My Social Network Road Trip

I woke up early to the sound of children running frantically on the floor below my bed.  Small feet smacking the ground with the weight of a much louder frame.  I sniffled and opened my mouth to take a breath, my throat raw and scratched.  My family had given me a cold.  I called down to my dad and whined my hypothesis.  I drank down the red liquid he brought me and was comforted by the temporary transport back to my childhood.  I fell back asleep. 

As I put my large bag back into my trunk and reorganized my car, I felt noticeably better.  I was revived with thoughts of fighting off the cold before it hit and began my drive north.  The initial route was familiar and I cursed myself for not remembering how truck-heavy it would be on a weekday.  The honks in my direction were continuous.  Occasionally, I would try to make eye contact with other cars hoping that if my roof was on fire or my tire was gone, they would also notice and honk.  When that never happened, I decided the truck’s intentions were more lewd.  But the pure volume of them had me suspicious.  I began devising theories of truck chatter pertaining to the girl in the odd-colored car.  I wonder what color they called it.  Would they argue about that on their CBs?  I found myself enraged by my presumed objectification over truck-radio at the same time as I was hoping the comments were positive. 

My first stop was at a gas station south of Indianapolis.  I walked straight back to the restroom and opened the stall door.  There was a roll of toilet paper sitting on top of the plastic dispenser and next to it was a silver lock, closing off the additional toilet paper rolls from the possibility of thievery.  As I walked to the register at the front of the store, I took in my surroundings.  Two round men stood between the rack of beef jerky and the adjoining restaurant, neither wearing a shirt although one was mainly covered by denim overalls.  At the same time I noticed them staring at me, our collective attention was turned to a man walking thru the door with a John Deere hat on, wearing inappropriately short cotton shorts and a shirt with the sleeves cut off.  This creepily thin man covered in dirt had found the perfect fashion intersection where flamboyance and rednecks met.  He ignored all of us and went immediately to a row of stools facing the window.  I pre-paid my gas and walked outside, noticing the row of stools at the restaurant swerving to follow my footsteps.  I felt a row of eyes on my back as I took my hand off the gas pump and walked to get the squeegee.  I had driven through a swarm of bugs and desperately needed to clean off my windshield but I was wearing a short sundress and the thought of stretching over my car while on display for a line of creepy gas station men gave me pause.  I knew I had little choice so I attempted to draw the wiper back and forth without moving my body at all.  “I am a statue,” I thought to myself.  “A statue with moveable arms who is cleaning its windshield.”  One really takes for granted the momentum body movement gives you when wiping off a windshield.  My statue-cleaning-personae took forever. 

 It was late when I got to Grand Rapids and I was tired and starving.  Mark met me in the Visitor Parking area of his swank condominiums and we began catching up as we rode the elevator.  He had to work the next morning but stayed up late anyway filling me in on what he’d been doing over the last ten years.  I ate peanut butter bread and stared out his mesmerizing wall of windows.  When I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer, Mark insisted I take his bed, saying he wanted to stay up anyway and watch the end of the game he’d missed.  After a little back-and-forth on the subject, I agreed and said goodnight.  I buried myself under the soft comforter and sunk into the mountain of pillow.  Not too many hours later, the sun filled the room around me but I didn’t care, I slept comfortably until the absolute last available minute.  I hated to leave the plush bed or the bright, open condo but I wanted to do a driving tour of downtown Grand Rapids before making my way east. 

That night I stopped in Sioux City, Iowa.  There were a cluster of hotels at the exit and I glanced at the familiar names.  Knowing the Super 8 would be the cheapest and feeling good about its general lack of sketchiness, I went in to inquire about their single nightly rate.  The kid behind the counter gave me the “manager’s special.”  Although I fail to picture him managing much besides his own teen angst, I gladly accepted the $39 rate and carried my bag up to the room.  It was large and smelled clean with a big, wooden desk and a comfortable chair.  The next morning I opened my blinds and was surprised to find the hotel was right on top of a trailer park.  I could see directly into a mint-green kitchen.  The awkwardness of that loomed large in my mind as I packed my bag and continued on, comfortable I’d solved the mystery of what made that a Super 8. 

Large patches of construction and holiday traffic made the drive slow and painful.  When I was at my breaking point, doing ten miles below the speed limit and forced into one lane, I looked at the shadows coming from the mini-van in front of me.  A small pair of arms shot straight up, paused momentarily and then started moving erratically back-and-forth.  This alone was enjoyable to witness but then a second pair of arms shot up next to it and grabbed the first pair, dragging them downward.  About ten seconds of armless-ness passed when the first pair shot up again only to be dragged down by the angrier pair of arms.  I watched this cycle repeat for the rest of the construction and couldn’t help but be amused by thoughts of sibling rivalries. 

Somewhere near Omaha, Nebraska there was a sign for the Lewis and Clark Trail.  My eyes followed its arrow to the right directly to an abandoned washer on the side of the highway.  Perhaps it was like Alice’s rabbit hole to an old timey world of wagons and scalping.  Wagons and scalping?  It sounded crazy even internally.  I shook my head and resolved to read more.

When the sun had fallen in the sky, I finally made it to St. Louis, Missouri.  Why stop in St. Louis if my next destination was a mere 3 hours away? 

Nephews…

 My sister and brother-in-law were also involved but I’m sure they would agree that they lack the cuteness and chubbiness of Calvin and his baby brother, Evan.  Doesn’t it look like baby Evan is pointing to me in the above picture?  I feel like it deserves a caption-contest.  What is he thinking?  Feel free to submit a guess.

After lunch with my sister, I made my way to Evansville, Indiana where there was yet another set of nephews.  Christopher got his haircut in the backyard, baby Samuel smiled and nibbled on his fingers and little JP caused trouble and yelled “Cheese” every time he saw my camera. 

Five years ago when the immediate family got together, there was conversation and excursions to the latest adult-comedy or independent film.  My brother, sister and I were 3 adults living in different states who wanted to catch up on each others’ lives and take crude, sarcastic jabs at whoever was talking.  Now as I sat at my parent’s house holding the baby and chasing JP, I watched my dad and brother cleaning up brightly-colored ants in the family room.  My dad picked one off the top of his chair, his facial expression questioning the distance the plastic ant had traveled.  My brother answered the question his face was asking, “You left the Pants unattended.  They got knocked over.”  Five years and five little boys later had taken its toll on our dialogue.

I stayed two nights at my parent’s house, thinking I would catch up on writing and start preparations for when I got back to New York.  I got little done outside of playing with the kids ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58kW3noXXEE ) and catching a cold. Even my few attempts at productivity were usually foiled.  At one point, I hauled my large suitcase out of the trunk and did laundry.  As I finished folding, I looked at the piles of clothes on my bed and let out a sigh of relief.  Before the breath finished leaving my body, the boys flew into the room and jumped on the bed.  JP reached immediately for the bright blue bra in front of him and dove his icing-covered face into it, wrapping it around his ears.  “Hello?!” he yelled into the cloth cups.  My first impulse was to quickly take it from him but instead I sat on the edge of the bed acceptingly and wished I had my camera. 

We had a few hours before Lindsay’s flight left the Rapid City airport so we took our time driving there.  As we left Mount Rushmore, the surrounding town was like Daytona Beach set in the old west.  There were gift shops and saloons, ice creams shops and hotel after hotel with signs meant to one-up the competition, “Breakfast AND pool” or “Free tickets to the Reptile Garden.”  Yes, the Reptile Garden.  Many local entrepreneurs had decided to solve the age-old problem facing family vacationers. What else is there to do after you’ve driven 100 hours to South Dakota and seen Mount Rushmore? There were giant mazes, go-karts, mystery areas (your guess is as good as mine, that’s why it’s a mystery) and a place called “Ranch Amusement Park.”  Is it a ranch or an amusement park?  Just another example of how the West likes their double-labels (Ranch Park, Monument Canyon). 

Then we saw it.  In between a house and a Sonoco station were three giant Presidential busts.  Kennedy, Reagan and George W.  “What is that?” Lindsay asked.  I had no answer for her, “Do you want to see it?” I replied.  “Of course I do,” she said, sickened with the obviousness of the question.  I made a dramatic turn across the highway and pulled up next to the giant white heads.  The sign next to them was a Life magazine cover claiming they were, “1 of 21 Americas Amazing MUST SEE.”  While I pondered what the wording meant, I wondered if the cover was real and read the bottom headlines, “How to Cook Breakfast for 5,000″ and “Find the Right Bike.”  It was obviously a quality issue.   Still, there was no real explanation as to what these things were or why 3 of them had found themselves stranded next to a gas station.  As I walked closer to them, my foot hit the grass and specs jumped all around it as if there were streamers being shot up from the ground.  I screamed as I realized it was a swarm of grasshoppers and they were getting uncomfortably close to flying up my dress.  With every step, I was displacing dozens of giant bugs.  I have nothing against grasshoppers but this was truly a situation of being outnumbered and outsmarted.  I didn’t want to step on them or have them get stuck in my long skirt but I also had a strong suspicion that they might take over at any minute and throw mini-ropes up to trip me and tie down the giant who was destroying their town.  “Are you seeing this?” I kept screaming at Lindsay.  She seemed unphased. 

