(Finally) Here Comes The Sun...

Picking Up &

I figure I should start getting this all down sooner than later since everyday that goes by is another day that I risk forgetting more...

This should be a relatively short read since not much happened. If you are in need of a refresher with what happened to us in the first chapter, or if this is your first read about the trip, then perhaps you might want to stop, go and come.


Stop reading this...
Go here Follow That Setting Sun and then...
Come back and press on...

Pressing On

Okay, time for the next chapter of the MAW trip... We last left our heroes relieving themselves at 1:30 in the morning in Lincoln, IL. I forgot to point out that even Ana wanted to be a part of the peefest... she peed through her diaper. Upon doing so she, as you may have already concluded, got her outfit wet too... and yes, the car seat as well. I had packed a rag/towel just in case, so under her bottom it was to go. Only one problem, it was packed in the hitch tray on the back of the truck. This meant that I would have to undo the cargo net and then the hold-down straps to get under the canvas tarp I had covering everything up. I ask you... what the heck else is there to do in Lincoln, IL at 1:30am? Darn right... either you go drinkin', or you pull into a closed gas station, have your entire family pee wherever they want, unpack a portion of your truck, re-pack your truck and then flee the multi puddled scene. Now that I've muscled my way into the driver's seat, after throwing my colossal weight around, let's get this thing pointed down the road and back on the highway. With everyone comfy in their seats and enjoying all that newly gained room since emptying their respective bladders... it's time for y'all to get some sleep.

On The (dark) Road Again

As Willie sez... On the road again. We're back on the road; I know this because of the familiar tire whine as we roll along in the moonlight. You know what? Illinois in the dead of night (or morning pending your perspective) sure looks an awful lot like Missouri in the dead of the night. You know what else? Missouri in the dead of the night looks like Kansas. If we were to use the transitive property rule here, then Illinois and Kansas look the same as each other too. What I'm getting at here is it all looked the same to me (dark) that and I have no real recollection of anything, I seriously don't remember. Not entering Missouri, not even crossing the Mississippi... nothing. It was just a big moonlit black canvas that we rolled on through. I mean I know I drove it since we did make it to Kansas and last I checked, with the route we chose... there was no way around it. We had to, and did go through Missouri. I do remember getting a couple of phone calls as we rolled along. Concerned family members making sure we were still awake. Julie's sister Lisa to be exact (we'll hear more about her later on) and one from Julie's aunt. Other than that, I have no recollection of anything that happened from Lincoln to when we stopped for breakfast.

Trivia time... Since, and ironically, we're running away from the rising sun... did you know that no matter how fast you drive, the sun will catch you? I know weird huh?

You recall in the first post where I mentioned our thinking was that traveling through the night would be advantageous since the kids would sleep most of the way? Remember reading that? Being that it's dark and we're in the car, you'd figure that sleeping kids should be a snap... Well, let's just say the best laid plans aren't always the ones that end up taking shape. I couldn't sleep a wink with Julie behind the wheel but now that I've got the controls it's all I can do to not assume the (as my dad used say) "catching flies" position. For those that don't know that that means... it's when you fall asleep with your head back nose pointing to the ceiling and your mouth agape.

"Uh... Houston, we have a slight problem"
"Go ahead Sequoia 8"
"Houston... we've got nappers"
"Say again Sequoia 8"
"Yes, uh Huston we have no sleepers, just nappers..."
"Copy that Sequoia 8, no sleepers"
"Ummm Houston, we have a bigger problem"
"Go ahead Sequoia 8..."
"Houston... Captain seems to be the only sleeper"
"Copy that Sequoia 8..."
"Houston, what do you want us to do?"
"Houston?" "Houston?"
"Do you copy Houston?"
"We copy Sequoia 8... we're working out a plan down here... stand by"
"Standing by..."
"Sequoia 8... try caffeine and proceed with sleep dodging exercises"
"Roger that Houston"
"Godspeed Sequoia 8... Godspeed"

So there's a lot of shaking, and rubbing, of my head (by me) in efforts to snap me out of it. Julie hates hearing both of those sounds. See, when I shake my head, I make a noise. I let my lower lip and jaw hang loose and it makes this sound that she hates. It's akin to a St. Bernard shaking his head back and forth. Oh, the other sound? It's the sound my hand makes on my buzzed head... kinda like rubbing sandpaper. When She hears those, she knows I'm fighting it.

The Sun'll Come Out Tomorrow

Turns out that not being able to out run the rising sun is a good thing. The only way to see it though is in the driver's mirror or the passenger mirror. Even so, it popping up over the (rear) horizon gave a boost that no amount of caffeine could. Seeing it rise is a spirit lifter for sure. It's like the alarm clock going off signaling the beginning of a new day... okay, so it's not really like that. What is one of the first things you do after the alarm goes off, other than curse the damn thing? Aside from peeing... it's breakfast! So breakfast it is... "Who's hungry?" A harmonious "ME!" arose from behind. By now, we are in Kansas and we decided that (for lack of any other choice) the winner by default was... McD's. The one we stopped at was one that was in the middle of the highway. Meaning that it was between eastbound and westbound traffic making it accessible to both.

