Checking in from the road - Page 3 - ThinnerTimes

LisaM · 06-27-2007, 06:05 AM

Glad you guys are enjoying it - it's been good for me, to look at things and think "I gotta tell the forum folks about this!" Speaking of which, on the traveling alone subject, I was talking to a shop owner in Roswell, New Mexico, (more later on that) about how far I was traveling, and something I said made it apparent I was travelling by myself...Her first comment was, "Alone?!" obviously horrified at the idea. Then she got this far-away look in her eyes, and said, "My God, wouldn't that be wonderful? My husband and my daughter fight over the XM radio station even on five-minute trips. I could have it all to myself if I was in the car alone!" I may have started a mini-revolution...

On the mini-wow side of the fence, my morning's mini-wow was the shower in the hotel room. Waterpik-type pulsing shower head very high on the wall, could barely reach it. Low pressure in the lines resulted in exactly two pulsing streams coming out of the shower. Unfortunately, they were on opposite sides of the shower head, and they landed on either side of my body. The punch line? I pretty much had to run around in the shower to get wet!

Got to fly, long way to drive yet...

coptergirl · 06-27-2007, 06:24 AM

Good Lord girlfriend - your adventures are funner than mine!! You had me cracking up over here

Thanks for sharing your journeys with us!!

JenBear7 · 06-27-2007, 09:14 AM

LOL .. the Kum and Go always had the best prices when we were in Colorado... I figure opening a bar called the G spot next door would be very profitable.. you could hit the G spot and Kum and Go all in one fell swooP!

Duckie · 06-27-2007, 10:24 AM

Lisa, I can actually visualize that shower. lmao You sound like you are having a blast! I love travelling by myself!
Jen... LMAO!

CeeCee · 06-27-2007, 10:58 AM

Love the updates...but could you at least slow down to 70-something while upchucking? Please?

LisaM · 06-27-2007, 09:40 PM

Sorry, CeeCee, I had a rough one again today... don't know if I'm missing my body signals, or if it's just the stress and being off my schedule, but I was tossing my cookies as I went under the sign that said "Continental Divide." Pain and stuff lasted for about an hour, from Bozeman to Butte, and then I was pretty much feeling better... Driving up a mountain while re-sampling your lunch is second only in hair-raising experience to driving down a mountain...but I was at about 75 miles an hour when I went under the sign!

However, I'm here, and I'm safe and at least vaguely sound, and I'll tell y'all more about sleeping in a Murphy bed in Casper and the subsequent trippiness that seems to afflict all my traveling when I get my feet under me.

Happy trails and goodnight...

LisaM · 06-28-2007, 06:30 AM

Finally back on my own personal schedule - up at 5 am, trying to quietly make my way around my friend's house with everyone sleeping, get some coffee in me, get my moment to moment life back into some semblance of my own reality. Slept for crap, but I always do the first night in a strange bed.

OK, the last of my observations from the road...and once I get my photos uploaded, I'll post a selected few that aren't too boring, and that will be the end of the travelogue.

Gas station bathrooms haven't changed much since my mother taught me to hang in mid-air over a toilet... not easy for the tiny person that I was as a child, or the tiny person that I am now! When I was fat, I just sat down and said the heck with it, but I'm getting more germ-phobic again. Best bathrooms were in New Mexico, worst bathrooms, Montana.

The surprises were the best part - passing a whitetail doe on a New Mexico road at 6:30 in the morning, then five miles later, stopping and taking photographs of a pronghorn antelope who just looked back at me from less than 10 yards away, even when I braked to a gravel-scrunching halt and rolled my passenger side window down to take a picture of him...at least, I think it was a him.

The only cop I saw face to face was the New Mexico state trooper who stopped when I parked on the side of the highway to take some wildflower pics. Within five minutes of me getting out of the car, he pulled up behind me, lights flashing, got out of the car, asked if I was OK. When I said I was, he told me to have a good day, got back in his car and was on his way.

More surprises--the friendly hotel clerk in Casper, Wyoming, who offered me the "Murphy bed" room at the AARP discount (I'm not over 50, but the DH is, so I'm a member by proxy). So, I got a perfectly good half-priced hotel room with all the amenities, just a bed that came down out of the wall!

The Montana side roads I took headed north from I-90 instead of taking Hwy 93 had even more pleasant experiences in store. Decided against 93 when my friend told me of the bumper stickers around here that say "Pray for me, I drive 93." The road past Swan Lake and Seely Lake and other natural jewels both large and small was incredible, amazing vistas around every curve.

I have been too insulated in my life, away from weather, away from so much. The clouds matter in this country, as they do in West Texas, and Colorado and Wyoming...they mean life-giving rain, and bring wildfires with a single, well-placed bolt of lightning. I've lived in cities and towns too long... Clouds matter.