It is Wednesday and it is 7pm in Salt Lake City, which is where we are. I'm selfishly saying that because I keep forgetting what day it is and with the time change and my laptop saying the wrong time still, I just need to keep things organized up here in the brain. It's been a tough day today, but let's back track.
Last I left it, we had just returned from swimming at our hotel pool, and we were going to have dinner in Denver last night. We freshened up and headed to True Food Kitchen. It was about a half hour drive from our hotel. Downtown Denver is cool. We couldn't think of a city it reminded us of, but it seems familiar to both of us. It's clean and quiet but filled with businesses and nice restaurants and stores. We took a bit to find street parking and walked the few blocks over. Ominous dark clouds were looming overhead, so we skedaddled and got there as fast as possible to avoid the rain. There was a cute outdoor patio that Dan was thinking of sitting at because he thought it'd be cool and cozy if it rained, but I thought it was a bad idea. (I ended up being right. I love being right.) We got sat in a nice booth tucked in the corner.
Our server was super nice and gave us lots of recommendations on the menu. I LOVE the menu. It is super vegetarian/pescetarian-friendly for me, and a lot of the cooking ingredients are made in house and their food is fresh. The drink menu was awesome as well. FYI, apparently there might be one opening in Boston. If that's true, I highly recommend to people at home! Soon after we sat down there it started down pouring for REALzies. I remained optimistic that it would be done once we were done. (I was wrong. Dammit.) When we finished up, it was definitely still down pouring. In true lazy fashion, we requested an Uber to bring us back to the truck. No regrets.
Our final destination for the evening was a bar called My Brothers Bar. I believe it's the oldest bar in Denver. You can look up the history or ask Dan to explain it, but basically it's famous because Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and their friend/muse Neal Cassady frequented the bar. When Cassady was locked up in a reformatory for I think stealing yet another car, he wrote a letter to someone basically saying that he owed My Brothers Bar like 3 or 4 bucks and to pay them back for him. There is a framed picture of Cassady and Kerouac hanging in the bar, as well as the letter. According to our friend the internet, they supposedly have printouts of the letter that you could ask for. My Daniel being the adorable little dork that he is totally wanted a copy of the letter and to check out the bar, so of course I was happy to jump on board. We ordered chips and salsa and beers and hung out for a little over an hour. He wasn't going to ask for the letter, so obviously I did because I don't give a f***********k. We left there with the letter in hand and felt great about going back to be with our little ladies.
The rest of the night was pretty chill. We knew we had to get up on the earlier side to head to breakfast with friends on our way to our next destination, so we tried to get as much sleep as possible. I only have one coughing fit in the middle of the night, so that's good! We checked out this morning and I grabbed a muffin and coffees for us. Our friends Emily and Phil live in Dillon, which was a town in the mountains about an hour away from our hotel in Denver. They invited us to swing by and they would make us breakfast. Holy crap - what an epic epic drive. Many of you have been assaulted by my pictures and posts on Instagram and Facebook so you know - it was literally the most beautiful and surreal drive and we could not get enough of it. We listened to Jonsi and just took it all in.
The altitude was INSANE and our ears were popping like crazy, so of course our girls were miserable. We brought them in so we could eat breakfast with Emily and Phil for an hour and enjoyed chatting with them and eating their yummy breakfast. We stood out in their front yard marveling at their insane view for a bit before we continued on.
On our way out on the highway, we drove by a town called Idaho Springs that was a big town from the Gold Rush. It was really cool. I couldn't catch a picture. Womp womp. But it made us want to come back and do all sorts of fun touristy things in Colorado some other time.
We got back in the car knowing that we were basically starting the girls over on the drive. They've been starting out to be pretty fussy and then eventually quieting down and passing out after a few hours, specifically Olive, but it hasn't been awful. We have "kitty Xanax" that we were prepared to use, but haven't had to yet. Well guys, we think tomorrow is the day we drug the cats. They were AWFUL. They literally cried and whined and writhed in their carriers, laid on their backs pushing and kicking and scratching to get out, for the next FIVE HOURS. Usually stopping at rest stops would kind of calm them down and restart them, but nope. We stopped I think three times and they barely piped down. We both were at our wit's end for sure. They passed out when we had about 2/2.5 hours left but Olive kept waking up every now and again to whine and cry some more. And once again, due to each of the rest stops basically consisting of only a bathroom and vending machines, we didn't have lunch. There just wasn't anything on our drive through Utah so it was a bag of salted cashews and peanut M&M's. We hit traffic in our last hour and we could not stop staring at the clock. And to make matters worse, guess who woke up and started scream-meowing in that final hour? Olive. I became a crazy person and started scream-singing the Book of Mormon soundtrack to her until we arrived. She hated it, guys. Just hated it. And I REALLY hated her for a while there, too. Oy.
That all being said, the drive was beautiful.
We pulled into Salt Lake absolutely drained and starving, and it was 100 degrees. We checked into our hotel, got the girls set up with water and their litter box, and decided to wait until after we got some strength to get the rest of the stuff. We walked over to a restaurant at the Ramada Inn next door because we couldn't put forth any additional effort than that and sat like zombies at a booth next to the bar. I don't think the clientele knew what to do with us, and quite frankly I didn't know what to do with them either. It's a weird place so far. I can't figure anyone out. We split a salad and a pizza and had bottles of Hop Nosh, which we both just realized is brewed right here in SLC, Utah. We grabbed the rest of the stuff out of the truck after and here we are now, settled in the room with our brats.
Our reasoning for coming here was because we heard Park City was great. I don't remember why we didn't get a hotel there, but there was a reason. Now it's almost 8pm and Park City is like 45 minutes away, so we're both sitting here cursing our names and trying to figure out if we should make the trek over there to try and salvage this day at all. This is definitely the point in the trip when we're both feeling really tired and out of sorts. I am hoping it is an off day and we will get it together. Hopefully our cat children will follow suit.
Update: We went out to downtown Salt Lake City when we decided that Park City wasn't a possibility given how late it was. It's got a surprisingly large city area with a trolley running along the streets. Really surprised us. It took us 20 minutes to find parking. We finally did we and we get out of the car to check the signs - the sprinklers go on and get me. Fabulous. We walk down to a bar called Whiskey Street, which in theory should have been great. Long tables and counters, huge bar, super busy, outdoor patio, and a decent food menu. It took at least 8 minutes until a manager brought us waters, and then another 10 until somebody took our drink order. Strike one. Then, it became very clear that the AC was broken and our table was conveniently located right across from the kitchen. Strike two. The servers were doing silverware roll ups, loudly, at a table RIGHT next to us. Not like a table in the restaurant, like some counter against the wall right next to us that was clearly not set up as a server station. Aaaaand you're out. We finished our moscow mules, which were actually decent, and headed off to find another bar that Dan found that had just opened up. We walked to where it should be - non-existent. We then walk baack to the area that we park and we find a bar that will suffice and order a couple of drinks. They have food - pizza and caesar salad is all that I can eat. That's what I had for lunch. WHAT A NIGHT. We jammed out to Book of Mormon on our ride home, or shall I say I jammed out, and now we're back at the hotel. It was worth a shot.
Tomorrow we head on our final super long car ride (7.5 hours) to Tuba City, Arizona to check out the Grand Canyon. Depending on when we get there, we will either do that tomorrow night or Friday morning. There are more exciting things to come. Let's hope some kitty Xanax and some TLC to each other will get us through it.
Thanks for reading. I'll update you the next moment I can with the rest of our SLC adventure and our last crazy drive. Please send us all the luck in the world that tomorrow improves.
-A
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