Later than we expected, and with Kevin sans his cell phone (oops!), Liz, Kevin, Si and I climbed into the car and took off from Fort Collins, CO around 3PM yesterday. We hit up Bill Tucker before we left town, who gifted us with an aerobed, a pedometer, and mirrored sunglasses to aid us on our quest.
We made a quick stop-over in Vail, where everyone we met had a French accent and visited a “please rape me now”-style bathroom, down the stairs in a concrete bunker.
Refreshed and ready to go, we jumped back on the highway and headed toward Grand Junction, Colorado where my Great Grandma Bailey was celebrating her 85th birthday (as it turns out, she’s the same age as Warner Brothers – and questioned why they haven’t sent her a present yet). We all sang Happy Birthday to her and had a good time hobknobbing for some birthday cake and ice cream.
Jumping back on the road from Grand Junction to Salt Lake City, we hit up Wendy’s and totally forgot to grab gas (though, we TOTALLY rocked the tweet exiting town).
The road between Grand Junction and Salt Lake was foggy – but in Utah, there’s all sorts of amazing signage. We stayed with Deb, who lives with the Minority Leader of the Utah Senate – David. Deb and David are kick-ass hosts – David makes a killer coffee and Deb makes amazing, custom greeting cards.
Deb shared an amazing diner with us, the Blue Plate, where we were served by Ruby. The owner, Von, shared the story of the diner and we’ll post that video later. It’s been the best first restaurant experience we’ve ever had.
We stopped in at Signed and Numbered, run by Leia and opened up 5 days ago. She’s the first person who knew about the Spiral Jetty – which is where we’re headed today before heading to Portland!
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#Sunshine2Seattle Day 2 – Oregon, Ho-shit…
Our first hour in Oregon, we met one of the five state patrol officers. $600 worth of speeding and miscellaneous fines later, we were officially on our way to Portland. I’m told by my friend Cole that it’s one officer per 400 miles in Oregon. Awesome, we got his autograph!
I’ll post photos here later – for some reason I can’t upload them on this Wifi (sitting in Goldrush Coffee, Portland OR).
Okay, so the day wasn’t all doom and gloom (though the road mostly was – snow and freezing rain all the way). It was a bit of a disappointing start out of Utah – we discovered that you can’t actually get to the Spiral Jetty without a Jeep, a goat, and four sherpas. We did find the Golden Spike, though – the place where on May 10, 1869, they drove the final connecting spike in the transcontinental railroad. Read more on our adventure through Utah here.
We “arrived” in Idaho completely by surprise, stopping at what we thought was the last gas station in Utah only to find out that we were actually in Delco, Idaho. A quick stop-over at a Jack in the Box in Boise with an outdoor fireplace and we were back on the road. Liz managed to alert us to the fact that we’d entered Oregon, as well.
Arriving in Portland around 10:30 PM, we received our cavity search from the officer, and plowed through to Xena’s house. Xena introduced us to what Liz refers colloquially as “Food Carnies” – a row of trailers that serve a variety of different foods. Kevin, Si and I had some amazing poutin fries and Liz had something good enough to inspire her to marry her food-carnie chef with whatever implement looked ring-like enough (we found a washer in the car).
Food Carnie husband in tow, we hit Voodoo Doughnuts – and Liz snagged the last Maple Bacon Longjohn while Xena and I had a conversation about why ducks are so goddamn creepy. I wasn’t sure I agreed until I heard her arguments. As it turns out, warrior princesses are very persuasive.
This morning, we’re going to hit up The Meadows, a salt-tasting extravaganza, and Kornblatt’s Deli, and maybe dropping Si off with some bike carnies (we’re finding there’s a lot of them in Portland). Updates to come – check out our Twitter stream.