Archives 2014

We are back on the road on the final leg of our 11 day western road trip. Yesterday’s drive from Beaumont, Texas to Tallahassee went smoothly but felt long thanks to us losing an hour after reentering the eastern time zone.

I contacted the wife of a calisthenics buddy of mine, Max. They both live in Tallahassee. Max is originally from Ukraine, in fact, he has only been in the US since April of 2013. Max and I started talking online somewhere around 4 years ago. His workout videos were very unique because he did them in the warehouse of the electronics store he worked at. He made a pull up bar by fastening a pipe in between a big set of shelving.

Max and I used to talk a lot when he still lived in Ukraine through chats and Skype. At the time both Max and I were very focused on being able to complete the Bar-barian requirements. Max is much stronger and younger than I am. He actually was able to do the reps within the time limit, the only thing that prevented him from being an official Bar-barian was his form on some of the reps was not quite up to standards. I never even got close to his level.

Ironically, when Max moved to this country my communication with him dropped off dramatically. Coming to the United States was almost coming to another planet when compared with Ukraine. He was busy trying to acclimate himself to life here. He found a job shortly after he was allowed to and then managed to get himself a job at the local credit union.

So anyway, I figured since we would be staying in Tallahassee I should see if Max and his wife were interested in connecting. When Max and I used to chat we always hoped that one day we would get to meet in person. To be so close and not try not make it happen would have been lame on my part. Heather said they would be thrilled to meet us for dinner so we set it up.

Originally I thought we would have plenty of time to make the 7PM time. However after our normal stops for lunch, gas and bathroom breaks combined with losing an hour, we only got checked into the hotel right before 7. We told Heather it would be more like 7:30 or 7:45. We quickly took showers and headed back out the door.

Cindy and I came out of the parking garage through the wrong door so we were disoriented as to where to go. Max and Heather came out of the restaurant to flag us down. It felt weird to meet both of them in person after being connected for years virtually. Since I talked to Max on Skype before his Ukranian accent was not disorienting. He taught himself English and since moving to America his English has gotten even better.

We headed inside and got seated at the restaurant. Cindy and Heather seemed to hit it off pretty easily and were chatting away. Max and I talked about a lot of stuff as well. He has already started getting promoted at the credit union he works at which didn’t surprise me. I already knew Max was very motivated in whatever he did. To hear his hard work is being rewarded at his job was great news.

We talked a lot about Ukraine and just how shitty of a place it is to live. Growing up there has given him a totally different perspective of living in the United States. Max said in the Ukraine, you can work hard as hell your entire life and never be rewarded for that work. There basically was no opportunity to move up unless you were somehow connected to the small inner circle of people that run the country. In the US, Max feels like he no longer is constrained and that if he works hard he can do well for himself and his family no matter where his starting point is.

That perspective makes it hard for him to understand the mentality that infects a large portion of our entitled society that puts a strong work ethic low on the priority list. People that expect to get something for nothing just don’t compute in Max’s eyes. Maybe that is because in Ukraine so many people get nothing for something.

Max’s focus since coming to the US has shifted from pull ups, push ups, and muscle ups to doing all the things needed to get his new life started on the right foot. At only 24 years old he has his whole life in front of him.

Despite not working out all that much lately, after dinner Max showed he still has some great power, doing slow and controlled muscle ups on a railing outside, stuff I could only dream of doing, even when I was in tip top shape.

It was great connecting with Max and Heather. We encouraged them to consider making the 400 mile drive down to Naples sometime to visit. It felt good to see Max living out the dream we talked about for him early on. He’s a good dude and I thank Heather for helping him make that dream come true.

So as we are tracking down the last few hundred miles of the trip it’s fun to run some numbers as well as recapping things.

It looks like our total mileage for the trip will just be under 5000 miles. I estimate in total we have spent somewhere around 80 hours in the Prius. To travel those miles we will have spent less than $400 in gas which is pretty amazing. Our best mileage on a tank of gas was 50.9 mpg which happened surprisingly while going up and down mountains in Colorado. Our worst mileage was 41.7 mpg which happened maintaining 80+ mph across western Texas.

Our lodging for 10 nights came to a little more than $900 which again, per night, is a significant improvement over what we spent for last years trip. What is unknown is the ancillary expenditures we had along the way. Things like the tickets for the train ride will pump that number up I am sure. After I undergo the lengthy process of reconciling all of the credit card receipts for the trip in Quicken I will have a clearer picture of the numbers.

As a whole, the trip was awesome. If I was forced to pick the most disappointing part of the trip it would easily be the cave dwellings in Manitou Springs. Although they were cool, there just wasn’t enough to see. It was also disappointing that we were not able to the do the Manitou Incline since it was closed for repairs.

I don’t know if I could pick out the best of the best in the trip. Visually, I think there were many beautiful and impressive things. The St Louis Arch gives you a sense of wonder that man could create such a structure. The mountains in Colorado that we both drove across and traveled through on the train offered us so many beautiful views that I couldn’t count them all. White Sands National Park is obviously one of my favorites as well, hence why I have been there 4 or 5 times.

The hike up Barr Trail and the admittedly foolish and undeniably dangerous climb up Smelter Mountain will be life long memories that we will hold onto. Our experience with legal recreational edible marijuana products at first seemed like a dud with gummy fish but changed dramatically after consuming THC granola bars. It was a sensation unlike any I had experienced before. It’s not necessarily a sensation I would be looking to recreate on a regular basis.

When I look back to night one in Nashville to day 11 today as a whole there are just so many memories in that block of time that it seems as if we have been gone much longer. Cindy and I have had so many new, unique, and memorable experiences on the trip we both feel very fortunate. I am grateful that Cindy embraces these trips and is so eager to soak up every ounce of excitement, fun, and joy they contain.

It will be nice to get back home where everyday life will quickly rush back into the forefront. However the great thing about these road trips is the memories they create are an infinite resource that can be drawn upon at any time, even when stuck behind a desk behind a couple screens.

Although this trip is coming to an end I already look forward to the next adventure, whatever it may be.

The massive picture collection is still located here.

Yesterday was our last marathon driving day. Since we didn’t leave at 4AM like we did for our first long driving day it made the miles seem very, very long.

We started out the day as we did most days, finding the closest Dunkin Donuts. I drove us there. As I was making a right turn into the lot we felt a jolt. The entrance to the parking lot had the curb extended further than I realized. I was annoyed by my poor judgment as we got out to survey the damage. I managed to crack the outer ring of the passenger front wheel cover as well as scrape the tire a bit. Grrr.

Well there were a couple local cops sitting outside drinking their coffee. They obviously heard/saw me clip the curb. They started asking us questions in a friendly but inquisitive way. Where you from? Where are you going? I definitely got a vibe that they were checking to see if my impact was because of some sort of substance influence. We engaged them normally but it was definitely a bit of a weird interaction.

