~~~One of the three actual pictures I have of myself from the trip~~~Are you ready for this? It is clear, when you visit Mount Rushmore, that Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt had a thing for each other. “What?” you might say. “We had gay presidents?! That's as crazy as saying we've had a black president!” I know. I know. But it's true.
~~~We'll NEVER have a black president~~~“But how do you know, Brian?” you might ask. I'll tell you. See, the Mount Rushmore monument is set up so that you can't see it until you're almost there. You would think you could see these giant faces on a giant mountain from miles away. But that's not the case. The US was very shrewd about the placement of trees and other mountains, so that you can't see the monument until you're right up on it. And you approach the monument by circling up around a mountain toward it. And in the very first angle you see of Mount Rushmore – if you peek between the trees, when they think nobody's looking - Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln are very clearly kissing each other.
And it's not just as if their lips happen to line up if you look at them from a certain angle. There is a certain intensity in their eyes. And I'm pretty sure Lincoln's tongue is sticking out just the slightest bit. And I don't blame them. If any one of us were stuck in a confined space with the same three guys for 50 years, we'd all get a little curious. But here's the kicker: There are NO pictures on the Internet of this hidden-through-the-trees angle. A government cover up! By the same government who pushed Proposition 8 through. By the same government that... does other shady and sneaky conspiratorial things! (I'm not gonna pretend to know about what I'm talking about).
~~~The government has annihilated all pictures of the presidents actually kissing. But if you can picture seeing this from an angle slightly to the right, you can see what I'm getting at~~~Anyway. By the time you get around to the front of the monument, Ted and Abe have figured out that they have company, and are back to being stone-faced, non-kissing super-president guys (though I'm pretty sure that they're still holding hands behind the mountain).
~~~They're TOTALLY holding hands up there~~~So. We saw the mountain. And then left the mountain. And the drive to Wyoming is notable for two reasons: 1) Though we seemed to be having zero trouble with our steering at this point (stupid, good-for-nothing, lying, son-of-a-gun mechanic. Mechanics always lie...), at almost the exact same moment, both my check engine light and my anti-lock brakes light came on. This will become important during the next installment 2) It started to rain. This will become important in the next paragraph.
~~~My dashboard: Shortly after leaving Mount Rushmore~~~We stopped in Cheyenne, Wyoming. (Cheyenne is the most populous city in Wyoming. There are a tad more than 50,000 people in Cheyenne. It's a very small big city.) We stopped at a place called Sanford's Grub and Pub, where everything is comically large: the menu has a trillion choices, they serve your food on a pizza pan, the glasses are a small step from being classified as buckets, and the forks are difficult to fit in your mouth. The food was good, but as we were sitting there eating and watching The Weather Channel, we noticed that The Weather Channel was showing the remnants of a giant tornado. Which had touched down not too far from Cheyenne, Wyoming. Remember that rain from the last paragraph? Is was leftover tornado-rain. We'd almost been swept of to Oz, and hadn't even realized it.
~~~Just missed seeing this guy~~~Both of us were sad we were so close to a tornado, and didn't get to see it.
~~~Official Weather Channel Screenshot of the tornado that ripped through Wyoming~~~We headed toward Denver, CO, but got too close to ski country before we decided to turn in for the night. Once you get too close to ski country, you see, they stop offering nice, cheap, convenient campsites and, instead, offer expensive ski lodges. Chalets, if you will. We split the difference and crashed in the most expensive Super 8 I've ever been in.
~~~Super 8 Motel in Georgetown, CO~~~Next Up: Colorado (or: "Wheeeeeee!")
1 comments: