Van Ree's Voice

Welcome to Somewhere.

Washington State University in Pullman, Wash. has served as my home for the past four years. Although it is a university, it’s understandable that most people haven’t heard of the town of Pullman, and I doubt I can find one person in this town who has been to Rochester, Wash., my hometown. Miles of wheat field hills surround Pullman from all sides. Sitting on top of one of the highest points in Pullman, you can see that the golden bumps seem to travel on forever. We might have in fact been in “the middle of nowhere,” however, don’t tell us that. Our biggest rivals, the University of Washington did that once and we didn’t take it very well.

Washington’s star basketball player at the time posted on his twitter account when arriving in Pullman one game, complaining about having to play in “the middle of nowhere.” Not only did many painted signs at our game say, “Welcome to Nowhere,” but also our under-dog mentality became even stronger and we were out to prove the world wrong. We were somewhere and proud of it.

On my way here, with my father in tow, we left the Evergreen State and traveled south down to Portland, Ore. where we would soon start traveling east for two days. Green, bushy trees lined our roadway until eastern Oregon where the trees became brown and sparse.

We stopped in one of my favorite towns, Pendleton, Ore., before entering Idaho and then Utah. Pendleton is known for its yearly rodeo round up, which has always appealed to me since I love watching bull riding more than the next girl. But places never are the same as you remember them being as a child. The mystic feel of the place will be forever lost in my memory, because the worn down streets left me with much to lust for this time around. However, it was still somewhere to me.

Once we hit Idaho the speed limit shot up to 75 mph and my father and I were overly excited. Living on the West Coast, speed limits rarely exceed 65 mph. There wasn’t much to see in Idaho, but we traveled most of that in the dark. However, I’ve never seen a moon so picture perfect in my whole life. The thin layer of fog surrounding its outer film created an impeccable Halloween sky. We could never see the moon where we are from, too many trees.

Entering Utah we started seeing roadblock gates on the major highway we were traveling down. We were told these gates were in place incase of a flash snowstorm. Once again, we had never seen anything like them. At night, we couldn’t tell if we were staring at snow, water or salt flats beside us as we drove along. In the morning light we were able to see the new scene of beautiful mountains on all sides of us and knew we were going to have to go through them somewhere. After spending the night at a hotel for $70 a room, we were well rested, and couldn’t believe we were able to find a room that cheap. Along the West Coast’s major interstate you won’t find any hotel room for less than $100 a night at best.

It wasn’t long until we made it to Wyoming. I had always wanted to visit there. Cheyenne was a city I had dreamed of; I even thought the name was cool. Though I’ve been told we traveled through a boring part of the state, we were awestruck by the geological features we saw, the bluffs, the rocks, everything. There are some mountains in Washington but either trees or weather usually block the view.

Coming into Sidney we also saw the most beautiful sunset. Calm reds and pinks twirled around an almost beach-like orange sun fading behind the surrounding pastured hills.

Even though I did not know where Sidney, Neb. was before taking this job, everyone in my hometown said things like, “Wow, you’re going somewhere. I’ve heard that’s a big city. It has the first Cabela’s!” Before I even touched foot on ground here in Sidney, being able to see a sunrise and sunset had me smitten with the place. After driving for two days straight, crossing six state borders, I have finally found my new somewhere.

Contact Hannah Van Ree at [email protected]