The drive across western Texas was desolate as ever. The 80 mph speed limit allows you to take down the miles quickly however it also resulted in us getting the worst gas mileage of the trip, in the low 40’s. Cindy and I split the driving time yesterday nearly 50/50 which helped a lot when covering 835 miles.

We wound up staying in Beaumont Texas at a Comfort Suites which was really nice. Unfortunately we don’t get much out of a hotel room during road trips beyond a shower, breakfast and a pillow to lay our head on.

We picked up dinner to go from the near by Cracker Barrel. We had a good but large meal, probably too large considering we didn’t eat until after 8:30. I started listening to the Eagles game on the satellite radio and then flipped it on the tv when we got into the room.

The game did not go well while I was listening to it for the entire first half. It was sort of like last week’s game where the Colts were taking control. The Eagles moved the ball but repeatedly stalled in the red zone, getting two field goals and missing a third. The defense didn’t seem up to the task of stopping the Colts. It was 20-6 midway into the 3^rd quarter when I started watching the game.

Well much like last week the team made some adjustments and some big plays in the second half to come roaring back. Surprisingly it was Darren Sproles more than LeSean McCoy that made some of the biggest plays of the game. He is so damn quick, it is amazing. He had a couple fantastic runs. He is a very exciting player to have on the team, he seems like he is always a threat to break a big play.

Nick Foles bounced back once again, calmly leading the team back even after he made some poor throws early on. He just gets the job done. The Eagles were also the recipient of some good luck. The got an interception late that could have been negated by some pretty blatant illegal contact in the secondary. They then had a drive extended when the Colts were called for a horse collar tackle on McCoy that shouldn’t have been called. One of the key ingredients of a successful season is getting lucky once in awhile. Last nights game definitely had it’s fair share of that.

However the bottom line was the Eagles made plays when they had to. Their new kicker, whose name I can’t even remember kicked the winning field goal not once but twice, after the Colts called a last second time out to ice him. Since he missed a short field goal earlier in the game I was nervous however he drilled both of the end of game kicks down the middle. It was a great win. I hope this is the start of a season where the Birds truly return to being among the elite in the NFC, something that hasn’t been the case for nearly 10 years.

Today we are back on the road with a destination of Tallahassee. We are hoping to do dinner with my Ukranian calisthenics buddy Max along with his wife. Max only came to the USA last year after trying to get here for quite awhile. Ironically since he moved to America I have talked to him less then when he lived in Ukraine. He has had quite a shift in his life obviously. His descriptions of Ukraine were pretty depressing.

We only have one more day of travel left after today. It will be nice to get back into my own bed once again. Obviously a ton of work awaits me but with Cindy helping me we can knock things out pretty efficiently. Even though the trip is not over yet I feel safe declaring it as another successful venture.

Yesterday was our last in Durango. Even though we were there almost 3 days the time went by very quickly. We really enjoyed our time in Durango and our time in Colorado in general. We tried to make sure we got on the road early since we had over 500 miles to cover with a stop in White Sands sandwiched in the middle of it.

The drive from Durango to White Sands was through a very, very remote area of New Mexico. It was so remote that we literally were looking for a place to eat lunch for over two and a half hours. There were just no towns at all during that time period.

As we drove towards south there were a lot of rain clouds overhead and we drove through several periods of rain. I was worried that it could be raining at White Sands. Luckily the skies at White Sands were partly cloudy but not dropping any precipitation.

We went in and bought our sled which they buy back after you are done. There were two types of sleds available, one for 16 bucks and one for 18. We opted for the cheaper model but I think we would have been better served spending the extra two dollars. The saucer we got seemed to be made with thinner, shittier plastic.

Last year when we visited the park they had a huge amount of it closed off because of flooding associated with monsoon season. Since we were back at almost the exact same time of year I was worried that again we would be restricted to only the front section of the park. Surprisingly that was not the case, we had full access to everything.

I drove deep into the dunes, the further back you go the bigger and less cluttered by vegetation the dunes become.   We parked in an unoccupied area and stepped out into the pure beauty of nature that White Sands provides.

We first tried a nearby hill that had a lot of footprints but that wasn’t all that tall or steep. The sled hardly moved down the hill, we obviously needed to find more incline. We walked over a couple dunes and spotted what looked like a better spot a couple hundred yards away.

We bought the block of wax along with the sled to hopefully decrease the drag coefficient on the bottom of the saucer. I was doing my best to completely cover the bottom as we walked along. Despite an air temperature of just under 80 degrees, when the sun poked out the heat intensified very quickly thanks to the sun and heat bouncing off the bright white gypsum sand.

Cindy was the first to do a test run down the bigger hill. It was a much better result although it looked slower than what we were able to do last year. I attributed it to the lower quality sled. I tried to help matters by reapplying wax after nearly every trip down the dune.

My early rides were not good. As I was going down the dune the front end would dig into the sand due to my trying to keep my feet awkwardly perched in the front of the saucer. It resulted in poor speed and a saucer full of sand at the bottom. Later I started simply holding my legs up in the air as I went down the hill. This resulted in much better results, almost too good, as hitting the bottom of the dune resulted in a serious jolt due to speed. I started using my size 13’s as brakes as I approached the bottom of the dunes later on.

Cindy and I did a number of dune sledding trips. It was a decent workout since each ride required trudging up the steep hills of powdery gypsum sand. Since we were only one day removed from our dangerous hike/climb up Smelter Mountain, climbing the dunes felt even more difficult. In between rides we were taking pictures of the absolutely gorgeous scenery. Even though this was my fourth or fifth time at White Sands I am never less impressed by just how awesome of a place it is.

I then pulled out my Phantom, White Sands was the primary reason I wanted to bring it along. Getting aerial footage of the dunes seemed like it would be really, really cool. Getting the copter in the air wasn’t difficult but the Phantom was working very hard to maintain a steady hover against the consistent wind in that part of the park. I got some awesome footage including Cindy sledding down some other hills. By the end of the second flight we only had an hour to go before the visitor center closed so we packed up our gear and turned in our sled while getting a couple cool souvenirs before pulling out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xxIMTIKt-w&feature=youtu.be

We only had slightly less than 100 miles left to get to El Paso. We stayed at a La Quinta that had the exact same older style layout as where we stayed in Colorado Springs. Cindy wasn’t thrilled with staying there because of the outside door layout and the very affordable room rate of $55 a night. The place actually wasn’t bad at all except for one rather glaring issue, a large damp spot on the carpet. Cindy threw a towel over it after stepping in it.

It was pretty late at this point so we didn’t feel like going out anywhere to eat. Instead, we just ordered a small pizza from a place the desk clerk recommended. It was pretty good and quick. We watched a good portion of Hall Pass on TBS before falling asleep. It was actually pretty funny, I’d give it a B+.

