Colorado - Wyoming

Drove from Golden, Colorado to Dubois, Wyoming, which I call Blanche.  I keep looking for Tennessee Williams, or at least someone yelling "Stella" on the street but I suppose that isn't going to happen.  We drove in on Hwy 287 and it was part plain and boring and part beautiful, land formations with red and tan and white striations and green valleys with blue streams running through them.  This town Blanche, oops, Dubois, is small, just some motels and gas stations, lots of shops with Indian crafts.  It's about an hour from the south entrance to Yellowstone Park. Turns out you can't take dogs in the park too much but we (me and little Cooper) will figure that out tomorrow. Perhaps we will have to depend on the kindness of strangers!

I had a brilliant thought the other morning that I thought I would share with you and you can share it with people who are on a serious food budget, or are homeless, or unemployed and watching their pennies.  On Tuesday night I stayed at a chain motel in a row of three other chain motels.  They all advertise a free breakfast.  Now, we all know how crappy these breakfasts are, right?  But here's the thing:  when you walk into the breakfast lounge, no one ever asks if you are a guest of the hotel. No one knows who you are because the morning shift is not the shift who checks people in. Therefore, anyone can walk into any of these motels and have breakfast!  (Not that they would want to, but that's another story.)  The least noxious parts of these breakfasts are the fresh fruit and the bowls of small containers of decent yogurt.  If a person looked clean enough and not too creepy or needy, that person could easily come in, get some fruit, some yogurt, perhaps a muffin, maybe a cup of coffee, and just walk out the side door like they were going to their room!  Voila!  Free food!  Is it stealing?  Well, yes, but I am sure the motel owners, if they had any kindness or morals, wouldn't really mind.  And a person without food gets to eat something good.  Win, win.  Sort of.

Finally, I don't think I ever mentioned the Texas tradition of highway road stops dedicated to Jesus.  Not kidding.  There are huge billboards out in west Texas reminding drivers when they are coming up and they even have diners with names like "Heavenly Burgers: the Lord's Best Burger!"  Again, not kidding.  You can stop, pee, have a Jesus burger and probably even gas up your car!  Salvation, sustenance and fuel, all in one spot.

OK, time for bed.  Cooper and I are getting up early to hit the park before the RV's clog the roads. 

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