I forgot to mention that yesterday, Ken kept calling me his “Beautiful Wilted Flower.” He insists this was a compliment. I remain unconvinced.

This morning I was finishing up packing while Ken was taking off the bike cover and getting ready to load it, when he called me outside to see something on the bike. It was the most amazing bug I’ve ever seen—it really did look like a green leaf, veins and all. Apparently green bugs don’t trigger my phobia like black bugs do, because I was just enthralled. We named him Eric (as in, “You are just too cool, Eric!” [and kudos to anyone who gets that reference]), and took tons of pictures of him. Then I finally went back inside, and Ken encouraged Eric to get off the bike so we could load it, and Eric flew into the room straight at me, and I screamed. Okay, flying bugs trump green bugs. I encouraged Eric back outside, where he crawled partway up the wall and sulked. I hope he’s still doing well. I miss the little guy.

We started listening to a book on the iPod, Cornelia Funke’s Inkheart, and that made the time go even faster. Good book so far.

We stopped in the town of Castle Dale so we could take a picture of the sign (I resisted added the missing “Y”). The bathrooms in the gas station minimart were labeled “Cowboys” and “Cowgirls,” yeehaw, welcome to the West. I bought a small notebook I could fit into my jacket pocket so I could makes notes when we stopped places, and then we headed on.

It was Utah. On a Sunday. We hadn’t really planned for that. When we decided we were well hungry for lunch, the small town we were in seemed deserted. We try to stop at local restaurants rather than chains whenever possible, but here we were defeated, and ended up at a Pizza Hut, because it was the only restaurant open. And you can do far worse than Pizza Hut, really.

Then it was off to Dinosaur National Monument! The main part of the exhibit is a wall of dinosaur fossils—excavations have been done above and around the wall, but the wall itself is inside the building and there are guides showing what dinosaur each set of bones is. The guides also show what was excavated around the wall and where those skeletons are displayed, so we could see exactly where Ken’s grandfather worked in the 1930s.

Ken called his grandmother and his dad to tell them where he was, which was sweet. We also ran into (er, not literally) four other KLTs in the parking lot, all on their way to CCR.

From there we crossed into the Colorado plains, up into the mountains, past the birches to the evergreens (inhaling the pine scent) and above even those trees, then back down into the Wyoming plains. I spotted at least a hundred deer (mule deer, I think) and some gorgeous birds of prey skulking over the fields.

Once in the small town of Saratoga, we went straight to the Wolf Hotel, a wonderful hotel built in 1893. The rooms are in their original state (our room is utterly charming) as are the dining room and saloon. Our dinner was fabulous—I had a shrimp scampi to die for, Ken had teriyaki beef kebabs, and although the salad part of the salad bar was uninspiring, the cheddar-potato soup was wonderful.

Afterwards, we curled up in the room with a Sandra movie on low on the TV, found somebody’s wireless connection, played geek for a little bit, and then fell unconscious. I could barely keep my eyes open, I was so tired….

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Now Reading: Blue Dahlia, Nora Roberts
Lately Listened To: Inkheart, Cornelia Funke
Recently Watched: lots of wildlife