The day would have been a total bust had it not been for the terrific running trails we discovered in Ft. Collins. The Poudre Trail wound through a beautiful nature preserve, complete with numerous small bridges and quarter mile marks for we anal runner types. We voted this the second best running trail we have encountered, behind only Boulder.
After grabbing new walkie talkies at the local Radio Shack and subs to go at the Silver Mine Sub Shop we raced north to Wyoming. The big threat was up in Big Sky country but we had our limits to how far we would, or could, go to chase storms. It was 2 PM and other than some annoying cirrus, there was not a cloud in the sky.
We stopped at a nice rest stop near the town of Chugwater (sister town to California's SipLatte'), which was about 30 miles north of Cheyenne. No clouds on radar. We walked over the the nearby Sinclair Station - the one with the green brontosaurus on the sign - for some drinks to accompany our Silver Mine Subs. The highlight of the day was finding bottles of Sioux City Sarsaparilla and Cream Soda, made with real cane sugar - as opposed to that fake cane sugar. Very refreshing. I also grabbed a "Throwback" Mt Dew, also made with that real cane stuff. Life was good.
After semi-blowing off the day, we headed east towards Scotts Bluff, our high-risk target for sleeping. While we never saw more than a poof of cumulus clouds the whole day, we did take some consolation in watching all the chasers up in a Montana tornado watch box chase "poop squat" clouds most of the day.
We arrived in Scotts Bluff near dinner time, ready to crash at the local Holiday Inn Express. It was full. So we lowered the bar and went to the Comfort Inn. Booked. Days Inn? Not. Super Eight? Eightysixed. Bob's Roadside Bunks? Nope. The entire town was booked by insurance claims adjusters, doing their best to quantify the damage by last-weeks hail storm. We saw many blown out windows and dented hoods. We saddled up next to the Super Eight to borrow a little of their unsecure WiFi, and found a room back in Torrington WY, 30 miles back up the road. Torrington is Wyomingeese for "Lodi", but without the scenery.
We scored a room at the Day's Inn. It had obvouisly seen better Days, but we decided to rough it for one night. The good news was they provided a free draft beer to each customer. The bad news was it was in a smoke-filled, Karaoke-ready bar and was limited to the Bud and Coors family of beers. Despite that, we pulled up to the bar and enjoyed a couple of ice cold Coors lights while watching a bit of the Lakers-Suns game, partially obscured by the cold-room door. It was so refreshing we endured another round, at $2 each. Even the smoking guy to my right could not drive us away. We were experiencing local culture, and I liked it.
I expected all the locals to be drinking Buds, or whiskey out of dirty glasses, but much to my surpirse, the three older cowboy-looking types at the table behind us were drinking red wine and a Blue Sapphire martini, up with one olive. My childhood images were shattered. After our second beer, and John's karaoke rendition of Billy Joel's Piano Man we exited the bar looking for dinner. We asked the guy working there where to eat and he suggested "here". "We have really good food". I looked back at the restaurant to find one sorry-looking guy nursing a steak.
On our way to dinner, we checked out the local Junior College, where John hope to to his gym work the next mourning. We drove around the back to find it, but we also noted the Wyoming license plates. I informed John that Wyoming had the fewest people of any state, not to mention the highest average elevation. I am full of good knowledge. Not a minute later we noticed a car parked at the JC with license number "6". WOW!! Imagine that, with California's 7-digit plates, we find a single digit license plate. That must be one old guy! A few seconds later, John outdid even that - number ONE! We had stumbled across the first license plate issued in Wyoming (which started issuing plates in 1913 in case you wanted to know - good knowledge). We almost expected it to be attached to an old horse, but nooo..., it was a Chevy Silverado pickup.
We drove down Main Street and settled on the local multi-cultural cafe of Jose Paizano's Itallian-Mexican-American Food. Perfect. Who doesn't like Italian-Mexican-American? To our surprise the place was more than half full. We scanned the oversized menu and decided against the angel hair pesto tostadas with fries, and played it safe with just spaghetti with meat sauce - no salsa. We noticed they had wine on the menu and decided to entertain ourselves with asking about it. The very nice waitress gave us the "you aint from around here" look and then recited the entire wine list - "Chardonnay, Chabliss, Rose (like the flower), White Zin and Merlot (what? no Merlott?). I was about to ask what winery, but caught myself as we both ordered the Merlot. She came back with "chilled or room temperature?" O-kaayyyyy......
While waiting for our wine I informed John that all 50 states had wineries, since the addtion of South Dakota's berry wine in the 90s. We had seen a Wyoming winery as we drove from Scotts Bluff. The vines did not look real happy, like they wanted to go home. Much to our surprise the waitress brought us two mini bottles of Sutter Home Merlot. Dang, that ain't no fun. I was honestly hoping for something like "Tumbleweed Cellars" or "Steer Flop Vintners". Sutter Home never tasted so good. The spaghetti, salad (with red wine vinegar and olive oil!) and garlic bread was quite good too.