This morning we had a 6AM alarm which allowed us to eat and get back on the road by 7. Today is our other monster drive of the trip of roughly 835 miles. The next 3 days will be all about gobbling up miles as fast as possible, home is calling our names.

Wow today was some day.  After eating another free breakfast in the crowded hotel lobby Cindy and I pushed out for a nearby local park.  We wanted to see if we could hike Smelter Mountain which was behind it.  It turned out parking at the park wasn’t the best spot to get on the other side of the Animas River.  We had to walk close to 3/4 of a mile to get to the bridge that crosses it.

So we had done no research on what Smelter Mountain held for hiking.  Luckily we quickly spotted a defined trail that looked like it was used by both mountain bikers and hikers.  We headed upward with a loose goal of reaching the top, even though it looked like there were sheer vertical rock formations at various spots.

Early on the hike was ok with some spots that were catch your breath steep.  The higher we got the more difficult it was to distinguish the path.  There were also various trenches going up the mountain that must be where the water flows during heavy rain.  Eventually we ran out of distinguishable path.  If we wanted to continue higher our only option was the more treacherous drainage trench. I wanted to keep going.

So up the trench we went.  The higher we got, the steeper and more treacherous the terrain became.  We were not hiking at this point, we were doing a combo of crawling and rock climbing.  You had to be EXTREMELY aware of what you were placing your foot on and you wanted to supplement each upward movement with a firm hand hold on something else.

We had on no safety gear of course.  The higher and higher we got I became increasingly aware of just how dangerous of a spot we were putting ourselves in.  The areas that were difficult to ascend were going to be even more difficult if we have to come back down the same way.  My initial hope was we could reach the top and then walk over to a face that was not so steep.

The higher we got the more nervous Cindy was getting.  Some spots required some very precise and careful movements to get past. Literally in some areas one misstep could have been disastrous.  I felt pretty confident in my ability to handle the obstacles but I felt bad to drag Cindy into my tunnel vision goal to get to the top.

So after a very difficult last 100 feet we were at the base of a sheer rock face.  As I surveyed it I saw potential ways to navigate my way to the top.  I did not see a way to have Cindy do it.  She was really scared at this point.  I considered and re-considered trying to scale the rocks above me.  In the end the old man in me won out, realizing the stupidity of trying that climb with no safety gear, no knowledge of the stability of the rocks, and no guarantee that there was something above what I could see that I could manage.  Even if I could get up there, it was far too risky to have Cindy try to do the same.

So that left us with one option, go back down the way we came.  It was very, very challenging.  For the most part I stayed below Cindy so I could help guide her foot placements and be a human safety net if need be.  To maintain yourself on the trail you had to do a basically do a bear crawl in reverse.  Trying to judge the stability of foot holds while looking down and back is not very easy.

Finally after what felt like a very long time we got back down to where the trail met up.  By the time we got back down to the bottom of the mountain we were pretty exhausted and beat up.  As we looked up at the terrain we climbed and the spot where we stopped it was bitter sweet. When we saw the angle of ascent we climbed and how close we got to the top it felt good.  There was just a small tinge of regret I didn’t test if I could handle that final rock formation, despite knowing how foolish it would be.

I flew my Phantom around some more after the hike in the nearby park.  Here is where you can see the video.

We headed back to the hotel and had one of what has been a small number of annoyances including the 4:15 check in, a hair dryer that only runs for 30 seconds at a time, pubic hair in the tub and more.  This time both of our room key cards stopped working.  When we went to the front desk they said that their cards are very sensitive and are easily broken if they are kept in a wallet with other credit cards or if it is too close to a phone.  That is sort of dumb.

So after taking a shower we decided to try the other edible THC we bought, granola bars.  They were little squares, each one supposedly including 10 milligrams of THC, just like the fish.  At this point I had tried what should have been a 15mg and 20mg dosing with the fish and felt nothing of consequence.  So to me it seemed reasonable to down three of the squares and let Cindy have the other two.  They did not taste good at all, requiring water to help wash down the marijuana taste.  We figured like the fish, if you felt anything it would be after a couple hours.  I was confident I still wouldn’t be affected significantly based on my reaction to the gummy fish.  We figured we could go eat some lunch and then maybe just walk around downtown Durango feeling “happy”.

We stopped at a Mexican restaurant.  By the time we got there Cindy was really feeling the effects of the bars it was hitting her much harder than the fish did.  As we were sitting at the table she would bust out laughing at anything.  She had a difficult time speaking and when the food arrived, using a fork and knife to cut her chimichanga was at the absolute limit of her current motor skills ability.

I still felt normal, maybe just a little sillier than normal.  I was making fun of Cindy as she tried to function.  We decided that we should just go back to the hotel.  As time went on my symptoms intensified.  My vision at one point became like a 2D video screen.  Then after awhile the 2D images got beveled edges.  Finally the entire picture was at an angle.

I had a lot of confusion going on, my thoughts were all over the place. There were gaps in my recent memory. My body started to feel like I had a lead blanket on me and my skin felt warm.  As we laid down in the bed we were both just feeling whacked out.  Before you knew it we were both passed out for 3 hours in the middle of the afternoon.  I just had my first confirmed THC high.

After we woke up I still didn’t feel like getting up.  It took a lot of prodding from Cindy.  I now understand why regular pot smokers are generally lazy.  I just didn’t feel like moving at all.  Eventually the cobwebs cleared and we headed to town.  After a trip to Starbucks for some coffee we had a nice Italian dinner at a place recommended by both of the baristas at Starbucks.

Tomorrow it is alarm clock time again.  We have over 500 miles to cover tomorrow with a visit to White Sands mixed in there.  Our time in Durango has felt very quick but we both have enjoyed our time here a bunch.  After today we return to drive, drive, drive mode.

So Thursday night we decided to just chill at the hotel while we did another run with the THC gummy fish,  both Cindy and I ingested two fish instead of the one and a half we tried the night before.  We also had less food in our stomachs this time although I don’t know that it matters or not.  After eating the fish we worked out in the hotel gym, and sat in the sauna for a few minutes.  Cindy appeared to have some noticeable effects as she was slurring her words now and then.  She said she was feeling “loopy”.

I really could not feel anything noticeable except getting really tired again.  Cindy says my speech slowed down but if it did I did not notice it.  I think I will have to try the granola next.  Needless to say my exposure to legal recreational marijuana has been a flop so far.

We got up with the alarm since we had to be at the train station by 7:30.  We took advantage of the hotels free continental breakfast.  We entered the dining area which was flooded with a sea of old people.  It looked like Cindy and I were the only ones there that were not currently collecting social security benefits.  Old people are very serious about their food so trying to break into the wall of them to grab a single item here and there was difficult.  While Cindy and I were sitting at our table eating we were inundated by the background noise of old women complaining about various ailments.  We only hung around the bare minimum amount of time required to shove food down. I don’t really enjoy seeing a fast forward of what life could be like in 25 years.