I tried to capture the terror on video but I just come off like a nut… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5f-_tbOjNTk

After we’d had our fill of the gas station attraction, we continued to the booming metropolis that houses the Rapid City airport.  I dropped Lindsay off at a small building where she would wait with the 5 other people who were on her flight.  Despite having already had a full morning I wanted to drive at least six more hours before stopping, so I quickly readjusted my mindset and the inside of my car to solo-passenger status.  I put everything within reach, from my water and trail mix to the electronics store that once again lived in the passenger seat.  I glanced in my rearview mirror to see Lindsay walk inside and then I looked to my right.  Phone, camera, voice recorder, mp3 player, sunglasses.  I put the car in drive and continued on.

The racing in my mind and the silence that existed beyond the radio returned quickly, and with it came a change in landscape.  The mountains and dark, changing trees were now fields of yellow that stretched straight to the blue of the sky.  I receded into my thoughts and wondered where I would be sleeping that night.  I had second cousins in Iowa but they were far enough that I wouldn’t arrive until well after midnight.  I decided to stop at a hotel instead and began dividing miles and hours and envisioned where the distance would land me.  My thoughts were interrupted by a billboard, “You scream. I scream. We all scream for Pork Loin.”  It was official, I had entered the familiar Midwest. 

About an hour after I wanted to eat, a Food sign popped up for the next exit with two fast-food locations on it.  I dismissed Pizza Hut as an option and pulled up to the Taco John’s.  I went inside and placed my order, a chicken burrito with their equivalent of tater tots.  “Will you be dining with us this evening?”  The question caught me completely off-guard.  Can one dine at a Taco John’s?  After some stammering, I said no and she handed me my ticket number.  I went to the restroom, still thinking how strange the question was.  It was a single room with bright, white walls that looked like plastic.  In a frame too small for the amount of space the wall offered was a picture of a building with black print above it, ”Sanitarium and Hospital.  Chamberlain, South Dakota.”  I stared at it for at least a minute.  Why was there a picture of a sanitarium in a Taco John’s bathroom??  Not to mention, that I wasn’t even IN Chamberlain, South Dakota.  That night I searched “Sanitarium Chamberlain South Dakota,” hoping to find a connection.  The first site that came up read, “Deaths at Chamberlain Sanitarium.”  Although I’m confident in the eccentricities of other Taco John’s locations, I feel comfortable saying that this one is the strangest. 

Driving to Mount Rushmore, we kept our eyes peeled for somewhere to grab a quick breakfast. I can only assume the lack of food options in Newcastle has to do with the deer’s hostile takeover of the city. I’d gotten little sleep after my hours of sickness. I clutched the mini-Gatorade bottle in my hand tightly as I drove, hoping at every turn that the next block could put food in my recovering-stomach. As we turned into the park, we agreed to find a gift shop and scour it for sustenance before seeing the mountain. The woods wrapped around the road, flashing glimpses of scenic passes and rivers. I knew it was beautiful but all I could think about was the kind of food the gift shop might carry. I dreamed of eating a Presidential candy bar or cookies in the shape of each man’s head. Maybe they’d have Roosevelt’s Trail Mix or Honest Abe’s Cheese Crackers. I would’ve paid any amount for cheese crackers at that point, honest or not.

