Summer Road Trip: Days 4-6

Friday

Back at it! We got up Friday (Happy Juneteetnth!) and headed more west. Evidently we didn't stop anywhere interesting on the way to Cheyenne, Wyoming, because I ain't got no pictures. 

But we did eventually end up in Cheyenne, and guess what, no hotel fuckery! AC worked, elevator worked, it was all very nice. But Cheyenne is a strange town, where they ride fish. 

Yee-haw! 

Whilst in Wyoming, we headed out to the Quebec 01 Missile Alert Facility. This is a former military base where people could have launched nuclear missiles and destroyed the world! So fun for the whole family. 

(Actually it was really interesting, and whatever your feelings on nukes - I'm against - the tone of the visit was decidedly not "rah rah USA USA" so much as "it's really, really good that there has never been a nuclear war because it would kill everything and literally everyone knows that".)

This question has an answer

Donald Duck, imprisoned for his crimes

The last military staff on the base signed the walls before they left

Skull and Crossbombs. No, really, that's what it's called

"So, why Donald Duck?" "...duck and cover." "Get in the bin."

Everything's computer, kinda

From this desk, the end of the world (potentially)

DONALD HAS BROKEN CONTAINMENT!

Backrooms, redux

THERE HE GOES! GIT HIM!

If the elevator had malfunctioned, this is the ladder we'd have had to climb up. It goes 50' down.

No mention of Donald, that's a shame

This is the view near the facility, this really doesn't do the sky out here justice

We headed back to our hotel, and then got dinner at Wyoming Rib & Chop. Now...hrm. The food wasn't bad. But we'd eaten at this place called Joy's Table in Kearney, WY on the into Cheyenne, and it was amazing. And Wyoming Rib & Chop wasn't bad, the steak was good, but the service was decidedly meh and the food was not worth the prices. (And frankly I'm still chasing the high of Archetype Coffee.) 

The drinks, however, were real tasty. Michelle got this weird thing called a Rapid Frost that includes blue curaçao and coconut syrup, it was lovely. 

Da-ba-di, da-ba-die

So in the morning, we were getting on the road to Salt Lake City, but we wandered around downtown Cheyenne first. We discovered that a) the street corners all have bronze statues and b) there's a cool building with a coffee shop and a train museum! 

Aw, someone stole his camera and he doesn't even know

There was a Brewer's Fest going on, too, but we didn't stick around for that

Did you know Wyoming was the first state to give women the vote? 

Michelle with her amazing latte with brown butter sage syrup 

Into the train museum!

In case you want to do a semaphore version of Wuthering Heights or something

CHOO CHOO

Oh, no, they've been decapitated!

This train is carved from wood. Let that sink in.

This is where we were! It's a nice city, and yet, for some reason I kept thinking it could go fuck itself

No mention of the giant spider attack that happened here, how strange

Better than having worms, obviously

There were bronze statues of a dog and an eagle, but this is the one I got a pic of

Anyway, on the road again! It's a long drive to SLC from Cheyenne, but as I mentioned previously, we like to stop when we see cool things. As we were driving we were both taken with how beautiful the landscape is, and then we saw a national park with some awesome rocks, so we stopped to walk around a little.

We did not see any munitions, which is just as well

RUN! IT'S A GAZEBO!

Didn't see any bears, either

Michelle, communing with a boulder

No...human would stack sticks this way

Backrooms, wilderness edition

Fuck you, Joe & Linda

Spot the prairie dog?

So back on the road! We pulled off for lunch in Rawlins, WY, and found this taco place:

It was fucking amazing. Like, I don't take pictures of food much, but you need to see the goddamn quesadilla:

Mama Sandra has her own parking place, and she damn well deserves it.

Anyway, on to Salt Lake City! Getting into SLC was kind of rough; the roads are going down mountains and every which way and very curvy, which did not agree with Michelle's vestibular system, so we kind of scrapped our plans for the night. On the plus side, our hotel is very nice, other than a weird lack of streaming services available. They do, however, have bees:

Saturday

We got up and look for someplace to have breakfast, and came across Skillets. It's Pride month and I want to support queer-owned businesses, and their menu looked good, so we headed out. It's a very nice little place, the food was excellent, and this was our view: 

In case you want Milk with your breakfast

Michelle found a local bookstore called King's English, so obviously we had to stop there:

Michelle in her natural environment

And after spending a great deal of money there, we headed back to the hotel, stopping onto to take pictures of a really green house:

And a cat cafe:

That night, we had plans to go to a crater! Specifically, Homestead Crater and Resort (but we were just interested in the crater part). It's actually a cave formed by water overflowing from an underground volcanic vent sort of thing, but in the late 19th century they got the idea of making a runoff so it only fills part way (about 65 feet deep), and then letting people jump in and swim! One tiny problem.

This picture does not illustrate the problem.

That hole, which at the time was the only way in, is 55 feet above the water. And sure, you can jump in if you're a fucking maniac, but getting back up was a problem. So eventually they dynamited their way in and made a tunnel, and now people can enjoy the magical healing properties of heated, mineral-rich water!

I feel rejuvenated!

So we left the crater (not feeling great, because fun fact, when you're in body-temp water you can't tell that you're sweating and so I got overheated, which means POTS was not far behind; POTS sucks, tell your friends), and headed back to the hotel. 

Sunday

Sunday morning, we got up and found another place to have breakfast, this time the Early Owl Cafe.

Behold, owls.

Food was really good. We've had good luck with breakfasts on this trip, actually. In the same area, we found a real-actual record store!

Sadly, it was closed

Anyway, from there we headed to the Natural History of Utah! We had actually planned to go on Saturday, but there was a wildfire nearby and the smoke shut down the museum that day. 

See that? It's all black

But Sunday was fine, fires were out, no smoke. The museum was really awesome. I mean, I joke about the lack of understanding of science common to red states (lord knows it's true of Ohio), but while this museum wasn't huge on the scale of, say, Chicago's, it was very well curated, the interactive exhibits were amazing, and the people there were very helpful and knowledgeable (except about whether the mugs they sold in the gift shop were dishwasher-safe). Here are some highlights!

Michelle is attacked by a dinosaur

A hadrosaur footprint

MUSK OX

That ain't a boid, it's a snek

KEVIN

Trophy wall of ceratopsids

This is composed of pieces and we put them back together. Genius

LOOK AT THE BOOOOOONES

nom nom nom

Mammals

Backrooms, museum edition

There was also a Bug World exhibit, which had some very impressive big bugs:

Mantis

Bees!

A wasp making a slave of a roach

Spider!

So the museum took much of the morning, and then we headed out for Vegas! Nothing memorable on the drive. We got into Vegas, got to our hotel (Paris), and I immediately remembered that one of the problems with Las Vegas is that it's not civilized enough to ban smoking so the smell is everywhere. 

But more on that next time!