the second and third day

We woke up early Saturday.  Cliff still wasn't breathing very well, and I suggested we just head back home.  He refused, saying he was alright.

So we ate breakfast at the motel and headed west again.  We still had 1/3 of Kansas to cover; in some ways Kansas is boring, but we found things to talk about and make the time pass.  Someone very smart decided Kansas is the perfect place to place a million wind turbines.  OK, I just looked it up, and it's only 3,500.  Seemed like more to me, but what do I know?  Anyway, there aren't many people living in the middle of Kansas, so not many people have the view from their windows ruined.  When we first went to Iowa and saw those things, I felt like the state of my childhood had been ruined; who wants to look at that every day?

However, it is sort of a novelty, something to talk about besides the feedlots and oil wells you see in Kansas.  Cliff is fascinated by how things work and how things are made, so he was curious about all aspects of wind turbines.  So when we found our motel in Hays, we sat together on the couch in our room with my computer between us and watched a documentary on how the turbines are made and set up.  It was more information than I would have wanted, but I learned some things; and it was kinda nice, the two of us sitting shoulder to shoulder watching it.

From Hays, we drove clear to Boulder, Colorado.  Don't even ask me about the traffic!  We've driven through St. Louis and Atlanta, but this was nothing we could have imagined.  It was about 3 P.M. and we were starved, so this time we chose Cracker Barrel.  Would you believe the food was even worse than Applebee's? I kid you not.  

We began looking at motels and found out a lot of them were already at the "no vacancy" stage.  So in order to have someplace to sleep, we ended up in a not-so-savory part of town with the smallest, most pathetic motel room we've ever paid over a hundred dollars for.  I can only think of one worse experience with a motel.

I woke up around midnight and Cliff was out of bed, sitting on the one chair provided us.  His stomach was upset from what we'd eaten at Cracker Barrel, and he was having trouble breathing while lying down; he had no choice but to sit in that chair the rest of the night.  

When I got up Sunday, I informed him we were going home.  He didn't do too much protesting.  I told him it was time to cut our losses or we'd be going from bad to worse.  He didn't argue with that, and we loaded up and started home Sunday morning.  Oh, by the way... the motel in Hays had called us after we had driven about 150 miles toward Colorado to tell us we had left a plastic bag of stuff behind.  Cliff's prescriptions were in that bag!  I told the lady we'd be back in a couple of days.  I guess it didn't hurt him to go without his statins, his pill for asthma (we did have his inhalers with us) and his blood pressure meds.

We were in Hays again about 2:30, starving again, so after we got our stuff we left at the motel, I suggested Taco Bell; I hadn't eaten there in years, but at least it was something we both liked.  That didn't turn out so well either.  There was at least a twenty minute wait, and the burritos had barely been warmed up.  They tasted alright, but give me a break!  As we ate, Cliff started griping about the dirty floor in the kitchen.  

"How long would it take somebody to get a broom and sweep that mess up?"  

All the employees there were teenagers, but they moved slower than molasses in January.  Cliff then realized our tiny table wasn't on the level and discussed that situation, as well as the fact there wasn't a clean table in the place.  As he pointed out all the problems of the establishment, his voice got louder and louder; since his hearing is almost non-existent, he doesn't realize he's talking so loud, and I put my finger up to my mouth to let him know.  At that point, somehow we got tickled at the whole situation and started laughing.  Sometimes you just have to laugh to keep from crying or killing somebody.

When we departed Hays, I found a radio station that was broadcasting the Chiefs game, so the trip home went pretty fast.  However, one station would fizzle out when we put too much distance between us and I'd have to find a closer one.  Of course, when I had to hunt another station, it was always when something exciting was happening.  The Chiefs lost, but it seems to me they were doing a good job of playing, anyhow.  After all, they were up against the best team there is, this year.

So that's the story.  Home never looked so good, my cooking never tasted so good, and Cliff is breathing.  

End of story.