Perhaps it was thoughts like these that led me to ignore the speed limit, which I only saw was 25 mph as I came down a hill and noticed a car with lights on top of it. As I kept driving, I saw the car pull behind us. Can a park ranger pull me over, I wondered? It was another couple minutes before we reached a line of cars waiting to pay the entrance fee and we had yet to be pulled over, despite passing many available areas to the side of the road. Yet as we chose our line of cars, the Rangers pulled directly behind us. “Is he gonna wait until we pay and then pull me over?” I asked Lindsay. She shrugged her shoulders and looked back towards them. We continued to an array of parking garages, all full of cars moving in and out. I turned into one and pulled down the narrow lane. Suddenly, lights turned on behind me. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said. “Where am I even supposed to go to?” I turned the wheel slightly to the right, lacking the ability to actually pull over but wanting them to know I didn’t intend to start a low-speed-garage-chase. The male ranger came to the passenger side and took my license as the female ranger shined a flashlight in the backseat behind me. “Are a lot of people paying to see Mount Rushmore really attempting to smuggle drugs?” I complained to Lindsay, once they’d gone back to their car. “Give me a break. Park Rangers. Shining your flashlight in my car because I was doing 35 in your stupid woods. Is she solving a lot of big cases with her stupid flashlight?!” The longer we waited, the angrier I got. The first two times I was pulled over, I took it in stride. But this time I was sick, I was hungry and frankly, they were park rangers. We waited a long time and people began to stop and stare. I looked in my rearview mirror and saw them laughing to each other. I looked at Lindsay with rage in my eyes, “I just want you to know that if he hands me a ticket, I’m not going to be nice about it. I want to warn you that I’ll treat the ticket as my pass to tell him what I think about how he handled this. I’m going to be one of those people and I just want to give you a heads up that it’s going to happen… And I’m looking forward to it.” I started to run a cost-benefit analysis outloud, “I’d pay $100 right now to tell this guy he’s an idiot and maybe make fun of his stupid park ranger hat.” At one point, I even threatened to buy a hat in the gift shop for the sole purpose of impersonating and demeaning them. A family of four approached the ranger’s car because he was blocking them in. He came back and told us he had messed up when writing out the $80 ticket so “due to (his) stupidity,” we could go. I started the car and pulled into a parking space nearby. “It would’ve been worth $80,” I said.

After eating, we went to the viewing area and talked about how impressive the carved figures were. I set up my timer and got a picture of us in front of Mount Rushmore. Lindsay asked a woman nearby to do the same with her camera. After she’d handed it back, we thanked her and leaned in to see the photo. “Uhhhh,” Lindsay muttered confusedly as we stared at the screen. I feel safe in my assumption that this woman had also come to see the mountain with the 60 foot tall heads carved into it that we were standing directly in front of; however she’d chosen not to include it in our photograph. After we’d grasped what happened neither of us moved for a minute, in the hopes that stillness would ward off the hysterical laughter we both knew was coming but wanted to avoid while the woman was still around.

On our walk back, a familiar car drove by. “Was that them?” I asked. Lindsay confirmed that it was my nemesis, the Park Rangers. “I didn’t see any hats in the gift shop,” I continued.  Lindsay and I walked silently for a second when I turned to her and said with complete seriousness, “If I had a Park Ranger hat on right now, that would’ve gone a lot differently.”

The day was divided evenly among Colorado and Wyoming.  Leaving Steamboat Springs, the scenery was perfection.  It was calming and expansive and the leaves had already started turning colors.  The realization that autumn was right here confounded me as I had spent the first two weeks of the trip with direct sunlight roasting my skin.  Lindsay and I stopped to take pictures at different places despite knowing we had nine hours of driving ahead of us.  “Where are we stopping tonight?” she asked.  I told her I had a couple places in mind, cities in Wyoming and South Dakota I had seen on the map that were within an hour or two of Mt. Rushmore, our destination for the morning.  “Wyoming, eh?” she said suspiciously.  Apparently Lindsay had read a story in which people from Wyoming were a little cold and inhospitable.  We laughed and brushed it off but as I looked around the vast spaces surrounding the road, that same description seemed to fit the landscape.  Its beauty was indisputable but there was a certain disconnect compared to the other places I’d driven through, giving it an almost creepy feeling.  It didn’t help that there were storms chasing us throughout the day, constant menacing skies stalking us but never really landing. 

Our spirits were lifted when we drove past a sign identifying the upcoming water.  Old Woman Creek.  As if that wasn’t pleasing enough, the creek was completely dried up. 

It was getting late and we decided to stop in a town about an hour from Mt. Rushmore.  Signs for Newcastle, Wyoming were few and far between but we were sure the lights in the distance had to be it.  It turns out that “lights in the distance” are always much further than they appear, especially if you’re exhausted and road-crazy.  There wasn’t a lot of anything around us including cars, so when I saw brake lights ahead, I slowed early and approached with caution.  I recognized this kind of dead-center stop as an animal crossing.  “There’s the deer,” I said authoritatively, not realizing that it was actually half a dozen deer camouflaged in the dusk.  I knew that the isolation would cater to many instances of deer-on-road interference but I had no idea the kind of brazen disregard the deer of Newcastle had for basic safety. 

