While in Gerlach, finishing up our final days at Burning Man, I stumbled upon a craigslist ad in Kansas City looking for stay-at-home-moms and high school kids to work on a pumpkin patch. I responded to the ad explaining that I was neither, but I was fully capable of working on a pumpkin patch. I also mentioned that, since I had the keys to the RV, my wife would be coming to help as well. For whatever reason the guy Donovan; who I assumed to be an elderly, toothless farmer told us to be there in 5 days. Google maps said it would be a 24 hour drive so I told Donovan, “see you in 5 days.” And off we went.
Day 1 we drove through Nevada and stopped to stay at a Bass Pro Shop in Salt Lake City. We parked outside of downtown to pay a visit to the temple when we stumbled upon a greek festival where we filled up on baklava and lamb. We decided that we wanted to keep moving so we set sail for the small city of Ogden, Utah to spend the night. The City sounded familiar but I couldn’t place it, until a radio commercial advertising a minor league baseball team came on. I remembered that I had allowed a walk of home run in Ogden, back in my playing days, it was obviously something I didn’t wish to relive. Regardless we took in a game and enjoyed some three percent beers at the Ko-ko-mo Club for old times sake. The next day, we stopped for lunch in Evanston, Wyoming. We needed to get the oil changed in the RV and there happened to be the most epic Chinese place ever across the street. One of the things we appreciate the most are pleasant surprises and this lifestyle has been full of them. While we ate, we mapped out our next destination, Laramie Wyoming! We discovered, thanks to Wikipedia, that Laramie was home to the University and presumably cheap beers. Being that it had been nearly 16 hours since our last drink we made a date of it. We were the oldest people in town but the beer was cheap and weather was nice. We bought a guy a drink for offering his seat to Alyssa at the bar. It turned out he was a fellow wanderer, who had been on the road for over a year and was heading back to his home in South Carolina. We swapped stories, took shots, drank beers and things got sorta fuzzy after that. We woke up on the side of the street next to a bus stop, thankfully enough, inside of the RV.
That next day, we made it into and through most of Nebraska ending up just outside of Lincoln. Due to the previous nights festivities, we were unable to enjoy the nightlife but were no less thankful for the night in. With our destination merely a day or so away we took time to reflect in our trip to date and discuss just how much we enjoy driving. Driving had always been somewhat of a chore and something that I despised, but driving the RV is something different. Getting behind the wheel with no true destination is one of the most freeing feelings of my life. It also helps that I have a beautiful woman and a dog with an under bite by my side to let me know every time I miss an exit. We touched the state of Kansas only stopping to drop another hundred bucks into the gas tank before we finally reached Kansas City, Missouri. With a day to kill, you probably assume that we spent the evening enjoying the many museums and culture of the city. You’re better than that! We went bar hopping DUH!!! And those stories are for another time.