After grabbing new walkie talkies at the local Radio Shack and subs to go at the Silver Mine Sub Shop we raced north to Wyoming. The big threat was up in Big Sky country but we had our limits to how far we would, or could, go to chase storms. It was 2 PM and other than some annoying cirrus, there was not a cloud in the sky.
We stopped at a nice rest stop near the town of Chugwater (sister town to California's SipLatte'), which was about 30 miles north of Cheyenne. No clouds on radar. We walked over the the nearby Sinclair Station - the one with the green brontosaurus on the sign - for some drinks to accompany our Silver Mine Subs. The highlight of the day was finding bottles of Sioux City Sarsaparilla and Cream Soda, made with real cane sugar - as opposed to that fake cane sugar. Very refreshing. I also grabbed a "Throwback" Mt Dew, also made with that real cane stuff. Life was good.
After semi-blowing off the day, we headed east towards Scotts Bluff, our high-risk target for sleeping. While we never saw more than a poof of cumulus clouds the whole day, we did take some consolation in watching all the chasers up in a Montana tornado watch box chase "poop squat" clouds most of the day.
We arrived in Scotts Bluff near dinner time, ready to crash at the local Holiday Inn Express. It was full. So we lowered the bar and went to the Comfort Inn. Booked. Days Inn? Not. Super Eight? Eightysixed. Bob's Roadside Bunks? Nope. The entire town was booked by insurance claims adjusters, doing their best to quantify the damage by last-weeks hail storm. We saw many blown out windows and dented hoods. We saddled up next to the Super Eight to borrow a little of their unsecure WiFi, and found a room back in Torrington WY, 30 miles back up the road. Torrington is Wyomingeese for "Lodi", but without the scenery.
We scored a room at the Day's Inn. It had obvouisly seen better Days, but we decided to rough it for one night. The good news was they provided a free draft beer to each customer. The bad news was it was in a smoke-filled, Karaoke-ready bar and was limited to the Bud and Coors family of beers. Despite that, we pulled up to the bar and enjoyed a couple of ice cold Coors lights while watching a bit of the Lakers-Suns game, partially obscured by the cold-room door. It was so refreshing we endured another round, at $2 each. Even the smoking guy to my right could not drive us away. We were experiencing local culture, and I liked it.
I expected all the locals to be drinking Buds, or whiskey out of dirty glasses, but much to my surpirse, the three older cowboy-looking types at the table behind us were drinking red wine and a Blue Sapphire martini, up with one olive. My childhood images were shattered. After our second beer, and John's karaoke rendition of Billy Joel's Piano Man we exited the bar looking for dinner. We asked the guy working there where to eat and he suggested "here". "We have really good food". I looked back at the restaurant to find one sorry-looking guy nursing a steak.
On our way to dinner, we checked out the local Junior College, where John hope to to his gym work the next mourning. We drove around the back to find it, but we also noted the Wyoming license plates. I informed John that Wyoming had the fewest people of any state, not to mention the highest average elevation. I am full of good knowledge. Not a minute later we noticed a car parked at the JC with license number "6". WOW!! Imagine that, with California's 7-digit plates, we find a single digit license plate. That must be one old guy! A few seconds later, John outdid even that - number ONE! We had stumbled across the first license plate issued in Wyoming (which started issuing plates in 1913 in case you wanted to know - good knowledge). We almost expected it to be attached to an old horse, but nooo..., it was a Chevy Silverado pickup.
We drove down Main Street and settled on the local multi-cultural cafe of Jose Paizano's Itallian-Mexican-American Food. Perfect. Who doesn't like Italian-Mexican-American? To our surprise the place was more than half full. We scanned the oversized menu and decided against the angel hair pesto tostadas with fries, and played it safe with just spaghetti with meat sauce - no salsa. We noticed they had wine on the menu and decided to entertain ourselves with asking about it. The very nice waitress gave us the "you aint from around here" look and then recited the entire wine list - "Chardonnay, Chabliss, Rose (like the flower), White Zin and Merlot (what? no Merlott?). I was about to ask what winery, but caught myself as we both ordered the Merlot. She came back with "chilled or room temperature?" O-kaayyyyy......While waiting for our wine I informed John that all 50 states had wineries, since the addtion of South Dakota's berry wine in the 90s. We had seen a Wyoming winery as we drove from Scotts Bluff. The vines did not look real happy, like they wanted to go home. Much to our surprise the waitress brought us two mini bottles of Sutter Home Merlot. Dang, that ain't no fun. I was honestly hoping for something like "Tumbleweed Cellars" or "Steer Flop Vintners". Sutter Home never tasted so good. The spaghetti, salad (with red wine vinegar and olive oil!) and garlic bread was quite good too.
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