.::wednesday, september 28::.

Unfortunately, the only place we found that was open and serving breakfast food was an IHOP in Lawrence, KS. So we sacrificed culture for sanity and stuffed ourselves with pancakes and eggs and sausage.

And, in Val's case, hot chocolate.

Because a freelancer is never far enough from her work, I needed one quick Internet fix before we left. We hit the local library and I figured out all of my jobs for the coming two weeks. Then we hopped back onto 70 and started our long drive through Kansas.

Forget everything you've heard about Kansas. Like Missouri, it's an absolutely gorgeous state.

And at 11:12 that morning, Val and I caught a glimpse of our first tumbleweed! We were tickled to see a piece cling to the antenna of Val's car.

After the initial excitement of seeing balls of dry weed roll across the highway, we sat back and enjoyed the view as it passed by.

For a loooooong time.

We stopped at an information building somewhere in the middle and gasped at how far we'd driven in just three days!

Soon we crossed into Colorado, and not far into the new state we saw a "Point of Interest" sign on the side of the road.

"Heh. Point of Interest."

"I like how specific they are."

We look ahead of us, surveying the land for this interesting point. We see nothing but miles and miles of flat land.

"Okay, we need to pull off and see this... this whatever it is."

We pulled off at the next "Point of Interest" sign and saw nothing but a dirt road and a crummy old shed in front of us.

And a tower. Attached to another crummy old shed.

And a loooooootta shit in front of it.

I instinctively gripped my mace as we walked past the warped yard sale-style tables covered in rocks and old bottles (each marked with a sloppy price in China marker: "$2 SALT SHAKER," "$5 ARROWHEAD"). But even the mess of random objects in the yard couldn't have prepared us for...