Escalante 2006 - A Dream and the Realities - Part Two

Day Two
Sunday July 23 5:30am CDT
And so it begins, the 28 hour slog to to the destination. Everything's packed, we're up and moving by 6:00am - right on time. Out of CF and onto US20 heading west. Perhaps the only 'deep' conversation of the driving part of the trip was had here concering T-Clog's views on Iraq et al. Such deep thoughts were not to continue as we morphed into more lighthearted fare or dealt with the realities of the adventure. More on that below.

US20 winds it way, all four lanes of it these days, west to I35, north to Minneapolis and ultimately Duluth, and south to Des Moines and ultimately dying south of Fort Worth. We headed south, stopping in Story City for a breakfast buffet at the Happy Chef. Good enough eats, and a chance to lighten the load before heading back onto the ribbon of highway. TClog's driving still (being averse to driving at night, he gets as much daily duty as possible) and carries us around Des Moines (having passed our old alma mater - ISU) and onto the painfully long stretch that is I80.

Truly headed west now, no change in highway planned until Nebraska has taken its toll on us. Spirits still good, gas slowly dropping (for the car that is) and listening through some of this stretch to CMC Volume 11. (Of course there's no entry at the link for volume 11 as TClog gets his internet from the Amish, and they ain't much into 'blogging'). First gas comes just off the highway in 'scenic' Minden, Iowa, just short of Council Bluffs and Omaha. (See picture above for the type of hilarity you'll find in Minden) Back on the road and headed to our lunch stop at a brew pub in the old part of Omaha. Dan has planned the outbound trip around possibilities for good beer, having gone from zero to connosieur in the last year or two. So Omaha is our lunch stop, though we get there about 30 minutes before they're legally able to serve. We kill some time, eat some food (salads, chili, beer cheese soup) and wait for our beers. Dan gets some sort of IPA and I get their wheat wine. Dan's totally out of his mind on IPA these days and finds their offering to be tasty. The wheat wine is not for the faint of heart, being both freakishly sweet and packing an 11% alcohol by volume wallup. Back on the road by 12:30pm and still heading west, the full brunt of Nebraska before us.

TCLog still driving until some time in the afternoon when we stop at a rest area to pee. TClog's not drinking like Dan and I are so driving is no issue, plus it's still daylight and TClogg hasn't turned into a pumpkin yet. Upon returning to the road we discover that the ac in the faithful Montero no longer seems to be working. The middle of the day, scorching 90+ degrees, and nowhere to go but west and things have just taken a turn for the worse. Whatever sense of 'jazzed' TClog had been able to maintain since leaving his house at 6:00am that morning quickly evaporates, leaving beyond a deep hot funk (not the good kind). He's got some right, having just recently purchased this car, believing it to be in working order, but he takes all bad news like someone killed his grandmother (no perspective). It leaves him speechless and inconsolable. He soldiers on for a while, now with the windows down, the cacophony of which renders conversation and music almost impossible. We make it to another rest stop, hoping beyond hope that the ac is somehow tied into the electrical system and just needs to be 'reset'. I volunteer to drive, now around 3:00pm CDT some distance east of Kearney. Despite our hopes the ac is still mia, leaving us to suffer through countless more hours of wind tunnel deafness, heat, and TClog's funk.

After a stop at the Kearney Cabellas, a ways east from their original store in Sidney, NE, for some last minute gear, we're back on the road with a full tank of gas hoping to leave the horror that was NE behind us. At last I80 was done and we head down I76 towards Denver, CO happy to have left NE behind for now. We developed a tradition of giving a rowdy 'fuck you' to every state we left, and NE endured perhaps more than the others. Colorado stretched before us (like a brown undifferentiated ribbon) with no sense of the mountains that would greet us. We already knew we'd be heading into the mountains after dark (after an aborted beer stop) but the front range flatness of eastern Colorado certainly belies the grandiosity farther west.

A stop in Sterling, CO for Pizza Hut, found us the recipients of some disdain from our waitress having ordered a pizza without meat. (half onion half mushroom to be exact) This being cattle country, we gave her the benefit of the doubt but one should not be ridiculed by the wait staff if one orders from the menu. We did not order half arugula, half truffle for instance. Bellies full and esteem accosted we headed on, this time with Dan driving. Darkness fell relatively quickly and the city lights of Denver were soon upon us.

More coming soon.....