Day Three: North Platte to Denver

As promised, we actually got a breakfast this morning. Not that it was anything spectacular, I splurged on Apple Jacks. The room smelled like gasoline, and there were several questionable characters; a 40 year old lady with hair extensions and fuzzy slippers, a group of Asian girls wearing matching blue scrubs from top to bottom, and a creepy old dude staring at the Asian girls.

Another family of travelers was also heading to Denver, as I found out from their enthusiastic six year-old. He informed me excitedly that they were coming from "Grandma's house in Chicago." We left the Howard Johnson hotel, not before taking pictures of the awful blue Toyota decked out head-to-toe in Cookie Monster garb. (Which is a bit silly, seeing as the cookie monster eats veggies now. Am I the only one who's upset about that? I mean, why is he even still the cookie monster? Is he the veggie monster?)

The drive through Nebraska was a bit more uneventful than I would like it to be. The high point of the day for me was the trip to Carhenge, which was less about the actual attraction than the fields of wind-power generators. Those things are my bug-zapper, I was about to have Matt drive off into the field so we could get a closer look. If you stare hard enough, they start to become scary; like little jacks lined up on the horizon.

Carhenge was exactly what I would picture for a tourist trap, which is unfortunate, because the art involved was a lot more elaborate than I expected. It was really pretty cool, and would be even better without the throngs of click-happy tourists writing all over the cars. I would like to consider myself above them, being a photographer, but I think that's just optimistic thinking. Don't call me a hypocrite.

The overly-enthusiastic, chunky, gift-shop owner seemed thrilled to have human conversation; we walked in and she attacked us immediately with a punchy, "Hello! Can I get you anything?" After getting a t-shirt for Jayni, and flattening a penny in a completely-for-profit penny flattening device, we scooted out before she asked for a hug.

Denver was a lot more exciting than I thought it was going to be. The traffic was a bit too much to deal with, but we made it to Matt's cousin's house in one piece. Upon our arrival, we were offered cold water and beer (my kind of welcome). Charlie (Matt's cousin) is a fairly successful advertising entrepreneur, with a lovely house right on the outskirts of the city. He offered to take us to dinner; as hungry as we were, we did not refuse.

We went to a delicious Mexican restaurant called Tamayo, where I enjoyed the special: Garlic-roasted Halibut with a goat cheese chile pepper and black bean sauce. For Dessert: Plantain empanadas. We left, only after consuming prickly pear cactus tequila and a Pineapple margarita. I don't even want to know how much the dinner cost, but I was extremely grateful, and quite a bit buzzed.

I seemed to bond with Charlie's ten year-old daughter, Lauren. She referred to Matt as "your boyfriend" instead of by his first name. That really entertained me, seeing as she is Matt's cousin and not at all obligated to remember me. I was not allowed to go to bed until I painted her nails, with glow-in-the-dark nail polish, at that. This bed is awfully comfortable...