The weather yesterday morning was quite chilly, in the mid 40’s, however I ventured out in just shorts and my new USA Curling t-shirt.  I figured I could deal with some cold early as I was counting on the warmer temps forecast for later in the day.  Of course Cindy encouraged me to dress warmer which I declined.  Of course that meant I couldn’t complain about being cold later, which I was.

We boarded the train and found our seat in coach.  They had several different type of cars in the train, coach, an enclosed cab with windows, open air where there are no windows and then first class where you have more room and a full time narrator along the way.  With the temps I was quite glad to be in coach and pitied those in the open air cars.

The train was very cool because it’s very old, literally more than 100 years old in fact.  The bench seats had enough room for two average sized people although as in most things from 100 years ago, they weren’t all that comfortable.  Our cab was pretty full, almost every seat had somebody in it.  It didn’t take long to pick out the people that would be the focal point on the ride like the mini-Santa Claus looking guy who talked nearly non-stop and had a child-like sense of wonder about everything.  There was also the guy with the older style digital camera who hadn’t learn how to turn off the confirmation beep for everything.  As he flipped through a hundred or more pictures he had already taken it got a bit annoying.  There was the all American family with two teenage girls and a teenage son who spent most of the ride with his face in a book.

So the train pulled out a few minutes late.  The powerful blasts of the steam whistle were quite cool and added to the anticipation for the ride.  As we started to make our way through town I thought it was odd that we were going so slow but I attributed it to being cautious in a more populated area.  It turned out that I was actually seeing what was pretty much top speed.

As we were heading north a bike path ran parallel to the tracks.  A biker on the path had no problem keeping up with and even pulling ahead of the train.  Before we left we saw they actually have a road bike versus train race where the goal is to beat the train from Durango to Silverton on a bike.  I realized that winning this race on bike would not be very difficult at all, the train was slooooow, at times the train was going at a fast walking pace.  To slow things down further we had to make a couple water stops on the route where they refill the boiler on the steam engine.

The ride was also incredibly rough.  There was non-stop rocking back and forth.  Walking the aisles required a firm grip on something unless you wanted to end up in somebody’s lap.  The noises the train made consisted of random banging, slamming, and grinding.  It made me wonder how both the train and the track could hold up for all these years.

For most of the ride up I was fine.  The scenery was stunning as we carved through canyons.  We took advantage of the on board concessions car, I grabbed a hot chocolate to warm my chilled bones while Cindy got a warm cider which she really liked.  Towards the end of the ride to Silverton my ass had reached it’s limit of sitting on the thinly padded bench, I was very glad to get off the damn train after the over three and a half hour ride.

Well Silverton made Durango look like a huge city, it was so small.  In Durango there is a historic district that has a lot of old original buildings from the late 1800’s however it is nestled inside of a modern city.  Silverton is just the old original buildings with no fluff.  It’s very charming.

We ate lunch at a cool place called the Pickle Barrel.  The owner, who was doing EVERYTHING from hosting, to waiting tables to bussing tables was very busy due to being severely understaffed.  Despite being pulled a million directions at once he somehow managed to still deliver a a very friendly and warm interaction with each and every customer.  He was great.  Cindy and I both enjoyed our meals.

After eating we only had about 45 minutes left to walk around before the train headed out.  We saw so many cool buildings.  We browsed a few gift shops and snagged a piece of pecan pie that we split as we walked around.  Man it was good.

As we headed back to the train I regretted my decision to take the train both to and from Silverton.  There is an option where you only take the train for one leg of the trip and hop on a bus for the other.  After the long ride up, a much quicker bus ride back would have been welcomed.  We piled back on the train and creeped out of town.

On the ride back the train was much emptier since a lot of the smart people opted for the bus ride.  As a result Cindy and I moved around and wound up out in one of the open air cars for a good portion of the ride.  The temps had warmed enough at that point that I was ok.  The open air cars had a big tradefoff.  The windowless environment allowed for a spectacular, unobstructed view of the scenery as it slowly passed by.  Unfortunately it also allowed all of the soot from the engine to coat your body.  I had a thin layer of soot on me in little time.

While we were out there we talked with a lifelong Army guy.  He started off in the Rangers but has been serving as a chaplain for quite awhile.  He talked about various aspects of his life in the service, including some very scary recollections of the year he served in Iraq when IED destruction was at it’s highest.  He had such a calm and peaceful demeanor about him.

The already slow ride was made even slower due to some mechanical issues that were described as “not being able to close a fire grate”.  The way I understood it was this meant there was a risk of hot stuff falling out of the engine and possible causing a fire on the tracks.  As a precaution they had an auxiliary vehicle behind the train making sure nothing was smoking.  In total the problem added more than a half hour onto the return trip.

I was on the edge of losing my mind by the end of the ride.  After tiring of being pelted with soot we moved back into coach.  By this time I was so damn tired of sitting I couldn’t take it.  When we finally, finally, FINALLY emerged from the train I was incredibly relieved.  If anyone would ask my opinion of doing the train I would only recommend it if they did the bus/train hybrid trip.  Going the entire loop cooped up almost 8 hours in a 100 year old train just is not my good idea of a good time.  Considering we spent almost $200 to do it just adds to the annoyance factor.  Despite my griping, make no mistake, the views the ride offers are some of the best I have ever seen in my life.

We stayed in town and ate dinner at the Strater Hotel, a very old Victorian style hotel.  Evidently it is famous for it’s saloon style dining area complete with a full time piano player.  Cindy and I were jammed into a small space by a window but it turned out to be a good seat.  At 7PM each night they do a funny skit where the local sheriff takes on some bad guys.  The entire staff is dressed in attire appropriate with the time period the bar is from.  It was all very entertaining.

Today for our last full day in Durango we plan to hit the outdoors and try to find some hill/mountain to conquer.  Should be fun.

The picture collection from the trip is getting quite large.  See it here.

So last night Cindy and I stayed up almost 3 hours after ingesting our THC gummy fish and did not experience anything out of the ordinary.  The only thing at all I can report is I slept slightly better last night than other nights on the trip thus far and I recall having some odd imagery in my head as I was falling asleep.  We are doing another experiment tonight, we each downed two fish and we are doing so earlier in the day.

We pulled out of Colorado Springs pretty early so we could get to Durango at a reasonable time.  The 315 miles we had to travel was by far our shortest driving day in the trip but it took awhile.  The reason is the terrain we were covering was very mountainous.  We noticed the Prius sounded like it was really struggling towards the top of a series of inclines.  I already knew from previous road trips that vehicles that spend most of their lives at sea level do very poorly when forced to suck in the thinner air at elevation.

