffic around the Des Moines area was heavy when we rolled into town around five o’clock. Although my two companions were tired from the 580-mile drive we had just completed, they were even hungrier; and together decided they had developed a hankerin’ to be “Eatin Good in the Neighborhood”. The next thing I knew, Vicki pulled into the parking lot of an Applebee’s, which was in the neighborhood of our hotel.
I figured Tom must’ve been starved by the way he devoured his full rack of baby back ribs. As a matter of fact, he reminded me of a fat piranha after it discovered a young pig wading in its stream. Vicki, on the other hand, ate her chicken salad meal with a lot less gusto.
It was roughly twenty minutes after six o’clock when we arrived at the Sleep Inn. Once my companions were registered, they had their stuff, including me, unpacked and into the room; but I could tell they were getting a little slower at the routine. My photographer has always said that unpacking after a long day and packing back up in the morning was the worst part about traveling – and they’ve been doing exactly that nearly every day for the past eighteen days.
I stood in my usual place alongside the TV set while my photographer and his wife watched their Detroit Tigers play the Pittsburgh Pirates. What should have been a relaxing night of watching baseball turned into disgust for my camera guy when he saw Tigers’ outfielder Wenceel Perez called out after an appealed review had proved Perez failed to touch home plate on a scoring play. I laughed when Tom screamed at the television, “You can’t be that stupid, Perez. How in the hell can a Major League player slide headfirst into home plate and not touch the plate with their hand? If I was in charge of the team, you’d be on the first plane back to the Dominican Republic tomorrow. Even the worst Little League players know they have to touch the plate to score a run.”
A few minutes after Riley Greene struck out for the millionth time this season which sealed Detroit’s 8-5 loss, the lights were extinguished in the room. Once again, I had only my goofy thoughts to keep me company in the darkness.
Although it had been roughly four days since we last visited a Presidential site, which came during our stop at the Nevada State Capitol Building, that drought was about to change the following afternoon. I overheard Tom tell his wife that once we made it over the Mississippi River and into Illinois, he planned to divert our route North so we could pay a visit to the Ronald Reagan sites in Tampico and Dixon.
It had been ten long years since the three of us had visited those handful of Ronald Reagan sites and I couldn’t wait to get back – especially since Tom had discovered a few Reagan sites we had missed in 2015.
Ronald Reagan, you fat little Dutchman, here I come!