There wasn’t a lot to the town of Newcastle.  The GPS told us there were seven hotels within a mile radius but we only saw a sign for one, the Fountain Inn.  The girl behind the counter had dyed red hair and cutoff shorts.  The quoted price seemed steep for the rustic paradise with the neon sign.  I made a joking comment to the teen hotel clerk.  No reaction.  “Anywhere nearby we could grab a pizza or something to eat?” I asked.  Her shoulders shrugged and she slowly nodded yes.  Then silence and I waited.  And then waited more.  “Uh… could you tell me about them?” I begged, staring quizzically at her blank expression. 

Eventually, we decided to price-check the other hotels in the area.  I pulled out of the parking lot slowly as another deer was standing directly where we were trying to go.  The town was eerily pitch black and none of the other hotels’ aesthetics warranted a trip inside, especially since it seemed possible they were just hotel-facades set up by zombies waiting to pounce once I walked through the door.  Resolving to head back to the Fountain Inn, I took a right turn up a hill and slammed immediately on the brakes.  ”Seriously deer?!” I yelled.  The four deer in the center of the road didn’t flinch at the sight of my car stopping dramatically to save their lives, instead glancing at me with disdain and then returning to their deer-business which only involved further standing in the road.  After collecting my breath, I slowly drove the car around the obstruction and began a lengthy rant on how it’s completely unreasonable for deer to overtake a town and refuse to acknowledge deadly, deer-crushing vehicles.  Lindsay seemed to agree although she could’ve been placating me as I’m sure she’s learned what the deer obviously have not – don’t antagonize a crazy, ranting woman driving a car. 

“Hey!  It’s me again,” I said to the emotionless redhead at the front desk.  The brooding teen handed me keys and told me that check-out was at 10am.  Perhaps that Wyoming hospitality thing wasn’t so far off.  We grabbed our stuff and approached the staircase to the second floor.  On the second or third step, Lindsay fell forward and about three steps later, I followed.  “What, are these joke steps?!” I yelled.  Finally, we made it safely to our room which had jutting concrete walls and a musky smell.  “This is the best hotel in town,” Lindsay said.  “Well we never made it inside the other ones,” I responded.  “No, there was actually an award from the Better Business Bureau in the lobby.”  I furrowed my brow as I looked around our unpleasant room.  I would spend half that night in the bathroom getting sick with something.  It was probably unrelated to the less-than-stellar room but there’s no evidence either way.  The next day we were able to verify that the concrete steps were in fact, wildly uneven.  I’m surprised there wasn’t a deer on one of them.     

 After driving a while, we approached a sign that said there wouldn’t be another gas station for 120 miles. Looking down to verify our quarter tank, I noted how lucky it was that I had even seen the puny sign. The thankful feelings soon left when I looked around us. “Do you remember seeing a gas station nearby?” I asked Lindsay. She shook her head. A feeling of anticipatory dread took over me, as if waiting to see if the teacher would collect the homework I didn’t do. “Why wouldn’t they put that sign near a gas station?” I said, hitting the wheel with both hands. I wondered what sort of sadistic individual decided it would be funnier to put the sign somewhere you couldn’t do anything about it. Paying for a sign to pose a problem and then not offering a solution. Perhaps it was the irritating killer who’d been marking all the mountains.

We eventually found a gas station without having to abandon the car and walk 500 miles (which again, is not a solid romantic strategy) and continued on our way to Steamboat Springs. Even on a dark night, you could tell it was a beautiful place. Karie and Scott took us out for dinner and we discussed what it was like to be a local in a tourist town. Earlier that day in the car, Lindsay and I had agreed that we were simply too tired to drink that night. I’d actually said the words, “maybe just one beer to be social but that’s it.” Karie and Scott were both bartenders. They asked our beer preferences and made recommendations for a good local draft. In the winter, it would be possible to ski up next to us for a drink. The combination of that kind of wood-railing ambiance, the delicious pitchers of beer and the fact that both Karie and Scott were experts at filling your glass after each sip made us quickly abandon our drinking-restraint plans.  We drank, we ate, we relaxed and I knew I’d come back to Steamboat Springs.