However when I flipped over to the real time power monitoring screen I was concerned when I saw the power meter for the battery be completely empty.  I never saw it show as being fully depleted before.  Cindy was freaked about it and looked it up online.  She quickly found other Prius owners reporting the same thing when driving inclines for prolonged periods of time.

The odd thing was once we crested a big incline and were going down an equally long downhill, the battery meter went from empty to full green in less than 10 minutes.  Despite the numerous mountains we crossed, overall the Prius got fantastic mileage due to it sucking in additional power on the declines.  We averaged over 55 mpg for the 175 miles we traveled after our last fill up, amazing.

The drive of course was very scenic.  Last year when we came into Durango it was dark so we saw very little in terms of scenery.  Today we saw everything in brilliant sunshine, it was beautiful. We stopped for lunch at a place we actually stopped at late at night last year.  Last year they had no food available since it was close to closing time.  This year we scored a mixed bag lunch of grilled cheese, fish sandwich, waffle fries, cottage cheese, and cole slaw.  Cindy and I split all of it.

The GPS had a brain fart and told us our hotel in Durango was where an open field is located.  Luckily it was close enough that we saw the hotel from the highway.  We pulled in around 2:15 local time.  We were surprised when the clerk said the room was still being cleaned and that check in wasn’t until 3 PM.  Um ok, we said we would head into town a bit and be back after three.

On the drive into Durango we stopped at a self serve car wash to blast off the 2400+ miles of road grime and smashed bugs that coated the Prius.  We then parked downtown near the train station.  We wanted to get our tickets for the Durango-Silverton train ride tomorrow.  Since the ride consumes most of the day I thought it would be better to get it out of the way on our first full day in town instead of the second.  The woman that was working the ticket window appeared to be new on the job.

We stood in what was a relatively short line for a very long time because of the snail’s pace this woman handled the transactions.  It was pretty painful.  I swear to handle the two people in front of us took her 15 minutes.  We finally scored the tickets and headed back to the hotel.

By the time we got back it was something like 3:30 so we assumed the room was ready to go.  We assumed incorrectly.  We went up to the room and saw it was still being worked on, wtf?  Cindy asked the cleaning lady what was up.  She said it just had to be vacuumed yet.  We left some of our stuff in the room and walked around checking out the hotel amenities to waste time.  We didn’t get the all clear till almost 4:15, lame.

Besides the slow cleaning crew, the hotel itself seems really nice.  It’s new with free breakfast, an indoor pool, sauna and a decent fitness center.  It’s so nice that we don’t mind chilling out here tonight eating our special gummy fish.

Tomorrow will be all about the train ride.  I am a little worried that the novelty of riding on an old fashioned train will wear off after a total of 5-6 hours on board.

Unfortunately I didn’t have a chance to blog this morning before we headed out so I am being forced to regurgitate two days of the trip instead of one.   This will be more interesting since I just ingested my first ever 10mg THC red gummy fish, although from our research it could be up to two hours until it kicks in.

So the drive from Kansas City to Colorado Springs was long.  We got on the road around 7:15 and didn’t get here until close to 5.  The drive didn’t have a ton of highlights other than a random stop in a town named Quinter in Kansas.  From the highway we say that Quinter supposedly had an old style soda fountain.  That sounded cool to us and since we didn’t have lunch yet we thought it would be fun.

Quinter was a ridiculously small town literally in the middle of nowhere.  As we pulled onto Main Street I could count the amount of cars parked on one hand.   We parked in what was marked as the hardware store parking lot.  We walked down the sidewalk to the front of the soda fountain shop next door.

Well once we walked on we saw what looked like pharmacy shelves to our left.  WTF?  Well when we talked to one of the two employees that were there we were told this building had three things in it that didn’t seem to really go together, a pharmacy, a hardware store and a soda fountain. Funny.

The bar of the soda fountain was incredible.  It was from the early 1900’s.  The business owner bought it on EBAY and had it brought in, wow.  The women told us how the building has been many things over the years including a car dealership, a movie theater and a big warehouse.  I think it’s current configuration is the coolest.

Now unfortunately the food menu was rather slim if you are a pescatarian.  Cindy and I both ordered side salads with a side of macaroni salad.  It was not the most nutritious lunch but it tasted good and handled our hunger.  Now of course we had to have some sort of ice cream treat while we were there.  I opted for a delicious old style chocolate milk shake and Cindy had something called a Blondie.  Both of us enjoyed our respective treats a lot.

I had forgot a nut I need for the GoPro rig on my Phantom.  I figured I was going to have to track down a Best Buy or someplace like that which sold GoPro accessories.  Well instead I was able to buy a small nut and lockwasher at the hardware part of the place for exactly 14 cents.  Sweet.  Both Cindy and I enjoyed just hanging out and talking with the two ladies that were working all three sections of the business.  The lifestyle in Quinter Kansas is just so different and slow paced it felt like I stepped into a time machine that instantly shot me back to 1965.  I appreciated and in some ways was envious of the simple life these people choose to lead.

When we pulled into Colorado Springs we were checked in by a guy that simply seemed perturbed that he was a desk clerk at a hotel.  He made no effort to make us feel welcome, a skill that most people in his position are instructed to do.  Luckily our check in was possibly the shortest in history.  In the span of 90 seconds we were in and out of the lobby.  Maybe the guy ran out of weed.

Our room was acceptable based on what I paid for it.  I am always nervous when we stay in a room with exterior facing doors.  The room was clean enough.  The biggest complaints I have are the neck high shower head with hot and cold water controls that require the precision of a safecracker to get dialed in to a temperature that is not too hot or cold.  The toilet may be the weakest flushing unit I have ever seen.  You have to flush it twice just to get pee to go down.

On Tuesday night we were looking at various food options.  We stumbled across a place called Trinity Brewing Company.  Cindy saw online that they had a pretty big vegetarian menu and it was close by.  The place also brewed their own beer which was cool.

Cindy and I sat down at the bar and we were greeted by a young guy bartender that immediately gave us a good vibe about the place.  Cindy sampled a few beers before ordering herself a Pale Ale.  I went with some dark pumpkin beer with a very high alcohol content.  I typically hate dark beers but this particular variety actually went down pretty smoothly.

For our meal Cindy had a quinoa burger that she said was fantastic and I had some crab cakes that I really enjoyed as well.  I also had two additional beers, by the end of which I was feeling quite, happy.  We wound up the meal by splitting some raspberry cheesecake which was good as well.

While we were sitting there we asked one of the female bartenders advice on where to go if we wanted to try some of the marijuana edible products that are now legal in Colorado.  She advised us to check out a place called Maggie Farms.  She said that despite marijuana being legalized for recreational use, certain areas have actually continued to restrict the recreational use of it.  Colorado Springs  just got on board a few months ago, the place we were directed to only opened up in July. Cindy and I figured we would check it out sometime on Wednesday.

