coloradoroad

The Road to Colorado

    I have the following gasoline credit cards: Citgo, Chevron, Texaco, BP, Amoco, Exxon, and Mobil. Why can I find none of these stations in the Oklahoma City area? Now and then I find a sign advertising Texaco, but when I pull off the highway, all I find is an ex-Texaco, with rusting metal roofs and exhausted pumps, long since satiated, no longer even dreaming of a gas tank to enter; or a brand new shiny, gleaming gas station called TA--but the only TA card I ever saw was at a ranch in Pawrumps, Nevada and it was only good for Tits and Ass.
    As my gas tank was starting to splash its last half gallon around, we finally found a 7-11, hoping it would be a Citgo. No such luck. We had to pay cash for the new 7-11 brand gasoline, whatever that was. Gas cards are pretty important this trip. It looks like my mine original estimate was a poor one. We're only getting about six miles to the gallon, only half of the twelve for which I had hoped. That means a much bigger gas bill.
    We are making some of that up, though, thanks to our favorite campground, Wal-Mart. It really makes good sense to stay at Wal-Marts over night--unless you're going to USE a campground, by staying there during the day, what's the use of paying to sleep there? The only problem with Wa-Mart is that the maps they sell are far from up to date. Time after time, we hunt all over the place, only to find that there is no Wal-Mart at the address given by Rand-McNally.
    We spent Memorial Day at a campground two blocks up the road from the guy who was supposed to change our oil on Tuesday. It wasn't much of a place. We never could find the pool they advertised. But I got to get on the internet and catch up on e-mail and stuff. Diane did the laundry and we got to catch up on nice long showers as we had a full hook-up.
    I decided to name our shower The Desi Arnaz Memorial Shower. Only those of you who have seen the classic film, "The Long Long Trailer," can fully appreciate the meaning of that name. And I'm a larger man than Desi was! The shower is a little smaller on me than a customized coffin. I have to wash my hair before I get in the shower because there's no room for my hands to fit in between the ceiling and my head. I wear a 48 long sports jacket. The shower probably takes a 52. Medium. I can't reach my back, no matter how I twist my none too twistable body. I can't reach any lower than my knees. If I try to bring my leg up within reach, my knee gets jammed against the plastic wall so badly that I'm afraid I'll rupture the wall of the camper, let alone a couple of other things. If I drop the soap, I'm doomed. Freddy said I need to get one of those Soap On a Rope things. When I'm in the shower, Diane just laughs and laughs, like she did the day we went to Old Tucson and she had two large strawberry Margueritas before lunch.

On Tuesday, May 27, we got to the oil change place to have the car looked over. I probably have said this before, but I have to say it again. Every service person I encounter on the road has been kind, helpful, and honest. Chad Ballard, of Chad's Car Care, Inc. was one of these people. His men checked everything out. The engine is running run, except one bolt was put in crooked--probably by Chris who was on and off that night. Chad thought it best to wait until we got home--taking it out now would probably break the bolt and that would be a big expense. As far as changing the transmission fluid, Chad thought it was safer not to bother. A flush could be done, but it could cause more problems down the road. We filled the engine with synthetic oil, checked the engine, checked the differential fluid, checked all other fluids and the tires, and Chad only charged me $68. The price seemed more than fair.
Chad gave me directions to the Oklahoma City Memorial, so we drove back into town to see it. On the way, we passed an RV Superstore, so we stopped to buy a few repair things and drool over new campers. We saw a beauty for $75,000. When Freddy and I used the men's room, we found a wonderful cutout of Marilyn Monroe, and posed for a few pictures:

The Oklahoma Memorial was a very moving place. Everytime we start thinking about our own problems, it's a good idea to put them into perspective. The memorial was a very beautiful place. Chairs are on a hillside representing the the positions of the 168 people who died there. In the center of the park, a series of marble slabs are covered with a thin coating of running water, an image suggesting great peace and serenity. On the west wall, a memorial was posted to honor the dead of 9/11 in New York--all kinds of New York souvenirs were hanging on the fence.

We continued down the road. We got gas at a truckstop which had the strangest road sign I had ever seen:

We slept that night at a Wal-Mart in Goodland, Kansas. The next morning, Diane decided she needed a dollar store to get a new hairbrush for lady. As we drove into town, we passed an easel that was 80' tall, with a Van Gogh painting on it. Intrigued, we decided to investigate. At the Goodland Chamber of Commerce, we met a very nice woman named Jo Simmons. Jo spoke with us for about half an hour and gave us all the details. The giant Van Gogh is, indeed, the world's largest painting on an easel. It was painted by a Canadian artist, Cameron Cross, as part of a series of seven paintings to be displayed all around the world. So far, only two other easels have been completed: in Altona, Manitoba; and Queensland, Australia.

We had some time to kill, so we decided to enjoy ourselves on this part of the trip, not having to set up at the Denver Cat Show until Friday, so we spent the afternoon at Burlington, Colorado, at a park/museum called "Old Town." We've seen better old west displays, but this one was interesting, and it did have some pretty dancing girls at the saloon. Freddy was acting up a bit, and in a huge barn, the size of an airplane hangar, where we were examining a chuck wagon display, he relieved himself of some wind, which sounded something like a quacking duck. Angry at his poor manners, I replied in like fashion with something that must have sounded not unlike the bomb at Oklahoma City. The other group of visitors to the hanger immediately left the room. You can always tell a man on the Adkins Diet.

We learned something quite disturbing that day. A news article from April was on display, telling the story of a local man who was among the liberators of Dachau. As Diane's father had also be one of the liberators, we read the entire article. It seems that recently released documents say that when Dachau was liberated, American soldiers rounded up the remaining SS officers who were responsible for this horror, and the American officers executed the Germans on the spot. The local man spoke with horror at seeing his officers murder defenseless men, but if murder can ever be justified, that murder certainly was.
We arrived in Denver about 7:00 and proceeded to search for the Wal-Mart Diane had found on the Rand-McNally book. We drove up and down the3 entire road where it was supposed to be and found nothing. Then I took the book, found another one that was supposed to be on Buckley Road, drove to that address, up and down Buckley Road, and found nothing. We ended up asking for help from a fellow at Albertson's. The gentleman was extremely helpful, walking outside the store and directing me to another Wal-Mart that had not been listed on the map, on Chambers Street. As we stopped and got ready for the night, I walked outside and looked down the hillside at the lights below us, the violet sunset on the snow-capped mountain peaks and felt like I was home again.

I liked in Colorado for less than two years, when I was in college, but somehow Colorado has always been home to me. When I was first married, I brought my wife to Colorado to share it with her. Later on, when Diane and I had finally gotten on our feet financially and we were able to travel, I took her to Boulder, then Rocky Mountain National Park. Now, we're looking to find a way to move to Montrose. We've dreamed about a home in Colorado ever since.
Today is Thursday. We're staying at a beautiful state park called Chatham, where Freddy is fishing and the dogs are running over the grass. Lady loves Colorado grass. She won't do her business when I walk her--just crashes to the grass and rolls over and over, rubbing her face against it. If she wasn't a dog, I'd think she had been smoking it. We'll be here until noon, tomorrow, when we drive into town to set up for the show. It turns out the Cat Show is on Chambers street, a few miles north of the Wal-Mart. And now we hope that we will have a profitable weekend. After that, we'll head north, probably to enjoy more of Colorado--Estes Park, perhaps--then head east to Wisconsin.

CHAPTER SIX