Our first major stop was in, drum roll please… Russell, Kansas. Trinity just had to stop in the town of her family name, so we wandered around town for a while in the car, looking for a good brunch spot. As we were driving through the square we kept hearing a weird noise coming and going through the cracked windows, so we slowed down to see what it was, and lo and behold it was Meat Loaf playing on the Russell, Kansas Square integrated surround sound system: “Though it's cold and lonely in the deep dark night/I can see paradise by the dashboard light.” We drove around a bit more and found Trinity United Methodist Church, so Trinity had to go take pictures of the church named Trinity in Russell, KS. As we swung back around to the square to ask somebody where the heck we could find breakfast, Meat Loaf was still singing, “Praying for the end of time, It’s all that I can do-oo-oo!” Not exactly what you expect to hear while you’re driving around the prominently proclaimed hometown of Bob Dole.

Finally, we found someone who directed us back towards the interstate to Meridy’s Restaurant and Lounge. I had seen it before, but for some unknown reason I have a subliminal aversion to the word “lounge,” especially after driving by the constant back and forth between billboards for strip clubs and porn shops, and those that warn of the danger and evil of such places with Bible verses attached. Missouri and Kansas seem to have more of this billboard debate than any other place I’ve driven through. “Sign, Sign, everywhere a sign, blocking out the scenery, breaking my mind.” Anyway, does anyone else think lounge sounds dirty? Trinity thinks I’m crazy. Turns out, Meridy’s is of course just the local diner, which was exactly what we were looking for. So we started off the trip with a low carb (not) breakfast of pancakes for Trinity, and biscuits and gravy for me. If you’re headed through Kansas, this place is worth a stop, but only if you make the short trek over to the square to see what's spinnin’.

After brunch at the lounge, back on the road. Our original thought was to stop for camping pretty soon after crossing into Colorado (at Bonny Lake) , but since we woke up and left hours ahead of schedule, plus time change of an hour, it was only 1:30 or so local time when we got there, so we decided to keep going. And if you do a little math, guess what time that puts us into Colorado… Yep, you guessed it, rush hour. There are two state parks in the Denver area, at least that seemed to make sense for our camping needs, so we had a hint of a disagreement about which way to go, but we were practicing our vacation attitudes so it wasn’t too bad.

We started creeping towards one, but traffic was really slow, and we needed to get a few more supplies, so we took a break to shop at a Target (our one and only national chain stop the whole trip… well, other than for gasoline). After gathering a few things we needed and heading back to the interstate, traffic in the direction we had been going had not changed a bit, but back toward the other camping option looked more promising, so Golden Gate Canyon State Park won our patronage for the night. And we were both glad it worked out that way. It was a beautiful drive, if not a little nerve racking in our four cylinder Scion xB, curving and climbing through the mountains to get there. Between Target, traffic, and twisting tardily through the turns, it was getting dark quickly, and raining a bit too, and it was our first night camping in a while, so we were rusty at getting things out and up.

We cooked and ate dinner in the dark, and shivered through the cold night (we were prepared for a cool night at Bonny Lake, but the rain and clouds up in the mountains put us about ten degrees cooler than expected), but it was a beautiful night and morning warming up by the fire before the second leg of the drive on Wednesday. And the best part was, it was all going shorter and sooner than expected. It’s amazing what having a leisurely attitude can do. Usually when we make trips I get all frantic about when we leave and annoyed about how much we have to stop, and we still end up later than expected, but tone that down a little, or a lot, and it turns into an enjoyable jaunt and we’re there before we know it.