Saturday, October 3, 2015

Traffic and hills and construction and crap

Friday's drive from Denver to somewhere west sucked. 

Before that, I got to catch up with ol' buddy James -- and, briefly, with Joel and Jason. We were like a J crew. But not like that. Whatever. Anyway. 

James is doing stuff with mapquest. He gave me a tshirt. 

I also went to Second Spin records to add nonsense to our road trip cd selection. And, due to issues with the new cash register, they gave me a tshirt for free. It only would have cost $1.50, but still. That's two tshirts. 

Among the tunes I picked up were CDs by Counting Crows, Springsteen, Tanya Donelly, They Might Be Giants, the Bangles, Gin Blossoms and Britney Spears. It's Britney, bitches. 

Andrew had a work thing. Ended around 4. We took off. Hit rush hour. Hit lots of big hills; apparently there's a big mountain range near Denver. Hit construction. Finally reached whatevertown, Utah around12:30 a.m.  The drive sucked. But it was the only bad one thus far, so we're doing ok. 

The music of the drive:

Richard Thompson
Warren Zevon
Soul Asylum
Johnny Cash
Black 47
Ace of Bass
Steve Earle
Gin blossoms

Oh, also...

Danish fist
Floy
Sulphur
Silt
Mystery light
Goblin valley
Rabbit valley 
Black dragon
Ghost rock
Lone tree
Salt wash

Most of those are places or things we passed. You are welcome. 

Oh, UConn was playing at BYU that night. We weren't close to Provo, but I got to watch some at a rest stop. Tight game for three quarters, anyway. 



Friday, October 2, 2015

Breakfast of champions at the Marriott

Crime in the heartland

We leave Kansas City and roll a couple of hours before stopping at the Kansas Auto Racing Museum in Chapman, Ks., where cars are on display, legal advice is given and Jesus will Jesus your Jesus if you are a true Jesusing Jesus.

Andrew already covered some museum stuff - and some detail about the town. Museum was interesting, but could have been better. Chatting with owner (and past driver/team owner and current lawyer) Doug Thompson was cool. He said Ken Schrader had stopped by recently, as had Dave Marcis. The former is still missing part of a finger; the latter still wears wing tips. 

They also had a JesusCopter. Not to be confused with a Ry Cooder. 

Anyway, we then went to eat at Southern Comfort. They have funny signs and a Confederate clock.

I have little recollection of the meal, but the waitress immediately identified me as "a pain" because I asked for a straw. Another customer was jokingly annoying her ("I had to run him out of here last time"), so she threatened to slash his tires. Awesome. 

Though the impact of such an act might be negligible, because ...

"It's no fair -- he has a tire shop."

Then a cop came in asking if anyone knew anything about the tractor/truck parked across the street. The cop checked last night but there was no answer. One of the waitresses got in early and saw nobody, but he was blocking the turnaround. This was all quite the kerfuffle. 

Roger. The pain.
Andrew theorized that it was the Waffle House waitress' ex-husband. 

Anyway, we leave and I get change but ask for singles instead of a five. I apologize and say I'm really not trying to be a pain. 

"You're not a pain," waitress says. "Not like some people!" 

She points to Roger at the end of the counter. Poor Roger. 

So we walk out and the cop is talking to the driver of the mystery truck, who apparenty was asleep in the back. Cop wants him to move the truck roughly 50 feet down the street. The driver is explaining in some detail how it came to pass that he parked in the middle of the turnaround. The cop explains why that's not allowed and reiterates his desire for the guy to move. 

Roughly 90 seconds later, Andrew blew through a stop sign (this after the two of us had combined to stop in the middle of at least three intersections at which one isn't supposed to stop). Thankfully the town's (presumably) only cop was otherwise occupied with a defiant truck driver. 


Kerfuffle.


Clock 'n' sign.

Oh, almost forgot -- the music rundown for the day:

Michael penn
Nick Cave -- or was it Nick Lowe? Nicholas Nickleby? Nick Hornby? Some old czar? I don't remember. 
Phish
The Killers
Ray lamontagne
Jonatha Brooke 
Lake Street Dive
Rage Against the Machine
Carole King
REM



Thursday, October 1, 2015

Sky

Feeling lazy. Maybe I'll post more tomorrow. So in the meantime, here's the Kansas sky. Or Colorado. I don't remember. Probably the latter. Whatever.