Before getting breakfast, the four of us stopped off at the Farmer’s Market where Karie leaned over and said, “People here really like things carved out of wood.”  To my great delight, I quickly found that she was not exaggerating.  There were benches, dressers and lamps all carved out of giant logs.  The only thing that could’ve enhanced the experience was obviously a 2-for-$10 straw cowboy hat.  I cursed myself for not pulling the trigger on those.

 During our amazing breakfast at the Creekside Cafe, Scott told us more about the rotation of local workers.  They’ve been in Steamboat longer than many and between the two of them, have worked with almost every bartender, waitress and dishwasher around.  This was evident as their mimosas kept getting refilled, free of charge.  Suddenly, I heard a scuffle behind me and noticed heads turning like dominos in the same direction.  I followed that direction to find a large, shaggy dog who had entered from the patio and was making his way happily through the tiny establishment.  A man dressed in the latest Ralph Lauren casual shorts and sweater came in after the dog, laughing and shooed him out the front door.  An interesting thing about Steamboat was that this guy fit in just as much as my lovely hippie companions.  I like a town that will accept any person mad enough to endure 14 feet of snow a year.

At this point, I had driven over 5,000 miles. Sitting in Roger Clinton trying to visualize what 5,000 miles means, I couldn’t help but think of that song, “I Would Walk 500 Miles.” 500 miles is about the length of where I got pulled over for the second time to my destination that night in Ogden, UT. It was approximately seven hours in the car.

Walking 500 miles is ridiculous. You wouldn’t “fall down at her door” because you wouldn’t make it to her door. It’s just silly. And then you know what you’d be? You’d be that guy on the side of the road who was picking up the thing with the leg… who had no car. You’d be a guy picking up legged-things to bring back to your non-existent car. That’s not what she’s looking for. That’s not romance, my friend.

I found myself admiring Ogden’s organizational skills as we left the city and came upon a mountain with a giant “U” on it.  “Utah labels its mountains,” I said, “How crafty of them.”  Eventually, we drove by multiple mountains with letters on them that seemed to stand for nothing, leaving our confused minds to grasp desperately for explanations.  Is it the first letter of the County’s name?  A high school?  Is it a giant graffiti thing?  Is there a very patient and heavy-handed serial killer out there leaving clues for someone? 

 We had a long drive that day which we assumed would be relatively unremarkable… until we drove through the town of Vernal, Utah.  As we got to the middle of what we believed to be a regular, small western town we noticed a giant dinosaur in a cowboy hat, surrounded by oversized fruit.  His hands grasped the two halves of a large watermelon which, judging by the look on his face, had been split apart in some fiendish way.  I slowed the car as we both furiously grabbed for our cameras, not realizing that this would be the first of many ridiculous giant dinosaurs.  Everywhere in Vernal had a dinosaur out front.  Strange, spiked ones in jackets.  Giant pink ones holding signs.  A fat one in a bikini.  The restaurants, the stores, the hotels.  Our eyes dashed back-and-forth to scan every giant beast with a multi-colored accessory.  As we passed the Sinclair gas station, I searched the grounds with an excited gaze.  “You’ve got to be kidding me.  That Sinclair station didn’t have a dinosaur!”  I yelled.  A look of shocked revulsion crossed Lindsay’s face.  “Isn’t that their thing?!  How dare they!” I continued, ”They had the normal, small green one on the sign but that’s it.  And he wasn’t even wearing clothes or doing anything!  He had no activities!” 

“No activities?”  Lindsay said, “Well he’ll never get into college.”

 After the excitement of Vernal, we approached signs for Dinosaur, Colorado and Dinosaur National Monument.  A monument?  Knowing how much we loved the huge dinosaurs in Vernal, we definitely had to see a monumental one.  We followed the arrows down a path and guessed what wonders this place would hold.  Further and further we drove yet nothing was around us.  As we pulled over to look around, the silence was noticeable.  There wasn’t a car for miles.  There didn’t seem to be anything for miles.  A feeling of total release passed through me and I exhaled a quiet calmness.  It wasn’t that we couldn’t see people down the hill at a restaurant or in a house.  Even hiking mountains, I knew that there were people in the lodge below me.  There is always the feeling that someone else could be on that mountain too, ready to turn the corner and come into your life.  But here, there were no people.  The distance I felt between myself and society was real.  I immediately slipped off my shoes and stepped into the middle of the road.  I walked the yellow line with lighthearted abandon, like a child deciding to avoid the sidewalk cracks.  At last I stood still and breathed deeply.

