We are just over 1000 miles in and, so far, so good. The trip out of Idaho and through Wyoming was fairly uneventful, unless you count that I got myself covered in spiny little plant seeds on a roadside bathroom break while trying to climb down far enough to be out of traffic's view (don't judge me, I really had to pee), or the occasional outburst of hysterical tears fromTaylor…okay, that was me. I was soaking in the mountain views while I still could,when I would suddenly be assaulted by thoughts of how much I love spending time with my family, or how much I love going fishing in Travis Brown’s boat, or how much I love dropping in on any of our friends whenever I want, or how much I loved napping on my beautiful couch in my beautiful house in a town that I knew like the back of my hand, and I’d spend the next five minutes trying to re-establish a natural breathing rhythm. After the first few hours, I realized that I just needed to stop thinking about home for a while, like maybe for the next year or so. This is an adventure, dammit, and there’s no crying on an adventure!
Let it be noted that, after spending a fair amount of money in the ITunes store to ensure a musically satisfactory trip, the speakers went on strike somewhere around Fort Collins. Good thing Taylor and I find the art of comfortable silence to be an essential part of every solid relationship.
I’m convinced that one has to pee more when on a road trip. I have a theory about this, not like a scientific theory, or even a common sense theory, more like a too much thinking time theory: your body doesn’t have to focus on trivial things like walking and balance, so instead, it focuses on the big inside jobs as soon as you click the seat belt in. Fifteen minutes after the rest stop and those last few sips of water are through the kidneys and out the door – you’re already checking for the next exit.
Another product of too much thinking time: I’ve always wanted a chameleon. So, I’m getting one, and I’m naming it Phred. Get it? PhD? PHreD? Yeah.
Notes on Colorado:
I was expecting a change in attitude in the general population once we got further east, but apparently, you don’t have to wait that long. People in Colorado are straight up pissed off at living. Out of the ten or so stops we made, two people smiled at us, and one of those people was the friend we stayed with Monday night.
One example of the cheery disposition to be found in this rocky landscape came to us in the form of a pharmacist at Walgreens. We had the good fortune of Taylor’s two-week old spider bite becoming infected and swelling up like a water balloon on the first night of our trip. So, we headed to an Urgent Care for some antibiotics on the way out of town. Here we encountered the second, and last, smiling person before Kansas. Side note: he wasn’t smiling when we said we didn’t have insurance, wasn’t smiling as we explained that we were between insurance policies because we were moving to a different state, and wasn’t smiling when I politely declined to give himTaylor’s social security number; the smile came when we assured him that we would be paying for the visit, in full, before we walked out the door.
This visit to Urgent Care consisted of a lot of waiting, followed by a rousing game of Twenty Questions where Taylor had to divulge all health information from his great-grandparents on down, followed by two minutes with the doctor, who poked the bump on his arm and announced that she would be prescribing him some antibiotics. For this gem of medical wisdom, we were charged $180.
Afterward, we amble off to Walgreens, where our prescription has been sent, already two hours past our intended start time for the day. When we arrive, there are two people standing behind the counter, chillin’ in the air conditioning. Taylor gives his name and the young man says they just got the fax and that it might be a minute. I make to sit down in the waiting room chairs when the other person behind the counter speaks up, informing me that I better not be expecting that prescription anytime soon. I raise my eyebrows at her tone but remain polite, asking when we might be allowed to expect it. She replies that sometime after 3:00 sounds about right. I check my phone: it’s 11:45. I explain that we are in the middle of a long drive and need to be leaving this rotten state soon (refraining from actually verbalizing the rotten part), and is there any way we could get the prescription sooner? She responds by yelling “Three o’clock!” and walks away. Well, then. I call the doctor’s office and ask if they can send the prescription anywhere else, since we really need to get going. The previously mentioned second-smiler answered the phone and said he would give Walgreens a call and see if they couldn’t speed it up a little.
I’m sitting near the pharmacy when I hear the cranky lady answer the phone. Oh, great, she’s going to know who put the doctor’s office up to this and she’s going to slip something into Taylor’s antibiotics. I hear her speaking firmly about how backed up she is and I hear the phone slam down. Then her evil face appears in one of the windows as she backs up slowly from the phone, sideways, and fixes me with the eyeball facing my direction. “One o’clock”, she growls, and then stalks away. I try to look serious until she disappears and then move on to one of my favorite things: browsing Walgreens.
I’m actually not joking about that, I used to get up early once in awhile just so I’d have time to stop at Walgreens on my way to work in Idaho Falls. I love their clearance shelves, their As Seen on TV products, and those two aisles in the middle that change with every season. I found an excellent little address book for $1.50 and one of those Ritter chocolate bars with the huge hazelnuts that I’ve never found anywhere other than a Walgreen’s candy aisle. I was pretty pleased with my haul when 1:00 rolled around and I walked back to the pharmacy, feeling non-confrontational.
By this time, a different woman was behind the counter, and she wasn’t looking like she loved her job. She called us up and, when we told her the name, went rooting around for our prescription in a plastic bin behind her. I watched her dig it up from under a pile of other filled prescriptions, which made me suspicious that it had been filled quite awhile before 1:00, but I decided to occupy myself with another bite of the Ritter bar rather than smarting off about it. She walked back up and said, “What’s your address” in one of those “I’d rather be anywhere than standing here looking at your face” voices. I started rattling off our Maryland address, which is what I had given the doctor’s office. Before I could finish, she interrupted with “That’s notwhat I have here”, and then she proceeded to stare at me. “Um”, I said, always grievously annoyed when interrupted, “well, that’s what I gave them”. Again, she says, “That’s not what I have here”. Okay, I think we’ve covered the fact that you don’t have that, but we can stand here arguing all day and my actual address isn’t going to change. As she continues to stare at me without so much as a blink, I get ready to lay some smack down. Taylor, who is well versed in Tiffany body language, steps in and suggests that, perhaps, they put in the Idaho address that was on his driver’s license. So he tells her that address and she nods, now satisfied that we aren’t attempting to steal someone else’s antibiotics to fuel the raging drug trade, because lord knows that getting some ID from Taylor wouldn’t have given her any peace of mind. I plug my mouth with another hazelnut and let Taylor handle the situation.
As she rings us up, loudly complaining to no one in particular that her co-workers need to learn how to prioritize, I hear evil-eye lady talking to another customer about gluten-free cookies in a very sweet, high-pitched voice. I scoff a little around my Ritter bar and remark that that’s the nicest voice I’ve heard all day. The lady ringing us up says “Tell me about it” and throws our bag across the counter. I wasn’t terribly sad to leave Colorado.
Notes on Kansas:
So far, it is just getting muggy around this joint. I’m talking just walked into an indoor public pool filled with children, muggy. There is no escaping it, either. If you’re in a vehicle in Idaho and you’re feeling a little sweaty, you roll down the window and let in some air; try rolling down the window here and the air will sucker punch you. Even the air conditioner is feeling it, as evidenced by the vapor it has started spitting out of the vents since we got here, which at first had me convinced that the engine was on fire. That was a good moment. Since it feels like I’m burning several hundred calories each time I try to inhale a little oxygen, I’m compensating by eating every time I see a restaurant with a cool name. More later on how that works out for my figure. Also, they post a minimum speed limit on the freeway here, which I think Idaho could seriously benefit from doing. As far as the air, though, Idaho has the good stuff on lock.
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