With the sun shining and a brilliantly blue sky, I couldn't wait to get out, stretch my legs and take in the beautiful crisp morning air. Ahhh... S - T - R - E - T - C - H... SNIFFFFF! Hmmm kinda smells like um... manure. Don't think I much care for the way mornings smell in this part of Kansas. We managed to turn a few heads as the eight of strolled in at around 6am and sat down to eat. This is when the Clarke in me comes out, not Kent, but Griswold. Okay people, we're on a schedule, only eight more hours in the car to go. We need to get to the Colorado Springs area by 1:40pm to make the Cog Railway (the train up Pike's Peak). Let's finish up people... Lyndsey, finish your pancake please. Jake... your sausage. Rachael, please stop blowing bubbles. You don't need any more syrup Lyndsey. No Nick, you may not have Lyndsey's sausage, you've had two already. Who needs to go potty? Make sure we wash hands. Let's get back in the truck and get going. The washing of the hand, or lack thereof, will haunt us later.

We can still make that afternoon train, but we gotta hurry... unlike the Cubs on opening day, we are still in it... at least mathematically. Another rest stop in Kansas (fresher smelling air here) to stretch and get some candy/cookies... and thank God for those roadside rest stop vending machines and the people who stock them... and hmmm. This is going to be tighter than we thought. It's looking more and more like making that afternoon train wasn't going to be happening. Time to break it to Emmah. She wasn't happy, but she understood and seemed okay with it. We told her that we'd make it back out and take the train then. With the Colorado border inching closer and closer spirits were high. The end was in sight and we can finally get out of the truck for more than 15 minutes at a crack!

Taking The Road Less Traveled

Julie and I like to (at times) take the road less traveled... I have no qualms about driving on something other than the interstate. If it's on the atlas, then it's big enough for me. We felt that taking I-70 into C.S. was a little less direct than getting off at a town called Oakley (in Kansas) and hopping on route 40. Take 40 to Colorado route 94 and take 94 into C.S. and eventually to Cascade. Cascade is where we were setting up camp... The Lone Duck campground. At this time I would like to mention that Julie's friend Lesley (who lives in Morrison, Colorado) had mentioned that she would like to travel with us throughout Colorado. She was to meet up with us in Cascade, camp and travel with us until we left Cortez en route to Four Corners. I make mention of her partly because I will be mentioning her in a future post and because we needed to let her know which path we're taking in since it was quite possible that we might be RUNNING OUT OF GAS in the middle of nowhere... an occasional potential side effect of taking the less traveled road.

& Running On Empty

Okay, as you know a large SUV doesn't exactly sip gas and having it all loaded up and down it's now chugging the stuff. Keeping an ever watchful eye on the DTE (distance 'til empty) and the other one the road... I know... you're thinking wow Jeff, how is THAT even possible for you... we come upon a small sign that says next gas 71 miles. Huh? Hmmm... when, and where exactly was the last station we passed anyway? And while we're at it, why didn't it say there that next gas was "X" miles? Neither of us could remember and at this point there was going to be no turning back. To date, we have never run out of gas on any of our trips. We came close once in Yosemite during the Caravan 5 mission... according to the navi-computer our DTE stood at a mere 6 miles for that one. Now the DTE miles and the MTG (miles til gas) are about identical... hopefully we won't have to jettison our children or worse yet, our gear. It's around this time that I suggest to Julie to call Lesley (since we have a signal and we don't know if we'll have one when we potentially run out) and let her know that if she doesn't see us at the campground, this is the path we're on... come get us! The roads could never me misconstrued as flat, and from what I can see (which incidentally is a bunch of dirt) from where I'm sitting, we are in "nothing but horizon" Colorado. There is some moderate concern that the uneven terrain might be our undoing.

Side note: Just want to inject a twist of irony here. Lesley was having car troubles of her own and wasn't going to be making it to Cascade that night anyway. As a matter of fact, there was some doubt as to her making it at all since the garage that she took her truck to hadn't fixed the problem in the first place. We later found out that to make amends (seeing that she had already taken time off from work) the owner of the shop allowed her to use the company's mini-van... the van will become a vital and welcome ally. She eventually made it and met up with us the next afternoon.

Okay... back to our nearly depleted gas tank. I had just recently read an article about a competition where people try to get the highest MPG out of their cars. They were talking to the guy that has won it several times now and he was explaining how he did it. He did it by having the windows up, the AC off and slipping it into neutral and coasting... that and not driving a loaded up Sequoia. He was able to achieve insane mileage. So that's the plan, 'cept I added one more thing... I set the cruise control to 45. When I'd hit the top of a hill, I'd slip it in neutral and coast for a bit. Now it was a race between the DTE/gas tank and the MTG/odometer. We started putting some distance between the two numbers and we were coming out on the plus side... it was working. WHEW! We limped on in to the next gas... and thusly to Lone Duck. We set up camp in real daylight, one of only two times. We were tired and we were hungry and in search of/for some good local fare.

Upon the recommendation of the Duck's owner, we headed out for some Mexican. For the life of us, we can't remember the name of the place, but it was in Woodland Park, and if it comes to us I will add it here later. It's a shame that we can't because our waiter, Tyler, was great. Upon conversation, it came out that we were on the Make-A-wish trip for Emmah and explained where we had just driven from and where we were going on to. We must've looked pretty ragged and well worn... we were pretty shot by this point. So much so that the kids started falling asleep waiting on their food. The service wasn't the problem; the kids were just that tired. NOW they want to sleep! It was everything we could do to keep them awake until the food arrived. The food (for our tastes) was fantastic and there was a lot of it. Upon getting ready to leave, Tyler announced to us that the meal was on him. How generous was that?!?

I see that a "relatively short read" is relative... it's a short read when compared to Gone With The Wind or to War And Peace. This looks like a good place to call it quits. I will pick it up with Auntie Lesley meeting up with us.

Next up: The rest of Cascade and on to Durango. Click here Mush! To The North Pole... to go there.

KUIYTAP