We hit the road yesterday morning, en route for Alaska. (We’re not driving to Alaska; we’re driving to Seattle and taking a cruise from there to Alaska.) We had planned to hit the road by 6am, but by the time we were fully packed and ready to go, it was 9am. Then we had breakfast. 10 minutes after we hit the road, we had a snafu involving me locking the wrong lock which would have kept our house sitter locked out and our cat unfed, so we had to head back. We really didn’t hit the road until 10am.

We drove north until everybody got hungry, and that happened to be in Newton, Kansas. Looking for something unique to eat, we ended up at Prairie Harvest Deli. It was in the old part of town and looked interesting. The deli was really a organic/whole food store, but in the corner the owner prepares different foods each day. To be honest I wasn’t really looking forward to the food, but the lady had prepared mac and cheese and I had a bowl of that with a scoop of vegetarian chili and, oh man, was it good. All of our food was good, actually. If, for whatever reason, you find yourself in Newton, Kansas, I highly recommend the deli.

And then, for 900 years, we drove across Kansas. Jesus, I hate that drive. It is literally like staring at a picture of nothing for hour after hour. That being said, the van now looks like an electronic store: there are two iPads, two DVD players, two iPods, two iPhones, and 500 movies. So once I got over the thought of anything interesting happening in Kansas, we resorted to electronic media to entertain ourselves. Somehow, we made it through.

Yesterday in western Kansas and eastern Colorado there were high wind advisories — 40 and 50 mile per hour gusts. Our van was getting blown all over the place, and my arms were sore after driving for hours. Dust was being blown everywhere and at times you couldn’t even see the sun. For a while we followed a motorcycle and that poor guy was leaning over at a 45 degree angle trying to keep it on the road. We saw an RV pulled over with people up on the roof, trying to reattach a roof air conditioner. We passed a guy in a Volkswagen dune buggy with no roof, getting sand blaster in the face. It was the closest I’ve ever been to being in a Mad Max movie.

Even though it was late, our final destination was Casa Bonia just outside of Denver. We used to have a Casa Bonia in Oklahoma City and Susan wanted to visit this one. We are really glad we did. The food was good, and inside they had everything from an arcade to a waterfall! During our dinner, a guy and a girl in safari costumes came out with a “gorilla” (another guy in a costume) on a chain. Before we knew it, the gorilla had broken the chain, stolen the girl’s wig, and pushed the girl off the ledge into the swimming pool about 12′ below. Later during dinner, a cliff diver came out and did several impressive dives off the fake cliff wall into the pool below. And, because we showed up late (around 9pm), we had one of the best seats in the house!

We made it to the hotel last night just before 11pm. The kids are already up this morning and are swimming in the pool. In about an hour we will load everything back into the van and head to our next destination, Twin Falls, Idaho.

Photos, where and when possible, will be uploaded here:

http://robohara.com/photo/index.php?album=Vacations%2FAlaska_2012