Scheduled trip:
Lafayette, CO - Kansas
Actual trip: Lafayette, CO - Colby, KS (350 miles)
Pipe off (Camaro 2, Mustang 2)
The day before, Marco had noticed a car wash in Lafayette
so we started the morning by cleaning off the bugs that
had accumulated during our journey. Back at the apartment
Manuel and Dave had packed their stuff together and were
ready to leave. As we pulled out from the lot, Marco felt
parts of the Mustang scrape against the curb. There wasn't
anything to do about it so we decided to go back to Boulder
to get some breakfast.
We came across a 1950-style diner, a nice change of pace.
In the parking lot Marco checked the Ford's exhaust pipes.
One of them was indeed bent. A closer inspection revealed
that the entire pipe had broken off and was only held in
place by a rubber band. The safest thing to do was to dismantle
the pipe before it fell off completely. Marco crawled under
the car and cut the rubber with a Swiss Army knife. The
loose pipe was then carefully wrapped in paper and placed
in the trunk. With a few feet of tailpipe missing the Mustang
sounded meaner than ever!
The restaurant lived up to the expectations of a classic
American diner, even the waitresses: they wore roller-skates.
The food was pretty good.
It was still early in the day so we detoured north to the
Rocky Mountain National Park. Again we climbed mountains.
However, this time the roads were less straightforward.
During a climb Dave and Niels noticed nasty blue smoke coming
from the Mustang. Whether this was due to the missing tailpipe
or a failing transmission was unknown. Some places we saw
snow that was several feet deep. At one point we stopped
and got out of the cars, dressed in only T-shirts and shorts
to enjoy the view. It was gray and windy on that mountaintop,
cold too, probably around the freezing point but we all
enjoyed the experience.
We grazed the suburbs of Denver, getting a fleeting glance
of downtown before we continued east. With the mountains
behind us it was downhill all the way to Kansas. For once
it was overcast and just after the Colorado/Kansas state
line the water started to pour from the sky, the first rain
we had encountered since May 16. The weather matched the
landscape perfectly: Kansas was certainly looking dreary
from I-70. We didn't bother to stop for anything except
gas.
After sunset we began looking for a place to spend the night.
The choice fell on Colby, a small town with several motels.
We followed the billboards and stopped at a religious motel
with HBO. Later Marco and Niels went to buy take out fast
food at McD's.
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Day
00: Prelude
Day 01: Leaving NC
Day 02: Tupelo, MS
Day 03: Henryetta, OH
Day 04: Roswell, NM
Day 05: Flagstaff, AZ
Day 06: Las Vegas, NV
Day 07: Victorville,
CA
Day 08: Long
Beach, CA
Day 09: Los Angeles, CA
Day 10: Thousand
Oakes, CA
Day 11: Malibu,
CA
Day 12: Lompoc,
CA
Day 13: Lompoc,
CA
Day 14: Palo
Alto, CA
Day 15: Palo Alto, CA
Day 16: Fallon, NV
Day 17: Escalante, UT
Day 18: Grand Junction, CO
Day 19: Lafayette, CO
Day 20: Colby, KS
Day 21: St. Louis, MO
Day 22: Knoxville, TN
Day 23: Burlington, NC
Epilogue: Author's notes
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