Creativity isn't the necessity I see

...that's the grafitti of the day...from Cruel Jack's restaurant at the intersection of interstate 80 and WY 191. We had lunch there, in need of a big Uhmerican food...Harve ordered 8 lbs of fried food, but we had salad, too. Now we've just finished up the leftovers reheated in the RV oven along with round 2 or 3 (who's countin'?) of campari cocktails.

Road Kill:
jackson pollock splatter (many times over)
crows
coyote
deer
jack rabbit

Live:
deer herds
sage grouse
pronghorn herds

Forgot to tell y'all about the possibility that our unplans would be spoiled a few times. It first happened in South Dakota, where just west of the extremely-less-than-thriving metropolis of Lusk, we saw a sign that stated that if the light was red, we must turn right around and go back to Lusk because the road was closed.

Okay, so that was a state highway we were traversing, and so when it happened again around Casper, WY, we weren't so surprised, except you would think "Casper, everyone's heard of Casper" and it was big enough that wouldn't be happening. THEN, today, we're on I-80, a major cross-nation interstate and sure enough, "If red light is flashing, highway is closed, return to Rawlins!" That whole experience and the preponderance of snow fences makes me glad we're not traveling in snow season.

This is where we fueled up today; if you can't tell, this car runs both ways, 2 driver's seats, 2 wheels, everything!

Here's the fuel stats, per Harve "for the faint hearted look away":
322 miles
41.489 gallons
$125.25
3.019/gallon
7.76 mpg
Make what you will of that.

Dinosaur National Monument
It's 9/11, granted, but is that any reason for this place to be half-assed open? Yep, turns out we arranged our driving pattern to little avail. Harve asks, "So, you mean we drove 200 miles to see these dinosaur bones and this is all there is?" And the bee-atch at the counter in the interactive rest stop of a monument [Harve here, I have to tell tale, it was a roadside reststop, i.e. restrooms, with some lean-to easels with some bullshitty interpretive crap on them - harve] says, "yes." Well, I took a look around at the obviously temporary exhibit boards, cocked an ear toward the self-important ranger type giving a "lecture" to a group of 3 people and eavesdropped on the same counter woman who was oh-so-nice to whomever she was speaking with on the phone, explaining all about the things one CAN do at the site even though the actual dinosaur dig quarry is CLOSED.

Yes, as of July 12, apparently the major attraction has been closed due to "some damage," whatever that means. So, what happened is we figured out the score and cajoled the counter woman to hand over a little map and speak a bit about what we CAN do (even though the actual dinosaur dig quarry is CLOSED) since we drove 200 miles to see the friggin' dinosaur bones. [Can you tell I've had a few cocktails?]

Anyway, the great thing is that we took what was touted as a 3/4 mile "geological tour" during which we took a walk by ourselves amongst the rocks and fossils and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We had our little xeroxed guide and sweated and tried to catch our breath at 8000 ft and it was EXACTLY what I wanted to do after viewing mountains and rocks all day from behind the wheel. I loved it. [We also jumped the fence and peered through the window, and it did not cause Utah to go into Orange Alert as far as we were aware, although we had been warned we be ticketed - Harve]

Now we're at KOA Vernal, UT. Dogs got frisbee and kong fetching, we got leftovers and cocktails and the world is beautiful from this point of view. Good night.

Marge

Track that worked for me: anything trance ambient in the basin and range
Track that worked for us: Luxury Liner by Gram Parsons and the Flying Burrito Brothers