Today is the beginning of an epic drive to Seattle from Chicago. We have a 24 hour break in Denver but then quickly moving onward to our final destination.
Luckily I found someone looking to share gas costs and a small portion of the driving on the way there.
2pm-Left Chicago
The Illinois countryside.
Sunset approaching. Damn camera insists on focusing on the dirty window instead of the awesome colors and stuff.
4:30pm-Dark time
Some one was not thinking when the made this name up. Really, how is this a good name in any way, shape or form? You subtracted one character from the length of the original spelling and then botched it all up. Ugh.
9:45pm-We pick up Eli and his mega cute dog, Dharma, in Des Moines. After some serious Tetris packing of the car we all fit back into it and get back on the road. Eli turns out to be an interesting character who seems to have done a bit of traveling in his time and proceeds to regale us with many a tale, in addition to generally good conversation overall. Dharma is the best, she just snuggles and naps.
12:30am-Eli drives for a spell so I can nap.
3:00am-We stop at the most extreme truck stop ever. I think it was somewhere outside or nearby Omaha,NE. There is a life sized Predator, a smaller 'Grey' type alien, and a piece of the World Trade Center.
James vs Predator, coming summer of 2012
Evidently this is a piece of the World Trade Center. There is a sign that says that although there is possibly a way to authenticate that this piece of metal is indeed from the WTC they have done no such thing and you should just accept it and be in awe, or something like that.
A crane.
Soon after leaving this truckstop a low moaning sound begins to emanate from the road. It isn't the car and it sounds like chanting. Eventually we pass a sign stating that this section of the road has been produced from 40.000 old tires. Perhaps it is the ghosts of all those tires crying out... or something.
6:45am-Just crossed the border into Colorado. This is the first sunrise I have witnessed in a long time. The landscape here is completely alien to me. Low hills and snow. Very few trees, some cows. In a few hours we spot some antelope looking animals and I begin seeing these large black and white birds resembling mockingbirds.
Ah, here it is.
I didn't get a picture of the antelope but here's one I found.
Sunrise. I think that squiggle is Mars.
EAT BEEF
7:45am-I have to take another short nap. Slightly hallucinating searchlights on the horizon even though it is broad daylight by now.
10:00am-We dropped Eli off at a hotel and met up with Cat, James's friend and began hanging out with her. Got some breakfast and another 20 minute nap. Then we headed off into the mountains to take a gander. On the way I spied some rad lenticular clouds.
This is not a very good picture but here is some more info.
Heading into the foothills.
I saw some big horn sheep soon after this picture.
Cat took us to a little town up in the mountains, about an hour outside of Denver, by the name of George Town. It is a tiny cowboy style place. Not a single stop light.
Just down the road is this small lake which was completely frozen over. Even though it was 60 degrees in Denver. It was very windy and kind of cold.
There were two people out on these skate/sail boat things. They looked to be alot of fun and went pretty fast.
Free coffee from visitor center
A small graveyard we stopped at for a minute. There were some really old gravestones dating back to the late 1800's. There were also a few from the 2000's. There were sall animal tracks all over the place in the snow.
So by now I'm about to die from hunger but we get a nice tour of downtown Denver, find some falafel and go back to Cat's.
James and Cat and her friends go out to drink and stuff. I stay at the apartment to catch up on sleep. It had been about 36 hours since I had actually done more than a 20 minute nap.
End Stage one of epic hauling ass trip across the country.
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