Bright eyed and bushy tailed we left our modest slumber arrangements and started our day.
Casper's Family Restaurant -where bikers are welcome, I might add- was a stone's throw from where we stayed and the food was tolerable. The service was friendly as ever and we even got to sit in a booth next to a couple crusty state troopers and eavesdrop on the hot news that side of Wyoming.
More wonderful flat land spotted with cows.
The terrain did jazz up a bit with a brief stretch of rocky formations.
We crossed into Colorado with little ceremony but soon found ourselves passing an Air Force base decorated in true military fashion.
Oh, Boy! The Colorado Budweiser Brewery! Only the finest watered down beer made in the U.S.A.
Denver was very city-like, as you'd expect, but we didn't have an opportunity to spend much time there -just however long we were stuck in traffic.
This sign was also posted in a field passed Limon, Colorado. Only the field was filled with pathetic looking cows roasting in the heat standing next to this picture of tender, charbroiled steak. Not very appetizing to see your meal staring back at you. Poor cows.
Our late lunch break had us stop in Kit Carson, CO. The cafe employees were very friendly and attentive, seeing as how we were the only people there besides one lone truck driver. The salad bar was one of the strangest I've ever come across. Salad -check. Dressing -check. Green olives, mandarin oranges, peach slices, beets, black olives, cottage cheese, hot peppers, pickled cucumber salad -check. And that's it. I wasn't about to mix hot peppers and mandarin oranges, so I loaded my lettuce with beets, black olives and shredded cheese and called it acceptable. The burgers were good and we received mondo glasses of iced tea. Protecting our food and our persons from the swarm of flies was a challenge, but we ate and got out of there in good time.
Getting back on the road we noticed the temperature was 101 degrees at 4pm. Mind boggling.
More farms, more empty landscape, and plain old flat land abounded.
Streams of rain emptied in random pockets where clouds could hold their water no longer and sought relief on an obliging field.
We were held up about 1 1/2 hours total with all the construction, though it was hard to see if any real construction was happening. We think folks in Colorado just like making people stop on the highway as they hold up signs. Rather juvenile, but it's a living, I suppose.
Potty break with cool rocks! We took a few photos and were about to get back in the car when a woman jumped out of a semi that had pulled in seconds before and forced us to stand together for a picture. It was nice of her and there was no refusing with her jovial, raspy bark, "No, you two stand together like lovebirds! I'm good at this kind of thing."
We made it to Oklahoma and managed to take a picture of yet again more fields before we blinked and we found ourselves in Texas. I'd show the picture if I could find it but it seems to have blended in with everything else...
Following our lesson as before, I booked a room online after we left Denver so we had accommodations at our favorite cheap hotel -yep, you guessed it: Motel 6. We lost another hour once we crossed the OK border and pulled into Amarillo, TX at 10:30pm. The road took us through downtown, quiet at that late hour on a Friday, and pulled us into a spaghetti swirl of highways. It was a good thing I wrote down directions from Mapquest to our hotel or we would have been unimaginably lost.
A note on roadtrips. I've got three words for you -and listen close: Books on Tape/CD. Driving down long stretches of uncomplicated highway it's a breeze to focus on fiction and non-fiction alike. My favorite has been "The Millionaire Next Door," a guide to learning what makes a person/family wealthy. The main secrets are frugality, living within your means, and investing wisely. Shunning the consumption lifestyle obsessed with status purchases is the best way to keep your earnings and make them work for you. Having been unmotivated to cook the past few months, we've been spending a significant amount on meals out. Hearing this tape spurred me to implement meal planning as my mother used to -a technique that saves money and refrigerator space. I can't wait for our new house in which we can put into practice these lessons and be free of keeping up with the Jones next door.
We've also listened to Sci-Fi stories by Phillip K. Dick, author of "The Minority Report," the Guy Noir skits from Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion, "What it Means to be a Libertarian" by Charles Murray, comedy recordings of the late Mitch Hedburg, and The Bob and Tom Show (featuring the hilarious song you've probably heard, "He's the Man!")
It's been great getting in such a wide variety of education and entertainment. Traveling with children I highly suggest any of the Chronicles of Narnia on tape, Harry Potter, or classics such as Peter Pan, Wind in the Willows, etc. -but the best are the dramatized versions. They'll be (relatively) quiet and riveted while practicing the lost art of listening. Enjoy!
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