100 Grand

The second day of Road Trip was pretty low-key. Jon and I woke up insanely early (Hi, 7:30AM Mountain time, which is 6:30AM in real life...) so that we would be able to get to his Aunt & Uncle's place in Denver before a hundred o'clock.

We groggily made our way across the parking lot back to the Garden of Eat'n, which is much better suited for breakfast than for any other meal of the day. Our waitress, Shirls, took amazing care of us.

Afterwards, we drove. And drove. And drove some more. Luckily, today's venture started off much better than yesterday's for my poor car. And today, we celebrated a milestone--the Turquoise Bullet's odometer hit 100,000 miles!

Milesjoy!

After one cross-country trip to move out here in '99, and hundreds of mini-road trips (and of course, RoadTripVolume1), my car has proven to be quite the trooper. Here's to 100,000 more! (Or at least the 1500 miles or so it'll take to get us back to Los Angeles over the next week and some-odd days...)

We hit 100,000 miles while viewing the "impossible rock formations" somewhere in Utah. We were pretty high up, and it was quite breathtaking.

CrunchyMountainTall!

While I was actually in complete awe of some of these spectacular sights, Jon was busy being dirty, and somehow convincing me that I should be gross as well. I refuse to even talk about it...even though he's in the other room blogging about it right now, the mofo.

So if you could simply ignore his post, and any images in it, that'd be great. Thanks. GO, TEAM JEFFJOY!!!

After the rock trauma, we got back to the freeway and decided that we'd stop for food soon. Unfortunately, there was no food of any sorts to be found anywhere in the rest of Utah. Each exit was plagued with signs that read, "No Service!"

With starvation looming, we reached the Utah/Colorado border! Salvation at last! Surely, the people in Colorado need to eat!

HappyColorStatePlease

Unfortunately, I was lapsing into a coma from malnutrition, so I could barely even make out shapes, let alone color. . .

StarvationSad (Artistjoy's renderingfun of Jeff's initial view of Coloradoyay!)

Needless to say--we had to find food. Quickly. The first exit in Colorado not saddled with a "No Services" sign was for a town called Mack. We saw the tell-tale blue roadsign with a knife and fork indicating that food was mere inches away! We got off the 70 and headed into Mack, which seemed pretty much deserted aside from some sort of newly built Children-of-the-Corn-type of community, and some empty fairgrounds.

After driving a few blocks, we stumbled across the legendary Pork Barrel Cafe. It was barely noticeable on the road, as I was temporarily blinded by Matt Smith's reelection campaign poster.

Yumporkbarrel!

FoodJoy at last!!! Jon, however, SCREAMED that he was ABSOLUTELY NOT eating at the Pork Barrel Cafe. I couldn't understand what the issue was. Anyplace that serves Coke has to be ok, right? The place looked friendly and warm, and I could just imagine an elderly woman inside, ready to serve us some apple pie with a side dish of smiles and kind words. This was just the kind of place we needed after a long day fighting with nature's giant rocks. (IE: The Mountains.)

PorkFunBarrelYum!

Well...at least it looked pleasant to my hungry eyes. (No, that is not permission to start singing the Dirty Dancing soundtrack.) But Jon was having none of it, and there seemed to be nothing else in this Godforsaken town, so we drove off pretty quickly--fueled only by Jon's squealed protests against the Pork Barrel Cafe, and all it stands for. He seemed pretty confident that we'd end up dead if we tried to eat there. Upon further inspection of the photo above, I actually don't disagree with him on this one.

We drove down the 70 a few more miles before stumbling upon a rest area with a restaurant called "Starvin' Arvin's." Needless to say, we ate well...but not as well as we did when we arrived in Denver tonight. When we got to Jon's Aunt Susan & Uncle Larry's place, Susan had a lovely meal prepared for us. Jon's cousins Hannah and Carrie joined us for some relaxation as Jon and I ate our faces off.

The food was delicious, and Susan & Larry couldn't be better hosts. There aren't any creepy (but ultimately verynice) dolls in the bedroom like last year's road trip. The only doll in there seems to be an African American Raggedy Ann doll, and I don't really see it as a threat...so I'm looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow. Starting riiiiiiiiiightnow.

oknite