We received some bad news, the Manitou Incline, which was supposed to be the athletic accomplishment for this trip has been shut down since mid-August and will continue to be shut down until December for repairs.  I had no idea just how popular this climb has become.  I saw on the news that in the span of roughly a year there have over 200,000 people that have made the climb, HOLY SHIT.  Well evidently all of these feet combined with some severe flooding has really screwed up certain sections of the climb.  The closure is to allow them to make a number of improvements which will make the incline safer long term, good news for others, not so good for us.  Oh well.

So we woke up this morning from our 3rd consecutive night of poor sleep.  I fall asleep easily enough but later I start waking up time and again which leaves me just feeling like shit.  That feeling was amplified by those three pumpkin beers.  I was tired, had a headache and felt horribly dehydrated.

Cindy and I hit the free continental breakfast.  Luckily, Mr Pissed in my Cheerios was no longer behind the desk, replaced by two staff that had a better disposition.  After breakfast we folded the laundry we started and then headed out.  The weather was overcast, rainy and cool.  We decided it would be best to start our day with an indoor activity.  We chose to head over to the US Olympic Training Center, I saw in a brochure that they offered tours to the public, sweet.

As we pulled into the center we had to wait several minutes while a tour bus of old people very slowly unloaded.  Well since they only do the tours once an hour that meant that we would be stuck in this group.  The guy that was running the tour warned us ahead of time that we would be stuck with the old people and was nice enough to tell Cindy and I to stop back at the desk afterward and he would give us some free totes for hanging in there.

The tour was cool.  It was interesting seeing the training facilities our athletes prepare in.  The coolest parts of the tour were when we watched a few gymnasts go through practice and a few dozen swimmers doing their training in the 1 million gallon Olympic indoor training pool.

I picked up a cool souvenir while I was there, a USA Curling Team shirt.  I have some sort of weird fascination with the “sport”.

The weather had improved so we decided we would head into Manitou to do our hiking/sight seeing, but before there we had a pit stop to make at Maggie’s Farms.  The second we pulled into the parking lot we were directed to another further away lot, they said there were no spots in the main lot even though I am pretty sure I saw a couple.  They had a rent a cop directing us up to the upper lot and when we parked up there, another rent a cop was watching the lot.  There was a sign posted in that lot saying it was illegal to actual consume marijuana products on the premises.

Going into the trip I had what turns out to be a very big misconception about how available recreational marijuana products were going to be.  I thought you could practically walk into any store and pick some up.  Wow, was I wrong.  We stepped in the door of what looked to be an old store and are greeted by yet another rent a cop.  He hands a pull tag with a number on it like we were walking into a deli.  We are told to have a seat until we are called.  There is another hallway to our right behind a door with a line of chairs along the wall that are filled with more people, weird.

As we sat there we got a handle on the process.  You get called up to the desk in the main waiting room.  You are then asked for your id, there are different rules if you are from Colorado versus somewhere else.  If you live here you are limited to a total of one ounce of product per person per day.  If you are an out of stater the limit is much stricter, only 1/4 ounce per person per day.  I also found it interesting it was an all cash business, no credit cards allowed.  Damn they must be rolling in cash, no pun intended.

So once we showed our id’s we were directed into the narrow hallway.  There were maybe 25 people in there, all on chairs.  Ever minute or two a guy who totally looked like he should work at a marijuana shop, would poke his head out the door and tell the next person to come in.  Each time a person was called in the rest of the people would all shift their rear ends down one chair at a time, it was pretty funny.

To me it was an odd feeling sitting there.  I almost felt dirty.  I didn’t really look around at the other people much, I just felt a bit weird being there.  Finally after waiting at least 30 minutes we got inside the magic door.  We were again asked for our ids and again told of the restrictions on out of staters.  We explained that neither of us were marijuana users and we were just interested in trying out a couple of edible products.  Our clerk was very consultative, explaining our options and stressing the importance of using small doses since we aren’t sure how sensitive we will be to it.

Cindy and I hoped they would have pot brownies or cookies there but they didn’t, perhaps because they are too perishable.  Instead our options were various THC infused candies and granola products.  We decided to get 10 – 10 milligram red gummy fish and one 100 milligram granola bar.  That added up to the 1/4 ounce allowed for one person.  We could have doubled up our order but figured we should just try it out and see how it goes.  Plus, this stuff was damn expensive, $68 cash.

We were directed around a corner where a woman fulfilled our order like a pharmacist at CVS.  She told us to keep the bag sealed and stapled shut until we were at someplace “safe”.  Cindy and I walked out with our score, unsure of how it will affect us. We found a hole in the wall pizza/sandwich shop to eat lunch at.  We split a small pizza which was pretty good.

We then hit the Manitou Cliff Dwellings, something Cindy had found online that she thought looked interesting.  It’s very old caves that were crafted by indians some 700 years ago.  The pictures looked cool and seeing them in person was kind of cool too.  The main problem I had with it is there isn’t much to see.  You can see everything in 15 minutes if you are going slow, not really worth the $10 a head admission price if you ask me. We spent longer in the gift shop tahn we did in the caves.

We had decided that since we couldn’t hike the Manitou Incline that we would instead hike some of the Barr Trail which eventually leads up to Pike’s Peak.  We figured it would be a good compromise.  We certainly were not prepared for any huge hike, we had a couple bottles of water and Cindy brought her rain coat.  The temp in the 60’s with mostly overcast skies were pretty great for hiking.

When we got started Cindy was struggling more than I expected.  The high altitude, we were starting at 6700 feet, was making it hard for her to breathe.  The trail itself was nicely maintained and easy to follow.  It was also quite challenging, rated as “difficult” in the rating guide I saw earlier.  I thought that if Cindy and I would have done the Manitou Incline it would have taken us maybe an hour to trek the .8 mile, 2000 foot trail.  I applied that to our Barr Trail hike, figuring we would hike upward for that same hour and see where it gets us.

The one hour of hiking time got us to 8000 feet of elevation and 2 miles into the 12.1 mile trail.  It was plenty far for both of us, it was some pretty strenuous climbing, especially since neither Cindy or I are at a high level with our cardio endurance right now.

The hike was beautiful with plentiful views of the glory of nature all around us.  I commented to Cindy that it felt like we had been on our trip for much longer than 4 days.  We have already seen and done so many things.  The good news is there is much more to come.

We made it back to the parking lot after a little more than two hours on the mountainside.  Before we left I put my Phantom up in the air for two unique aerial video sessions.  It was a bit windy but nothing I couldn’t control.  I look forward to getting the footage online.

After the hike we decided to walk around down in Manitou Springs.  We stopped in a number of unique shops and then had dinner at a cool little place on a corner.  The corner also apparently is a big hang out spot for young kids that seem to be avid drug users.  Watching them out the window was better than most reality tv.

