A long strange trip

But I did have a post ready and waiting for Thursday evening. It was all about how I finally escaped the aliens in Roswell and was making my way up to Estes Park. I stopped along the way to visit the grave-site of an old acquaintance: Smokey was found as an injured infant cub -- probably only a month or two old -- in the same year I was born. He became a cultural icon and when my family and I started vacationing in the west, we found him doing public appearances and I got to meet him a couple of times. If you get a bear cub in the first month or two of life, they can socialize very well to humans and can make great pets (if you can deal with the feeding costs and the poop management). Anyway, I headed back on I-25 north for Colorado but it was getting around 7:30 and I wanted to get a bite to eat. Pulled over in Raton, NM just south of the border with Colorado. Nothing looked really good -- lots of fast food and I was getting a bit tired of Sonic burgers at that time. Drove past a K-Bob's steakhouse and saw a lot of cars in the parking lot. I had a ribeye, baked potato and the salad bar. The ribeye was most definitely not a ribeye. It was some mechanically tenderized cut of meat -- maybe a chuck steak as it had the ring of fat around the outside and didn't have the line of separation between the two pieces of meat (think T-Bone without the bone). I headed north and was aware that all was not right with my digestive system. I pulled over in Trinidad,CO, stopped at the WalMart Supercenter (these are really cool -- very nicely designed!) and got some Tums, stopped at the cash machine and left my card in the slot (didn't find out until the next day). I found a motel, fired up the laptop, wrote a post and then my gut started to really cramp up. Laid down on the bed for a few hours and ran to the bathroom around 4AM for a nice long round of emesis. Came back out to find that MSFT had pushed an update to my system which necessitated a reboot. Post lost... Friday had me weak as a kitten -- something that I do not like. I checked out around 11:30AM, drove for an hour and then pulled into a truck stop and took a three hour nap. I made it to Estes Park and had some herbal tea and a simple pasta marinara for dinner and could not eat more than a mouthfull without feeling seriously nauseous. I have not been that sick with food poisoning in a long long time. Was finally able to eat a full meal for dinner today. Found a crunchy granola food store in Cody, Wyoming and bought a big bottle of pro-biotics and had more than double the daily dose today -- taper back down to normal tomorrow. What happened in Estes Park was amazing. There is a place that rents cabins that my family and I used to go to in the late 1950's and 1960's -- probably 12 visits all told. A wonderful place right near some excellent hiking and climbing and horseback riding. We are talking a good 40 years ago so I figured that the place had probably burned or changed hands or something. I checked at the local Chamber of Commerce and yes, Meeker Park Lodge was still in business. I drove up and inquired about a room for the night and the woman at the counter said: "Oh my God; you're young David. You look just like your Dad." She, her Mom and her Dad still own the place, it is still going strong and absolutely nothing has changed except they cut down on the dining room size a bit and expanded their store with tee shirts and other merch. Spent a very pleasant night there -- dead quiet except for some rain and thunder. Begged off on breakfast (I turned down BACON! The Heresy!) as my stomach was still doing backflips whenever I thought about food. My plan was to spend the better part of the day exploring old haunts around Rocky Mountain National Park but Trail Ridge Road was closed and everything over 9,000 feet was socked in. The lodge is at 8,300 so I just got a thin sliver of the familiar mountains. Plan B -- I highballed it up to Yellowstone. None of the accommodations there had broadband so I drove back down to Jackson Hole (it has grown a lot and is very spendy) where I am at a local hotel for the evening. Wander around J.H. tomorrow morning and then spend the better part of the day at Jellystone. Thinking maybe Butte or Missoula tomorrow night, maybe the Grand Coulee the following night (I have visited the dam many times but never seen the laser light show). Looking at getting back to what passes for normalcy sometime middle of next week. It has been an awesome road trip -- much needed.