7/17/2007

Its been a few days since I’ve last been able to sit in front of the computer, and as such, there are a few different things that have come to mind to share, so bare with me, its about two pages single spaced in word. If you don’t feel like reading it, I don’t blame you, its just the sarcastic ravings of a 22 year old stuck in Wyoming without much else to do.

First, I would like to apologize if the rest of this post is overly sarcastic and/or not quite coherent. I’m writing it dead tired at 1030 at night. Some of you may be asking yourself, why would Josh not just go to sleep? Others may be wondering if my insomnia is striking up again. Both good thoughts. Unfortunately, due to a freak accident with the tent, I’m awake as a result of having to try to sleep in the car for the night. While we were out completing the second half of today’s ride, out of the blue, a post on the tent decided to snap. Not only that, it had to happen on one of the three days of rain that we’ve seen since leaving the cascade mountains. When its raining and the tent flaps have been zipped up as a wise precaution, you would think that my bed, laid out nice and comfortably in the middle of the tent would be safe. But no, combine these two freak occurrences, and my safest position in the tent for any storm is soaked. On top of that, my brother’s equipment was untouched, and my father’s only lightly wet in a couple of spots. The small wet spots on his pillow made him believe his night was also greatly affected by this freak occurrence. That gave him the right to try and make it sound like I’m bitching while he is toughing it out like some kind of man of steel. Please. My pillow and the top half of my sleeping bad are soaked to the point that I can’t lie down. The top of my air mattress is holding a few pools of water, while the bottom sits in a nice amount as well, just to ensure neither side is dry. On top of that, when I decided to try to sleep through it, my weight on the upper half brought the pools of water on the mattress to the dry portions of my sleeping bag, making impossible to sleep, even in my exhausted state. This happens to him, we’re driving the 50 miles to Rawlins and we’re staying in a hotel. Instead I’m writing this from the car, having just heard how he isn’t bitching, how he’s stayed in worse, yada yada yada. It’s helped my night get way better to hear.

Wouldn’t you know, but I was going to be biking tomorrow. I had just completed my first ride without the bike breaking on me, and this happens. The Fates are seriously conspiring against me getting on a regular schedule of cardiovascular intensive exercise, whether its giving me bad knees that pain after running or making it impossible for me to ride on a regular basis. Maybe I should resign myself to a nice couch, a big TV, and a bottomless bag of peanut M&Ms, because its not looking like I’m going to be able to get off my ass to exercise any time soon.

In other, non-rant related news, as I just mentioned, I did successfully get through a days ride without the bike trying to throw me off or breaking in the process. Instead, I got to bike a wonderful 42 miles. It was nice to actually get out and take down some hills, as we climb toward the continental divides (where we are going, we are hitting the continental basin, which will allow us the pleasure of two separate continental divides). It was also nice to get out to a good pace putting up 15mph for the first two hours in my first serious distance trip of the ride. I’m really looking forward to putting more of these days in on the bicycle, as it was truly a pleasure.

As part of the journey, we are seeing some interesting things in this part of Wyoming. One of these kind of struck me as strange, so please let me explain. You know how sliced bread revolutionized the making of sandwiches, or so we hear? Well, what sliced bread did for sandwiches, what we found out here has done for drunken driving. People, I have found the source of all those empties on the side of the road. It’s called a drive through liquor store. I kid you not, they actually exist. It really made no sense at all to me, until one lady explained how, at one point (she wasn’t sure it was still the case), you could drink and drive in Wyoming, so long as you weren’t on a main road or highway. Brilliant, they’ve found a way to not only legalize drinking and driving in Wyoming, but a way to encourage it as well. Bravo, Wyoming, well done.

I’ll try to knock off a few others quickly here, as they weren’t as absurd to see, but just new or different to me. Dust devils are one such thing. I’m not talking run of the mill swirling bits of dust in an empty parking lot, but an all out swirling, looks like a tornado and would be if it got too much stronger dust devil. Kind of beautiful, since you know from looking at them they aren’t going to be putting any of the cows along the roadside through your window. Also, the mountains, with there different layers of sediment, are beautiful. Not to mention the mesas, which I’ve never seen in person before. Put either of these against a setting sun, and you’ve got quite the scene to take in.

And now for something completely different. It’s tourist season here in southwestern Wyoming, which brings around a question. Wyoming has a tourist season? The only thing that I’ve seen nice about this state is the aforementioned mesas and hills, and Yellowstone National Park, which is hundreds of miles away. I know I talked about bringing my kids here in the summer as some type of punishment a few posts ago, but who would actually be that cruel? It’s tough to find a place to eat that isn’t a chain, and if you do, chances are its either so-so Mexican food or a run down diner of sorts.

Speaking of the run down diners, I may have had the worst food experience in recent years, and that is saying something considering the different foods I’ve tried in recent years. We go into a restaurant near our hotel in Green River, Wy called Buckaroos, trying to get a quick meal so we can get back to watch Entourage, which is coming on in a little over an hour. So we sit down, and don’t get noticed for a solid five plus minutes, a solid start. If there wasn’t a time crunch, normally it’s see you later, time to move on. But, as there isn’t another non-fast-food restaurant within 15 miles, we deal with it. Finally, we catch the waitress’s attention, get menu’s and get our drink orders in. We wait another five plus minutes for our drinks and to put our orders in. After we get our orders in, we hear the one other group of people in the restaurant send their meal back, fish, uncooked to the kitchen, an encouraging sign for what is to come. Anyways, we ordered two turkey clubs with bacon and a chef’s salad after having been in the restaurant around 15 minutes. It’s around 810 and we’re feeling pretty comfortable, as the only thing that has to be cooked for our meals is the bacon. Around 840, as my father’s head is getting ready to explode, and I’m not too far away myself, our food actually does arrive. Pretty awful service, bad menu, and a terrible wait, but all that is out the window, we’re just happy to have food at this point. So I bite into my turkey club, not taking the time to look at it. They took all that time after all, its surely been made with care, right? Wrong. What I’ve got sitting in front of me is a glorified ham sandwich. That’s right, our turkey clubs have decided to turn into ham sandwiches, only cut into quarters. I’m baffled. We get the waitress over after another healthy wait to ask what the deal is. At this point I’m eating the sandwich, ham and all, which by the way I don’t like, but there is a time crunch and I’m starving, so sacrifices are necessary. She lets us in on the fact that they are out of turkey, and the cook decided to make them with ham instead. Oh yeah, and no bacon, because there out of that too. Bacon, the only reason the meal should have taken over five minutes to prepare. But hey, we’re polite, don’t want to send them back, just want to eat and get on our way. After all, there is the time crunch, can we have the check, we must be going. So we get the check, try to pay, but she has trouble with the card machine, eventually getting the card through. Of course we notice that its been put through for 3 dollars and 13 cents. Being the nice gentlemen that we are, we point this out, and after another struggle, pay our bill in full. All said and done, we get out of the restaurant at five past nine, with a soundly subpar meal. This is what we are putting up with in Wyoming when it has come to food. Happy ending, HBO apparently is only separated into HBO East and HBO West, with no HBO Central or Mountain. This means that Entourage didn’t start until 10, and we got to enjoy what has become without a doubt the best show on television. Anyways, this has ran on too long for right now, so I’ll once again save writing about the building excitement for Ragbrai for another day. That’s all for now, check back later for some more sarcastic rambling.