I now had six towns I had been thinking about, mulling over, and strategizing on how to get through over the next 126 miles. These six towns, Idalia, Joes, Cope, Anton, Lindon, and finally my favorite, Last Chance, were my only hope of water restoration and food through a Labor Day weekend. I wasn’t sure if any of these towns were even big enough to have anything in them, I had heard about a place to eat in a few of them from regular US-36 rovers, but not all, and each was no less then 10 miles minimum apart, and more often 20-25 miles apart. Having looked over and planned my route I realized I had to hit Idalia that day, because I’d be going through Joes and Cope on a Sunday, Anton on Labor Day, and then the very shaky Lindon and Last Chance would be my last hopes before a 35 mile stretch of nothing.
Twelve miles was my morning before I reached Idalia. To my great joy there was a lot of activity going on due to an auction that day, but mostly it guaranteed that a café was open, and it was. In it was one of the friendliest waitresses I’d come across. She sat down with me taking my order, recommended the hot beef special which I got mostly because it included not only my coffee but a chocolate covered rice crispy treat for dessert. Goodness it was good. It was there that I met Pastor Ralph.
Pastor Ralph noticed my pack and was the first to inquire about it. He sat with me for a bit as I told him my story and he reveled in all of it. An outdoorsman at heart, he told me often as we talked that this was something he’d wanted to do. As he was leaving he told me about his wife’s place they were selling that was fifteen miles down the road from there and if I thought I’d go that far I could absolutely stay there. At first I didn’t think I would, but then a bed sounded nice, indoors sounded good too, and extra miles never hurt. Well, that’s not true, especially the state my feet were in then, but despite that I still always like getting in extra miles. I’m a go getter one might say.
So off I went with a house in my eyes for the evening. I picked up a Colorado state map which was one of those really crappy free touristy maps that I mainly used to read the stories of Colorado history around the edges. After about five miles Ralph and wife found me along the road telling me they were heading up to open the house for me and asked if I needed anything like food in it. I told them I was okay and sent them off. The hour or so before they returned it began to sprinkle some.
I wasn’t terribly concerned about the rain, but it made the idea of the house glow even more in my mind. I took a rest down by the 200 marker and there, where I could see miles in each direction, dropped my drawers on the side of the road and slipped into my rain pants. Something sort of nice about being half naked on an open highway for a few seconds, sort of like when I went skinny dipping in Kentucky and Missouri unbeknownst to the passers by. Not long after my pants were up and on though, Pastor Ralph and wife returned to tell me the doors were open and they had gotten food anyway as well as some beer. We chatted on the side of the road for a spell then they headed home.
No sooner had I started up again when about a mile later was sat down again as a cop pulled me over for a good old fashioned IDing. Everything checked out, a minor issue about an unpaid parking ticket or two from my former years in Denver, but other than that I was a good citizen.
By the next four miles I’d gone 26 in all for the day and my poor, cramped, beaten, little feet, well, not little, were completely unhappy with their treatment and were talking of striking. I negotiated one more mile before a full massage, bath tub soaking, and elevated rest to get them into the house, and snuck in an extra quarter mile for the driveway. The door opened and there lay a bucket of beer and Gatorade, three Dinty Moore microwavable dinners, and four bags of microwavable popcorn. And a functioning microwave of course. Heaven was had and the feet got their well deserved treatment. I wrote some as I sat there eating, I thought there as I sat there eating, then when all was said and done I located the mattress and sweet slumber was mine.