When we got back to the room, as I mentioned, we tried the red gummy THC fish, each doing one fish per person as advised.  20 minutes later we decided to do another half a fish each since we didn’t feel anything.  At this point we crossed the two hour mark and neither of us feel any serious effects from the stuff.  We are both tired but that is more from our poor sleep I am sure.  For about 30 seconds I had a weird sensation float through my brain that went as quickly as it came.  Cindy said she has had a few weird feelings in her chest almost like palpitations but other than that she is just tired too.

Maybe tomorrow we need to up our intake.

Our drive to St Louis went smoothly right until the point where we had the arch in view. As we were crossing the bridge over the Missouri River we saw signs saying the exit the GPS was advising us to take was under repair and closed. Ok no problem, the GPS is normally smart enough to handle something like this. Well that was not the case this time.

We began a 15-20 minute ordeal where the GPS was literally sending us in circles. When it started taking us away from the arch back across the river we decided to switch over to Cindy’s phone temporarily for navigation. The route we eventually took to get to the parking garage near the arch was very obtuse but at least we got there.

The last bit of aggravation was the way we approached the parking garage was through the nearby restaurant/entertainment district. The main street there is an ANCIENT looking brick street. It looks like it was never ever touched since it was installed 100 years ago. The “road” looks more like rolling hills with all sorts of hills and valleys. I was expecting the Prius to bottom out several times as we creeped across it.

Finally we got parked and started walking towards the arch which is located inside of a beautiful park area. The weather was beautiful with the temps in the 70’s with what felt like no humidity. Cindy was amazed at the visual as we approached the massive arch. It was just so visually impressive with the smooth, clean lines of the arch cutting into the clear blue sky.

The arch visitor center is a HUGE underground facility under the monument. After clearing the metal detectors we headed down into the main lobby. Luckily a Monday afternoon in September is a decent time to visit the arch, there weren’t a ton of people there.

I bought us tickets to ride to the top of the arch. While we were waiting for our time slot to be called for loading we walked around and checked some stuff out. As we were, an interesting couple was standing in front of one of the displays. The woman, who was in good shape and obviously did not have English as her native language, asked me if I could take a picture of her and her boyfriend/husband. The man was short but powerfully built. Cindy and I speculated on their nationality. She guessed maybe Greek or Albanian. I personally had no idea.

Well ironically we wound up getting paired up with this same couple in the cramped car on the ride to the top. On the ride we discovered the couple were Italians from Rome, I never would have guessed that.

The cars you ride in are not only cramped but very old looking. The reason is they are by my math almost 50 years old since the arch opened back in 1965. At least they apparently keep them maintained. In fact the north tower trams were closed for repair/renovations for several months. We found out from a park ranger up top that the entire arch grounds are undergoing renovations.

After the roughly four minute ride to the observation area we emerged. The triangular area looks odd if you never saw it before. Basically you lay across the angled, carpeted area to peer out the small windows on either side. The views from 600 plus feet up are really beautiful. It wasn’t windy yesterday unlike my first time to the arch where I could feel a slight sway at the top. Cindy thought being up at the top of the arch was very, very, cool.

After spending maybe 15-20 minutes up there we lined up to head back down. In the car this time we were paired with some people from Boston that Cindy good naturedly ribbed about the Patriots losing to the Dolphins on Sunday. Once we got down we walked through a large museum that was about the early days of westward expansion and how St. Louis was an integral part of it. After a stop in the gift shop we headed back up to ground level.

Before leaving I had Cindy take a picture of me doing an elbow lever in front of the arch. It feels like an elbow lever will be the bodyweight exercise pose for this trip. You may recall that during one of my western trips years ago I was doing L-sits along the way.

After the arch we ate lunch in the bumpy road area that we drove through. The place we ate was called Show Me’s. It looked like a big drinking/party place if you visit it later in the day. At lunch however it was nearly empty. We sat in the outdoor beergarten overlooking the Missouri River and had it entirely to ourselves. The place evidently has a tradition of people writing odd things on dollar bills and then sticking them to the walls and ceiling. There literally had to be several thousand dollars stuck all over the place.

We still had something like 260 miles to drive to get to our final destination of Kansas City. It’s an odd thing when you use sentences like “we only have 250 miles to go” like that is a drop in the bucket. The reality was by the time we got later in the day the drive was feeling long. By the time we stopped we had logged something like 1450 miles in the span of two days. We had already seen and done enough that it felt like we had been on the road for much longer, it was weird.

There was no sight seeing needed last night although we did walk up to the top of the hill and take some cool sunset pictures of the Royals and Chief’s stadiums which were practically next door. We stayed at a Sheraton which was nice except for some odd annoyances like missing a hair dryer in the room and only three pillows for a king sized bed.

When we were eating dinner last night we were reviewing our itinerary. I was glad we did. Cindy had misread the trip plan I made. She did not realize we were staying two nights in Colorado Springs and three nights in Durango. She thought it was one night at the one place and two nights at the other.   As a result she misbooked the hotel in Durango. Luckily a quick phone call shifted and extended our Durango stay.

We are in the midst of a long drive on I-70 across Kansas with Colorado Springs in our sights. The plan is to get a good nights rest and fill our Wednesday with the challenging Manitou Springs climb followed by more site seeing.

Cindy and I rolled out of bed after our 3:15 AM alarm Sunday morning bleary eyed but ready to start our latest road trip adventure. Before we pushed out we went out and checked on the chickens one last time, we were still both concerned about them not being attended to the way that we have accustomed them to.

We buttoned up the Prius with our stuff. At the last minute I decided I wanted to take my Phantom with to get some cool aerial video during the trip. I wasn’t sure if the case would fit but we found a nice spot in the trunk where it fit without obstructing our view.

I was the driver to start. Normally when a road trip begins I am pretty alert despite the normally early time of day. Well that was not the case this time, I felt exhausted, almost dangerously so at certain points. Luckily I kept us on the road until our first Dunkin Donuts stop around the Sarasota area. I did two cups of coffee in the morning to help battle drowsiness.

I did some experimentation with the speed/mileage equation with the Prius. I found that 3mph in cruise control speed made a big difference in mileage. When I had the cruise set at 77mph my mileage was dipping down to around 42mpg on average. Later in the day setting the cruise at 74mph resulted in an incredible average mpg of 48.5 for the second tank of gas.

Speaking of gas, it’s so pleasant to pull into a gas station almost empty, after travelling around 400 miles and only spend $30 to fill it. A full tank in the party van would get us roughly the same 400 mile range, the big difference is it would cost close to $100 to top it back off.

