My Last Day in Ogalala

Road work had been finished for the winter on an asphalt strip north of town near a nature preserve. I said good-bye to the hotel owner and he invited me back although the town was a lifetime away from my home. We shook hands. The town wore its history well with a façade of an old west town complete with a jail and post office on its main street, as if it wanted to live that life again. Picture postcards were sold in a drug store to be packed away and taken home. Gates of fences aligning themselves on either side of a highway spoke of the last cattle drive. I realized this was the west where cowboys lived and died. Reflections stirred of how we gave of our lives for our dreams and for the ones we loved. Hasn’t it always been this way? Sandhills loomed to my side as I drove on a two-lane east to another town where I could see another historic site then get onto the interstate and drive to the next assignment. The sky above the open land was an ocean as I drove east toward the sun.