We drove further, thinking the dinosaur monument could be closer to the peak but eventually abandoned our search and turned around.  Turning back on to the main road, I saw a sign that read, “Dinosaur National Monument Canyon.”  What?!  “None of the signs we saw before said anything about a canyon,” I screeched.  “And I understand that the canyon is part of a national monument but isn’t saying ‘Monument Canyon’ a little like saying ‘house yard’?  The double-label is confusing.”

Although it was one of the most beautiful and meaningful places I’d ever been to, there was still a feeling that we’d been mislead.  There was no dinosaur.  I couldn’t help but picture Jan Hooks saying, “There is no basement in the Alamo,” followed by mocking laughter.  There was no dinosaur in Dinosaur National Monument Canyon and yes, we were Pee-Wee Herman.

We left our hotel in Washington and headed southeast.  That day took us thru 4 states: Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Utah.  Sections of the road in Washington looked out of place between the mountains, as if the untouched natural beauty just happened to have 4 lanes of concrete fall into the middle of it;  The biggest mistake of my trip so far occurred when we stopped for gas in Oregon;  Large patches of Idaho inexplicably smelled like onions (see the prior post for video of my thoughts);  and Utah held mountains, Mormons and merriment. 

(Like New Jersey, it’s trouble-making friend to the east, Oregon won’t allow you to pump your own gas.  So after pulling in to the station, I waited patiently for the attendant who informed me that I’d have to pay inside.  I walked inside to behold the garden of oddities that this offbeat paradise had to offer.  Ceramic horse statues and eagle posters flanked me on all sides… and then I saw it, “Straw Cowboy Hats 2 for $10.”  I rejoiced silently that I was in car with 2 people, both of whom lacked a straw, gas-station cowboy hat.  I went outside to tell Lindsay.  “I’m gonna go in to the bathroom,” she said.  Before I could stop her, my phone rang and I began to search for what crevice it had fallen into.  I immediately told my friend on the other line about the hats.  “You can buy those anywhere for $5,” he said.  Deflated and too lazy to go back inside, I left that station empty-hat-ed.  Worst mistake of the trip.)

We arrived at our destination in Ogden, Utah where Laura, our gracious host immediately filled us with spaghetti, garlic bread and beer.  My bottle was half empty by the time I glanced at the label.  Polygamy Porter.  “Why have Just One!”  My opinion of Utah immediately skyrocketed. 

Laura tells us what she does for the Air Force and gets judgmental on some bombs… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPQWR_riDes

In the morning, I opened my eyes and saw colorful, plastic farm animals by my feet.  Had I drank that much?  It didn’t take long for me to remember that I was not in my own home and that I was sleeping on the floor of a child’s bedroom in Utah.  (Laura’s son was not home that evening.)  Laura had taken off early that morning to go camping and was nice enough to leave us a stamped envelope and directions to mail back her key at the post office down the street.  Although we had a lengthy drive ahead of us, the excursion gave us reason to explore a little of Ogden City’s downtown area.  It had cute restaurants, artsy stores and a collection of painted horses sprinkled throughout.  We were remarking to each other how nice the area was when Lindsay said, “What was that?  Is that bronzed…”  I looked over to see a bronze statue of a little girl.  “Huh, that’s random,” I said.  “She looks like the girl from ‘The Ring’,” Lindsay muttered, her lip curled in disgust.  As we kept driving, more and more bronze children statues popped up.  There seemed to be no method to their placement and she was right, they were creepy.  “Is that one on stilts?” I yelled, pointing to a little bronze boy.  That was it.  I’m sure there is some reason to have creepy, bronze children’s statues in your town but there is nothing that could make me believe it’s ever necessary to bronze a boy walking towards you creepily on stilts. 

On our way out of town, we pulled over so I could take a picture next to one of the more odd-looking painted horses.  As I stood next to it, I leaned over and felt movement.  Apparently the horses are not bolted down.  Luckily, Lindsay was ready with the camera and captured my surprise as I grabbed for the falling colt.

And no, we did not get any pictures of the scary bronze statues.  But to be fair, I doubt they would have showed up on film anyway.

I’ve admitted before that the road loosened my sanity a tad.  This video captures my downfall perfectly. 

Somewhere in Idaho, a fly snuck into the car and under my skin.  It was the end of the day and my mental capacity had eroded steadily with each hour behind the wheel.  Click the link below to see Lindsay navigate the camera as I give an interview-style fly-rant…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1182SwsklXM