The big trade off we made was the smaller amount of space we have available to us. I was worried that driving 875 miles in a sub-compact Prius would be incredibly uncomfortable. Luckily it hasn’t been bad. At first we thought that folding the rear seat down would be the way to go so we could use that area as a pseudo bed. After test fitting my 6’3” frame in the back I realized that wouldn’t work. Instead we let the seats in their normal configuration. Cindy can lay across the back seats. I found if I fully recline the passenger seat I can actually nap a little bit with an assist from the pillows we brought along. I also find the passenger seat acceptable for typing the blog entry as I am right now or playing some Plants vs Zombies. Despite a total of 14 hours on the road yesterday, which should be our longest travel day, comfort was not a major issue which is great.

As usual I saw some interesting people and places along the drive. When I stopped for gas in Jasper, Tennessee I found my curiosity turned to annoyance. For some reason half of the gas pumps were not working. Every tank that was working had a vehicle parked in front of it with nobody pumping gas, what the fck?

As I saw some very “interesting” people walking back out to their vehicle I assumed that either these people had not mastered the skill of paying for your gas at the pump with a credit card or they don’t qualify for a credit card. I saw one particularly odd man walk into the store to presumably pay for his gas walk back out to the car to pump it and then once again return inside for some unknown reason. Finally I found an open pump, gassed up and got the hell out of there.

Sunday afternoon we listened to the Eagles game on my Sirius radio that I brought along. Listening to the broadcast was frustrating at times. The satellite radio uses a short range FM transmitter to broadcast to the car radio. This normally works fine. However if there is a strong local radio station on the same frequency it makes listening pretty miserable. During the game we had varying levels of interference.

Early on it was just as good that we couldn’t hear it, the Eagles were playing like shit against the Jaguars, whom they were favored to beat pretty easily. The first half ended with the Birds down 17-0. Both the defense and offense was playing rotten.

In the second half the team did something I am not accustomed to for the Eagles, they made adjustments. They dominated the second half, scoring 34 unanswered points to win the game 34-17. It was great to listen to, I’m sure it would have been even better to see.

We pulled into our hotel in Nashville at 5:15 CST, meaning we covered the 875 miles in almost exactly 14 hours. We didn’t stay in the room long at all, just long enough to unload our stuff and freshen up a bit. Although Nashville wasn’t a focal point of the trip we figured we should go downtown to check stuff out.

The drive to town was less than 10 miles. Once we got into downtown Nashville I swung into the first open parking lot I found. It was one of those self service deals where you pay for your parking ahead of time with a credit card. I was not pleased with the pay schedule.

The machine for the first spot we parked in was locked up and not working. I had Cindy drive to the adjacent lot where the machine was working. So I started the process of paying for spot number 50 that we were parked in. I was presented three and only three options, one hour for $8, two hours for $15 or 24 hours for $32. WTF???!!! What a crock of shit. The purposeful removal of any options between 2 and 24 hours was ridiculous. If you are going downtown to hang out they know that two hours is probably not going to be long enough. Not allowing a per hour rate is a blatant rip off. Fckers.

Walking down Broadway in Nashville reminded me somewhat of Bourbon Street in New Orleans. There were small bars every couple of doors, most of which had live music playing and various street performers. We had dinner at a nice sports bar kind of place that was doing 2 for 1 draft beers. We sat in the open air part of the place next to the sidewalk. We both enjoyed our meals, I cleaned my plate completely of the two fish tacos, rice and beans.

The two Angry Orchard draft beers that Cindy drank hit her pretty hard, she was in full silly mode. We walked up and down Broadway for awhile. We saw a number of those human powered rolling bars. Basically there are 10-12 patrons at the bar, seated on stools with a set of pedals underneath them. There is one person that steers the rolling bar. I am not sure if the whole deal is powered exclusively by pedal power or if it is backed up by a battery propulsion system. Regardless it looks pretty fun.

Cindy and I went into a number of souvenir stores as well as scoring some local homemade ice cream before we headed out. We both were quite tired obviously. Sleep last night was very welcomed.

Today we were up and back on the road by 7:15 AM. When we stopped at a rest stop we both were greeted by a refreshing cool air. The local humidity free temperature of 63 degrees felt refreshing and crisp after trudging through another sweaty, hot Florida summer since April.

We are on route to the St Louis Arch which we should get to around lunch time. Although I saw it before, Cindy never has. It is an amazing structure and well worth revisiting. After that we have several more hours on the road until we reach our sleeping destination for the day, Kansas City. So far so good.

The online and growing photo album is here.

So this morning I dropped off Nicki at the vet that is going to perform the eyelid surgery.  Nicki gets very scared when she is in a foreign environment without someone she knows to offer comfort.  It was very tough for me to try to coax her into the back room as she kept trying to go the other direction.  In addition to getting her folded eyelids surgically corrected she also will be getting her teeth cleaned.  Ali is nervous because Nicki has not been under anesthesia her entire adult life, the only time she was under when she was fixed as a puppy.  I am confident everything will be fine.

Offering Nicki relief from what had to be a maddening irritation of her eyes is what I am focused on.  Post op she will be required to wear a cone for around two weeks to allow the eyelids to heal.  I am sure she will hate the cone for those two weeks but it’s better than feeling like you have something in your eyes 24/7.

Last night I did some predictive mowing.  What is predictive mowing you ask?  In my case it is mowing areas that I predict will once again be under water if we get another downpour.  By mowing these areas, even if it does rain, I will be able to still finish up the mowing on Saturday without issue. It’s a brilliant plan.

Yesterday Joan Rivers passed away after having some sort of complication during vocal chord surgery.  If you are younger you may know Joan primarily for her self admitted odd physical appearance from extensive plastic surgery backed up by a steady drip of botox.  However if you are my age you have more appreciation for her comedy brilliance.  For 50 years she has harvested endless laughs from audiences around the world.

Her work ethic, energy and non-stop drive at her age was truly amazing.  The only other famous person I can recall that was her age with that sort of energy was Jack Lalanne.  Much like Jack, I just sort of thought Joan would live forever.   To have her pass away is just the latest pinch of reality I have felt.

So tomorrow Cindy and I will be working on a very long checklist I made last night of pre-trip to do’s.  We need to make sure we dot all of our I’s and cross every T.  The main pushpins of the trip will be visiting the arch in St Louis, Maintou Springs, Durango and White Sands.  Of course the beauty of a road trip is the random events that happen in between during 4500 miles of driving.

Although I am looking forward to the trip, Cindy is REALLY excited.  She never had a chance to do much  traveling most of her life.  She has discovered she loves road trips as much as I do.

As I did last year I will be trying to document while I am on the road, both from hotel rooms and highway courtesy of my wi-fi hotspot.  The wildcard is just how difficult this will be in the much smaller confines of the Prius.

Day one will be brutal, with us hopefully pulling out around 4AM Sunday to get a head start on the roughly 875 miles of road we want to digest on Sunday.